Richard Clements (10 August 1951 – 4 November 1999) was an Australian painter.

Life

Clements' early childhood years were spent in Tanybryn in the

Otway Ranges The Great Otway National Park is a national park located in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia. The national park is situated approximately southwest of Melbourne, in the Otway Ranges, a low coastal mountain range. It conta ...

, near

Apollo Bay Apollo Bay is a coastal town in southwestern Victoria, Australia. It is situated on the eastern side of Cape Otway, along the edge of the Barham River and on the Great Ocean Road, in the Colac Otway Shire. The town had a population of 1,790 at ...

. The landscape of the area made a lasting impression on him which is evident in his work. The family moved to Colac, and then—by the time Clements was 12—to Melbourne. As a teenager he discovered a love for classical music, and started playing the piano. He left high school after Form 3 (Year 9), and worked at a variety of jobs including apprenticeships to a butcher and a piano tuner. In 1969, he travelled widely. He loved the landscapes and people of Afghanistan. In 1972 in

Timor Timor (, , ) is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is Indonesia–Timor-Leste border, divided between the sovereign states of Timor-Leste in the eastern part and Indonesia in the ...

he met Larissa Usenko, whom he would later marry. Returning to Melbourne in 1973 he began drawing. In his backpack at the time was a small book of prints by

Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley ( ; 21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Woodblock printing in Japan, Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. ...

which he particularly admired.

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer ( , ;; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer or Duerer, was a German painter, Old master prin ...

was also a favourite at this time, and inspired many watercolour nature studies. The landscape of southern Australia was always a source of inspiration for him. In the 1970s he spent much time over a couple of years in a small hut in Marysville, and made several trips to the rugged

Cradle Mountain Cradle Mountain is a locality and mountain in the Central Highlands region of the Australian state of Tasmania. The mountain is situated in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. At above sea level, it is the sixth-highest mount ...

region of

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

. Much later, in 1994, after separating from Larissa, he bought a small house in

Beech Forest Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted species i ...

in the Otways. He died in 1999 in Melbourne from complications related to his long term drug and alcohol abuse.

Work

Influences on his work included

Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (; 5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a German Romanticism, German Romantic Landscape painting, landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation, whose often symbolic, and anti ...

and

J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbu ...

Sources

*''Der Maler Richard Clements (1951–1999)'' by Jane Clark in ''Die Christengemeinschaft'' – Ausgabe: Juli / August 2004 *''Richard Clements: Seeing the Sublime,'' Hamilton Art Gallery, 2004.

References

1951 births 1999 deaths Artists from Victoria (state) 20th-century Australian painters 20th-century Australian male artists Australian male painters {{Australia-painter-stub