Geoffrey de Groen (born December 1938) is an Australian artist known for his abstract works in oil and acrylics. De Groen's paintings are included in the collections of the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in t ...

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited ar ...

, Art Gallery of New South Wales and the

Queensland Art Gallery The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. It complements the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) building, situated only away. The Queensland Art Galler ...

Family life and education

Geoffrey de Groen was born in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, his father's Dutch antecedents having emigrated to Australia in 1858. He grew up in Sydney and studied at the Julian Ashton Art School and the North Sydney Technical College, completing his studies at the East Sydney Technical College (now the

National Art School The National Art School (NAS) is a tertiary level art school, located in , an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The school is an independent accredited higher education provider offering specialised study in studio arts ...

) in 1965, under the mentorship of painter and critic Wallace Thornton. In the mid-sixties Geoffrey de Groen married playwright Alma de Groen. They divorced in 1976, and have a daughter, film scholar Nadine de Groen.

Professional career

At the behest of British architect

John Pawson John Ward Pawson , (born 1949, Halifax, England) is a British architect whose work is known for its minimalist aesthetic. Architectural Registration Board (ARB) of UK asked Dezeen magazine not to refer him as architect although this was criti ...

, in the late 1960s de Groen left Australia to travel abroad, teaching and exhibiting in England, France, and Canada from 1968 until 1973. On his return to Australia, de Groen's work became widely exhibited. During this period he also lectured in fine art and wrote on art for publications such as the

Canberra Times ''The Canberra Times'' is a daily newspaper in Canberra, Australia, which is published by Australian Community Media. It was founded in 1926, and has changed ownership and format several times. History ''The Canberra Times'' was launched in ...

and Art International. A series of recorded interviews which de Groen did with 26 prominent Australian artists is held in the oral history collection of The

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

in Canberra. These interviews were the basis of de Groen's 1975 book ''Conversations with Australian Artists'', published by Quartet Books. De Groen is also the author of ''Some other dream: the artist, the artwork, & the expatriate'', published by Hale and Iremonger. In 1985 Geoffrey de Groen left the National Art School/East Sydney Technical College, where he had been teaching, to paint full-time.

The Taralga period

In 1992 de Groen moved to the New South Wales regional town of

Taralga Taralga is the traditional land of the Gundungurra people. Today it is a small village in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia, in Upper Lachlan Shire. It is located at the intersection of the Goulburn-Oberon Road and the La ...

, where he established a large gallery and working space in refurbished outbuildings near his home. De Groen's 1999 exhibition at the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery featured works from his time in Taralga. In 2000 de Groen was the recipient of the Hesketh and New England Regional Art Museum Overseas Fellowship award. From 2002 to 2007 de Groen was represented by the Boutwell Draper Gallery in Sydney. In 2003, the New England Regional Art Museum curated an exhibition of de Groen's paintings held in their permanent collection. In 2009 the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery featured an exhibition of a decade of works by de Groen, entitled "Made in Taralga". De Groen continues to live and paint in Taralga. In July 2011, the Australian National University Drill Hall Gallery hosted a survey exhibition of Geoffrey de Groen's work, "Images from the Cage of Time: The Paintings & Drawings of Geoffrey de Groen", curated by Wally Caruana. De Groen's work has featured in more than seventy solo exhibitions including "Inside Out: Recent Paintings of Geoffrey de Groen" at Nancy Sever Gallery in Canberra in 2015.

References

External links

Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee details Geoffrey de Groen's artistic process in

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatewat ...

April/May 2009 Highlife Mag interview with Geoffrey de Groen at his Taralga studio.

The Australian 05-04-08: De Groen in article about best living Australian artists.

De Groen's "Visual Feast" exhibition featured in HabitusLiving

Geoffrey de Groen's Website {{DEFAULTSORT:De Groen, Geoffrey 1938 births Abstract artists Abstract expressionist artists Australian art critics Australian painters Australian people of Dutch descent Living people People from Brisbane National Art School alumni Julian Ashton Art School alumni