Wendy Paramor (12 December 1938 – 28 November 1975) was an Australian artist. In 2014, the Paramor Prize was created by the

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

City Council.

Early life and education

Paramor was born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Victoria, on 12 December 1938. After leaving school at the age of 15, she completed a secretarial course at her father's insistence before studying art at the

East Sydney Technical College 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 p ...

and

Julian Ashton Art School The Julian Ashton Art School was established by Julian Ashton in 1890 as the "Academy Julian", (perhaps a reference to the Académie Julian in Paris) has been an influential art school in Australia. For a long time it was known as the Sydney Art ...

Career

Between 1960 and 1963, she lived in Europe, traveling and exhibiting work in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. While in Portugal, Paramor had solo exhibitions for three months on a grant from the

Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (), commonly referred to simply as the Gulbenkian Foundation, is a Portugal, Portuguese institution dedicated to the promotion of the arts, philanthropy, science, and education. One of the List of wealthiest c ...

in Lisbon,

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), officially the City of Coimbra (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2021 census was 140,796, in an area of . The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Po ...

, and

Porto Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...

. On her return to Sydney in 1963, she lived in a modest terrace house in Waterloo and exhibited in group shows with the Contemporary Art Society of Australia (Victoria and New South Wales), and at the Dominion, Barry Stern and Blaxland galleries in Sydney. In 1965 she held critically-acclaimed solo exhibitions at

Watters Gallery Watters Gallery (1964–2018) was a private art gallery in Riley Street Sydney, Australia, run by Frank Watters (1934 – May 2020) with his business partners and friends Geoffrey and Alex Legge. It was influential and well-known, hosting exhibit ...

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

, and Bognar Gallery in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. In 1966 she moved to a property in

West Hoxton, New South Wales West Hoxton is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. West Hoxton is located 40 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Liverpool and is part of the Greater We ...

, where she built a

Philip Cox Philip Sutton Cox is an Australian architect. He is the founding partner of Cox Architecture, one of the largest architectural practices in Australia. His work has won him multiple awards, the first being in 1963, one year after graduat ...

-designed underground house. From 1966 to 1970 she exhibited with the Central Street Gallery in Sydney, which confirmed her decisive move from landscape-based work to "hard edge," geometric abstraction. During this time she successfully expanded her practice into sculpture, and two of her sculptures and a painting were included in the seminal exhibition, 'The Field', which opened the

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

's new building in 1968. After being diagnosed with a brain tumour, she returned to figurative and semi-figurative work (landscapes, portraiture), and made plans for a large-scale metal sculpture exhibition.

Recognition

In 2014, the ''Paramor prize'' was created by the

(Australia) City Council.

Personal life

In October 1967, her son Luke was born. She never married his father, Vernon Treweeke, who was also a painter. In 1973, at the age of 34, Paramor was diagnosed with a

brain tumour A brain tumor (sometimes referred to as brain cancer) occurs when a group of cells within the brain turn cancerous and grow out of control, creating a mass. There are two main types of tumors: malignant (cancerous) tumors and benign (non-cancero ...

. She died on 28 November 1975 at the Wolper Jewish Hospital in

Woollahra Woollahra ( ) is a suburb in the Eastern Suburbs (Sydney), Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Woollahra is located east of the Sydney central business district, in the Local government in Australia, local go ...

, Sydney, New South Wales.

References

External links

images of Paramor works
from the Charles Nodrum Gallery {{DEFAULTSORT:Paramor, Wendy 1938 births 1975 deaths Australian women painters Julian Ashton Art School alumni 20th-century Australian women artists 20th-century Australian artists