SwissArtGallery · Documented identity
Fred Cress was born in India in 1938 and died in 2009. He grew up in England before settling in Australia in the early 1960s. His painting moved through abstraction during the 1960s and 1970s, returning to figuration in the 1980s. Teaching at Prahran, he introduced Howard Arkley to the airbrush, which Arkley adopted as a defining tool within his own painting practice.
In 1988 Cress’s portrait of his fellow painter and friend John Beard won both the Archibald Prize and the competition’s inaugural People’s Choice award. That same year he made Breakfast long ago, a large acrylic painting on canvas held by the National Gallery of Victoria. Tables, figures, drips and brush marks bring together the narrative possibilities of painting and the material character of its surface.
This profile brings together identity references for Fred Cress and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.
Piguet
References include catalogue entries and available results; they do not all represent completed sales. Attributed works and special lots are excluded from the priced results.
Acrylic
Night hiding lovers"
acrylique
Catalogue period : 2015-10-07
Published result : 500 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 5000–8000
View the lot at the auction house ↗Acrylic
Night hiding lovers"
acrylique
Catalogue period : 2014-10-08
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
Estimate : CHF 5000–8000
View the lot at the auction house ↗Acrylic
Night hiding lovers"
acrylique
Catalogue period : 2015-06-17
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
Estimate : CHF 5000–8000
View the lot at the auction house ↗SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record.
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