The Grampians c1960

Summary

The collection holds two oils by Australian artist Leon Hanson (1918–2011): this painting and ‘Country Scene – Autumn Light, Dandenongs’. Hanson largely executed landscapes in the naturalist style of 19th-century artists, although his works were made in the following century. Both are, however, accomplished examples of timeless, unpeopled landscapes made in rural Victoria.

Hanson painted ‘View of the Grampians’ around 1960. It depicts a landscape that is both towering and open, with Gariwerd, as the Grampians are known to the traditional owners, soaring up on the left of the canvas. Looking at the composition of lofty outcrops and a broad, receding valley, it is hard to imagine the artist not being influenced in his work by Kantian philosophy of aesthetics.