David Rankin

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David Rankin (born 1946 in Plymouth, England) is a New York-based Australian artist.

1 Life
2 Work
3 Links

[edit] Life

"David Rankin was born in Britain in 1946 and migrated to Australia as a child in 1949. In 1989 he moved to New York where he now lives with his wife the poet and novelist, Lily Brett and their three children. He is a self taught artist and trained as a teacher. He moved to Sydney from the bush in 1967 where he began painting and secured his first exhibition through Watters gallery at age 22. In 1983 he won the Wynne Prize for landscape at the Art Gallery of NSW and he is now represented in many public and private collections.

In 1979 his first wife died leaving him with a young child. In the same year he subsequently met his second and current wife Lily Brett, whose own life was etched by tragedy with her parent survivors of the Holocaust. She too migrated to Australia as a child after the Second World War in 1948. The artist recounts that his empathy for Lily and the pity for his first wife’s death fused into what he calls “the dark blessing of my life.”1 The darkness was transformed into images. The author Dore Ashton writes that the events of 1979 and the fire which ravished his studio in 1997 and burnt his art works and many personal possessions, had a profound impact on his work. From 1997 he became more interested in mortality and the works after the fire were called ‘existentialist.’

His life experiences have been transformed into images in various ways across his body of works from 1967 to 2004. His paintings are like contemplations of things seen and experienced. Just some examples of this are his Jerusalem series which followed a trip to Jerusalem in 1988, which then led to his Golgotha works. His travels to the Australian, American and Mexican deserts became the subject matter for many of his canvases, such as Ridge – Mungo, Golden Prophecy – San Antonio, Grey Sonora Landscape and then led to his Witness Series. From the fire in his studio he then painted Buddha and Flames. He illustrated a book by Lily Brett on the holocaust and explored the theme further in his huge work The Drowned and The Saved from a book by Primo Levi of the same name. Through Brett he encountered Jewish mythology and painted Black Menorah and Black Tfiln and like a testament to his love for her created his Husband and Wife Series including Husband and Wife Triptych III, and Husband and Wife – Ying and Yang"

From introduction to essay accompanying show "David Rankin Work 1967-2004" by Madeleine Kelman Snow

[edit] Work

[edit] Selected Solo Exhibitions

1968 Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia.

1969 Gallery One-Eleven, Brisbane, Australia. Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia.

1970 Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia.

1971 Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia. Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Macquarie Galleries, Canberra, Australia.

1972 Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia. Gallery One-Eleven, Brisbane, Australia.

1973 Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Llewellyn Gallery, Adelaide, Australia

1974 Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Macquarie Galleries, Canberra, Australia. Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney, Australia.

1975 Realities Gallery, Melbourne, Australia. Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Abraxas Gallery, Canberra, Australia. Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia.

1976 Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Abraxas Gallery, Canberra, Australia.

1977 Realities Gallery, Melbourne, Australia. Abraxas Gallery, Canberra, Australia.

1978 Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Macquarie Galleries, Canberra, Australia. Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Realities Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.

1979 Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Macquarie Galleries, Canberra, Australia.

1980 Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Australia.

1981 Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia.

1982 Miller Gallery, Perth Australia. Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Australia.

1983 Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Australia.

1984 Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Australia.

1985 Michael Milburn Galleries, Brisbane, Australia.

1986 Chapman Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Watters Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Jewish Museum, Melbourne, Australia. Michael Milburn Galleries, Brisbane, Australia.

1987 Realities Gallery, Melbourne, Australia. Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne, Australia. Milburn Arte, Sydney, Australia. David Ellis Fine Art, Melbourne, Australia. Galerie Charles Chaneau, Paris, France.

1988 Realities Gallery, Melbourne, Australia. Milburn Arte, Sydney, Australia.

1989 Caufield Centre, Melbourne, Australia. Ruggiero Gallery, New York City, U.S.A.

1990 Realities Gallery, Melbourne, Australia. Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, Australia. Chapman Gallery, Canberra, Australia. Adrian Slinger Gallery, Brisbane, Australia. Ruggiero Gallery & Michael Walls Gallery, New York City, U.S.A.

- - More to come***

[edit] Selected Group Exhibitions

1980 The Philip Morris Arts Grant, Canberra "Australian Art of the Last Ten Years".

1981 "Survey of the Seventies" Bendigo Art Galleries. "Directions of Post 1950s Paintings" Burnie At Gallery.

1982 The Seventies: Australian Paintings and Tapestries" The National Bank Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

1983 Romanticism and Classicism in Contemporary Australian Painting", Geelong Art Gallery.

"Acquisitions 1973 - 1983" University Art Museum, Queensland University.

1985 "Modern Australian Paintings" Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne. "Contemporary Approaches to Drawing" Naracoorte Art Gallery. "Spring Exhibition", Gallerie Francoise Palleul, Paris. "Victoria: Views by Contemporary Artists" Regional Galleries, Victoria.

1986 "Painters, Prints - The Michelton Print Exhibition" Unesco's 40th Anniversary Exhibition, Paris. "The Challenge of the Landscape" New England Region Art Gallery, Armidale. "Surface for Reflection", Art Gallery of New South Wales.

1987 Salon De Mai, Paris. Chicago Art Fair, Gillian Jason Gallery. Nice Art Fair, Arte Production, Paris. Dealer's Choice Noosa Gallery, Queensland. Arte Production, Charles Chaneau Gallery Paris. "Australia on Paper", touring Regional Galleries in association with Michael Milburn Gallery.

1988 Salon de Mai, Paris. Bradford, Bicentennial Print Exhibition, UK. First Australian Contemporary Art Fair Exhibition, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne. "Beyond the Mundane", Beijing, China. Los Angeles Art Fair, Realities Gallery.

1989 Salon de Mai, Paris. Chicago Art Fair, Macquarie Galleries.