Lloyd Rees
Australia 1895–1988

Tree studies 1914–17

Moreton Bay Fig at Milton, figure under tree c.1912–17

Bamboos near corner of Park and River Roads; Trees in Milton c.1915–16

Garden steps with climbing plant c.1915

Tall pine and .stubby palm c.1914–17
Pencil on paper

Gift of Alan and Jan Rees through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation 2014. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program

The process of drawing allows us to pay close attention to the natural world. Lloyd Rees is known for his fluid, light-saturated paintings of the Australian landscape as well as his expert drafting skills honed over a lifetime of close observation and practice.

These Brisbane sketches, created at the beginning of Rees’s long career, include studies of trees, gardens and foliage. In Moreton Bay Fig at Milton, figure under tree c.1912–17 the twin trunks of a fig reach upwards, supporting a beautifully articulated canopy. A small figure sheltering below looks into the distance.

A vast, open space of potential is perfectly represented by the otherwise empty white of the artist’s paper. Rees observed:

From quite an early age I was overwhelmed with the fact of endlessness . . . Planetary systems can blow up, but the universe is endless, and our little life is set in the midst of this, and everything in it has a beginning and an end . . . [This] gives to life a sense of mystery that is always with me.