Alan Sumner
Lysterfield landscape
Alan Sumner, who was to become Director of the National Gallery
School in 1953, started out as a stained glass assistant to the
early modernist painter William Frater. The first artist to
introduce screen printing techniques to Australia, Summer was also
a painter. In the late 1940's the area around Upwey and Ferntree
Gully, including Lysterfield became one of his favoured weekend
painting spots. Like much of his work including his stained glass
work, this thinly populated landscape has a strong sense of rhythm
and design.
Awarded the Crouch prize in 1948, Lysterfield Landscape
was described by the judge, Mr Victor Greenhalgh as "exemplifying
the science of picture making…built on sound observation of nature
and giving the beholder a greater appreciation of the fundamentals
of nature". Here Sumner has captured the light falling across the
landscape at a particular moment in time.