James Gleeson

Gleeson studied at East Sydney Technical College before travelling extensively in Europe, where his encounter with the great Surrealist painters confirmed and deepened a direction he had already begun to pursue at home. His mature paintings are vast, turbulent compositions in which organic and geological forms collide and dissolve — seascapes of the unconscious, landscapes of dream and myth rendered with a technical mastery that makes the impossible feel utterly convincing. He was also a distinguished art critic and the biographer of William Dobell, bringing the same precision and passion to words that he brought to paint.

His collaboration with Fred Genis at the Kenthurst studio produced The Judgement of Paris — a portfolio of six lithographs completed in 1981, together with a single standalone work, The Sibgle. The classical subject — the mythological beauty contest that sparked the Trojan War — was entirely suited to Gleeson’s sensibility, allowing him to inhabit the territory where antiquity, dream, and the erotic imagination meet. The suite represents some of the finest printmaking of his career, the lithographic medium carrying the full weight of his visionary imagery with remarkable fidelity.

James Gleeson died in Sydney in 2008. His work is held in every major Australian public collection.