Hal Missingham

As a painter Missingham worked primarily in watercolour and drawing, with a particular feeling for the Australian bush — its light, its particular quality of silence, and the way the landscape holds and deflects the human gaze. His work is unpretentious and observant, rooted in direct experience of the land rather than in art world fashion.

His collaboration with Fred Genis produced Bush Images — a portfolio of sixteen lithographs celebrating the Australian bush with the same direct, affectionate observation that characterised all his finest work. Produced at the Kenthurst studio in 1984, the suite reflects a deep familiarity with the bush landscape and a printmaker’s sensitivity to tone and texture. It is the work of an artist who had spent a lifetime looking at the Australian landscape and knew exactly what he wanted to say about it.

Hal Missingham died in Sydney in 1994. His work is held in the Art Gallery of New South Wales and major Australian public collections.