Original Mid Century painting, outback Australia, Richard Patterson, framed vintage art

Richard Patterson (1940–2020), Outback Landscape, 1960, original watercolour on paper, signed and dated lower right “R Patterson 1960,” with handwritten provenance to the reverse identifying the artist as Richard Patterson of Bunbury, Western Australia, presented under glass in its original-style timber frame. The work presents a stark, drought-stricken Australian landscape in glowing ochres and yellows, with bare trees, fence posts and an eroded winding formation leading the eye toward distant hills, giving the scene a distinctly mid-century illustrative character.

52cm x 44cm frame

39cm x 31cm artwork 

Artist biography: Richard Patterson was born in Nedlands, Western Australia, in 1940 and grew up in Cottesloe, where an early ability in drawing led him toward graphic art. After beginning an apprenticeship with Imperial Print, he travelled to London as a young man to pursue his interest in art and spent time travelling through Europe before returning to Western Australia in the early 1960s. Patterson subsequently worked across a remarkably broad range of creative fields, including painting, illustration, cartoons, theatrical scenery and graphic design. He also spent seven years teaching art in New Guinea and later taught art to prisoners during a long career at Bunbury Regional Prison. In Bunbury he became particularly well known for his cartoons for the South Western Times and for his contribution to the region’s artistic and theatrical community.