Fred Cress, in the early 1990s, purchased a farmhouse in the south of France. The rural landscape, with its sweeping views and pastoral tranquility, would later become a defining influence in his works, punctuating into the ironic and humorous narrative of his figurative works.
Intimacy (1998) is a fascinating work that interrogates the complexities of human connection, and the Artist/Muse relationship, heightened in the context of a private, almost secluded space. The scene, most likely set in an outbuilding on Cress’s French property, sees the artist caught in a moment of deep, almost obsessive interaction with the subject of the painting.
Fred (Frederick Harold) Cress AM (born in Poona, India, 1938; lived and worked in London, 1948-1961; arrived in Australia, 1962; died Sydney, 2009), painter, sculptor, and printmaker, had exhibited regularly between 1965 and 2009 in Sydney (notably with Gallery A, Macquarie Galleries, and Australian Galleries), Melbourne (notably with Powell Street Gallery, Christine Abrahams Gallery, and Australian Galleries) and Adelaide (notably with BMG Art), and also held solo exhibitions in New York (with Robert Steele Galleries) and London (with East West Galleries).
He was a subject of important survey exhibitions at the Orange Regional Gallery (NSW) in 1987 and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1995. He was a finalist in numerous art prizes and awards, and, most notably, had won the Archibald Prize in 1988 for the portrait of fellow artist, John Beard.
Fred Cress was a subject of important published monographs by Alan Krell (1989), Anthony Bond (1995), Gavin Fry (2000), and Ken McGregor (2007).
His work is held in the collections of all national and state galleries, the majority of regional and tertiary collections, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, as well as notable corporate and private collections in Australia, Belgium, England, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the USA.