Guy Warren, the oldest professional artist from Australia and past Archibald winner, passed away at 103.
Declared dead today, King Street Gallery on William, representing Warren, said he will be much missed and remembered in the art scene.
“Our thoughts are with his two children, Paul and Joanna, about which Guy said, ‘they are the best thing I ever made’,” the gallery said.
Over his 80-year career, Warren was regarded as a committed painter who guided hundreds of young aspirant artists.
“He was a wonderful, kind-hearted, incredibly intelligent, funny and thoughtful person and artist,” the gallery noted.
“The world will be the lesser for having lost this pathfinder 103-year-old painter, teacher, philosopher, holder of history and storyteller.”
1921 found Warren born in the NSW town of Goulburn.
He spent a period in the army sent to Papua New Guinea as a youngster before going back to Australia to study art.
Over his long career, Warren travelled over a spectrum of genres, including abstraction, cubism and minimalism.
Titled The Wingman, his picture of friend and fellow artist Bert Flugelman won him the Archibald Prize in 1985.
Warren subsequently received an OAM for arts services in 1999 and an AM for the same reason in 2013.
In 2007 and 2008 he obtained two honorary Doctorates in Visual Arts from the University of Wollongong and the University of Sydney.
His artwork travelled the globe to cities like London, Tokyo, Auckland, Los Angeles, Jakarta, Poland, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
April last year saw his last show at King Street Gallery on William.
