Galahs against an Australian blue sky.

Stock ID 43890 Galahs against an Australian blue sky. Peter Trusler.
Galahs against an Australian blue sky.
Galahs against an Australian blue sky.
Galahs against an Australian blue sky.

watercolour on paper, framed 47 by 54 cm, signed lower left.

ORIGINAL WATERCOLOUR BY PETER TRUSLER from Kloot and McCulloch, Birds of Australian Gardens, Rigby 1980.

Peter Trusler (born 1954) completed a science degree in 1974 at Monash University, majoring in zoology, and has worked as a freelance artist since graduating. He was the art director for Simpson and Day 'Field Guide to the Birds of Australia', one of Australia's most successful field guides with over 500,000 copies sold. He has designed stamps for Australia Post, is arguably the finest paleontological reconstruction artist of all time, and recently completed a paleontological PhD at Monash University.

The paintings for 'Birds of Australian Gardens' were completed in 1978-1979. In his artist notes (page 11) he says "where possible I prefer to work from life. A number of the paintings are portraits of individual birds and all of the backgrounds and plants have been painted from actual specimens... The paintings for the plates were executed with transparent watercolour and gouache. While they were executed in a period of just over two years, the information needed has involved many more years of observation and study".

Birds of Australian Gardens, with an excellent text by well known Bird Observer Club stalwarts Tess Kloot and Ellen McCulloch, was first published in large quarto form by Rigby in 1980. The foreword to the book was written by Graham Pizzey who was a great admirer of Peter Trusler's work. "The starkly realistic style he has elected to use for the illustrations in this book is a new departure for him. To me it is astonishing for its clarity and accuracy".

PROVENANCE: The entire collection was purchased by the National Australia Bank in 1980 and dispersed in 2022. "After seeing the first group of fine paintings which illustrate this book, the Bank approached Peter Trusler with a proposal so that the eighty original paintings could be kept together in one collection " (Publisher's note from the collector's issue).

GALAH Cacatua rosiecapilla (pages 48-49). "A pair of Galahs-their pink and grey plumage strongly lit by the late afternoon sun"

Price: $5,000.00 AU

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Stock ID: 43890

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