Deutscher and Hackett

After discovering Gerringong on the New South Wales south coast while holidaying in 1939, Lloyd Rees fell in love with the area and, after many return trips, his family bought land and built two cottages, Caloola and Calympa, on the southern side of Werri Lagoon. His brother-in-law was next door, so the arrangement was perfect for family holidays. While family members occupied themselves swimming, sailing, fishing or relaxing, Rees busied himself painting en plein air throughout the long summer days. If he set up his easel facing west, he had the magnificent expanse of Saddleback Mountain rising above the foothills beyond the lagoon from north to south. Looking north, again over the lagoon, he could see the rolling pastures of Renfrew Farm, which led east to the sea before rising to form the strangely shaped Omega Headland with its rock platforms below. 

It is likely that The reef, 1957 depicts one such rock formation. These platforms, popular with local fishermen, dominate the Gerringong coast – from Kiama in the north to Boat Harbour, Walker’s Beach and Gerroa in the south. Rees painted most of this landscape during his time on the south coast, with key works from his Gerringong canon including The road to Berry, 1947 (widely acknowledged as a major influence on Brett Whiteley); Omega pastoral, 1950 (National Gallery of Victoria), The road to the mountain, 1954 (Art Gallery of Western Australia) and The coast near Kiama, 1955 (Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art). Interestingly, the work Rees considered his ‘finest Gerringong landscape’¹ was destroyed when the train carrying it caught fire en route to the Arts festival of the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956.


The reef, though modest in scale, ranks among Rees’ finest Gerringong works. It captures the mood of the sea, the brilliant light of a summer afternoon and the human scale of the figures engaging with the ocean. Rees’ finesse is particularly evident in his treatment of the two figures on the rocks. Two or three deftly placed marks of paint are all he requires to capture their form, scale, colour and mass. During the 1930s, Rees worked predominantly in fine graphite, producing drawings whose forensic detail and masterly execution remain unmatched in Australian art. The idiom ‘you need to walk before you can run’ comes to mind. The spontaneous, energetic application of paint feels effortless, but it was his years of disciplined draughtsmanship that provided the foundation this painterly freedom, enabling him to work with such economy and confidence. Looking closely at Rees’ paintings from the 1940s and 1950s, they appear spontaneous: paint is applied with wristy flourishes, colour often mixed directly on the surface as he works. Here, Rees skilfully exploits the expressive power of paint in a manner that could only have been achieved through decades of observation and practice.

1. Free, R., Lloyd Rees, Landsdowne Press, Sydney, 1972, p. 64

HENRY MULHOLLAND