John Borrack emerged as an artist of note in the late 1950s, at a time when Australian landscape painting was arriving at a new set of forms and modes of expression, informed by the earlier breakthroughs of William (Jock) Frater and Arnold Shore, both of whom Borrack would paint alongside. Borrack’s dynamic new approach crystalised in the early 1960s after becoming acquainted with the work of JMW Turner, and discovering the full atmospheric potential of watercolour.

As John Borrack’s style has matured over the years, his faculty with the paint medium (watercolour and oil) and his ability to express the unique, mesmeric quality of the Australian landscape has grown.

As one of the first artists to be acquired for the Gippsland collection, having caught the attention of Sale’s Mayor and later Patron of the Gallery, John Leslie OBE, Borrack holds a significant place in the story of Australian art and as one of the most accomplished artists to have worked in this region.

Presented in the artist’s 89^th year, In Praise of Landscape: the Art of John Borrack is a celebration of this gifted painter’s contribution to the Australian landscape tradition. Spanning the gamut of his breathtaking subjects, from red earth deserts and ravines to the lush textures of Gippsland, always imbued with his characteristic sense of light, the exhibition reveals the vast scope of Borrack’s vision and his reverence for an art that has held him—and his audiences — in spellbound wonder for decades.