Sydney Ball

Sydney Ball (29 October 1933 – 5 March 2017) was an Australian abstract painter. He has been called ‘one of Australia’s leading colour abstract painters. He has also been credited with bringing large scale abstract expressionist paintings, or Color Field paintings, to Australia.

Biography

Sydney Ball was born in 1933 in Adelaide, South Australia. In 1962, Ball moved to New York and enrolled at the Art Students League of New York, where he studied under Theodoros Stamos.

Ball returned to Australia in 1965 helping to bring abstract techniques to the attention of Australian artists. Abstract expressionism was taken up enthusiastically by many Sydney painters in the 1960s. His contemporaries such as John Olsen, Erica McGilghrist and Leonard Hessing and the older Sam Atyeo were equally abstract but influenced by Dutch post-war avant garde and earlier Russian abstract painting, whereas Ball, similar to Yvonne Audette and John Vickery, was one of the first Australian artists of his generation to take an interest in American art over European art.

In his later years, Ball was well regarded in Australian art circles and one of his large scale works was a major acquisition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Painting series and exhibitions Band series The Band series were Ball's first abstract paintings. The works are plywood constructions with high gloss enamel finishes. 1972 in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, emphasized motion in the application of the paint.

Exhibitions Ball's work has been the subject of over 50 solo exhibitions and over 50 group exhibitions in Australia and the United States of America. In 1968 Ball's work was included in the influential exhibition The Field at the National Gallery of Victoria, demonstrating the arrival of hard edged abstraction in Australian art. His work has also been featured in the many exhibitions that have revisited the impacts of that exhibition on Australian art, such as Birth of the cool at the Samstag Museum, Adelaide.

Collections Ball's work is in the collections of most major public galleries in Australia, including ten works in the National Gallery of Australia. Internationally, Ball has work in the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, South Korea.