LANGKER, Sir ERIK (1898-1982)

“Coastline” (c.1950)
oil on canvas board
30 x 40cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Sydney
 
Sir Erik Langker was an influential member of the Sydney art establishment during the middle decades of the twentieth century. As well as being a leading arts administrator he was also a distinguished landscape and still-life painter. He studied with Julian Ashton and subsequently with A. Dattilo Rubbo at the Royal Art Society School. He also studied with J.S. Watkins, James R. Jackson and Will Ashton. His work was primarily in landscape painting with popular subjects including coastal scenes, cloud studies, and formally arranged flower portraits. He especially enjoyed painting at Narrabeen Lakes with his contemporary Sydney Long. He exhibited regularly with the Royal Art Society , and numerous of his works appear in the Art Gallery of NSW collection. A trustee of the AGNSW, Langker was made an Ordinary Member of the British Empire (OBE), and in 1968 he was awarded a knighthood (Kt) for services to the arts.