WERNER, RICHARD (1932 -)

"Brick Jungle" (c.1950
gouache on card
37 x 27.5cm
signed lower left
*private collection, Sydney
 
Werner is a forgotten, award-winning Czech-born Australian Modernist & Commercial Illustrator. He began his career at the age of 14 with one of the world’s progressive art schools in Bratislava, Central Europe. He immigrated to Brisbane in 1949, graduating from the Brisbane Technological College in visual arts. He won the Royal Queensland Art Society’s Art Scholarship and was a founding member of the Contemporary Art Society of Queensland. He was also President of the Younger Artists' group, and Vice-president of the Commercial Artists' Association of Queensland. He was a prominent member of the Jewish community in Brisbane. He has been a successful art director, has painted for trendy coffee houses-and restaurants and designed sets and costumes for plays. He also worked in commercial art and graphic design. He is represented in collections throughout Australia and abroad, with several works in the permanent collection of the Queensland Art Gallery.