Nick Waterlow 1941–2009

Abstract

The first time Nick Waterlow encountered dynamic Australian art was at the exhibition Recent Australian Painting, held at London's Whitechapel Gallery in 1961. He was twenty years old and had just completed a course on French history and visual art at the University of Grenoble. Having read Patrick White, his appetite had been whetted for Australian artists' images of place. At this exhibition curated by the Whitechapel director, Bryan Robertson Nick saw the 'Antipodeans' hung alongside Ralph Balson, Lawrence Daws, Fred Williams, and Brett Whiteley. 'The work[s], particularly those of Nolan and Boyd, as well as the younger Whiteley', he recalled, 'left an indelible impression on those of us fortunate to see the exhibition.'1 While working at the Alfred Brod Gallery, Nick met these artists in 'Swinging London', as well as Colin and Kay Lanceley, Robert Hughes, and Germaine Greer. He also became a devotee of the Barry McKenzie strip cartoon in Private Eye. For Arts Review, he wrote about Jasper Johns, Edward Keinholz, Julio Ramis, Bruce Lacey's Charing Cross basement of Better Books, and Hermann Nitsch's performance in which live fowls were beheaded and a piano thrown out of a window.