Born in Goulburn in 1921, the same year the nation’s best-known portrait prize began, he left school in 1935 at the age of 14 and got a job as an assistant proofreader on The Bulletin.
In his own centenary year, he was celebrated with a succession of events: King Street Gallery on William showed his new work; the National Art School had an overview of his drawings, Gallery Lane Cove hosted a survey show and there were others at the University of Wollongong and the Nicholas Thompson Gallery in Melbourne.
Guy Warren, The Fall of Icarus, 1994.Credit: National Art School
In 1994, Warren undertook the largest drawing ever attempted in Australia. He used a Cessna, a cloudless sky and vapour, sun and wind for his sky drawing of Icarus, a figure of Greek Mythology who was said to have escaped from Crete with wings of wax and feathers who flew so high his wings melted, over Sydney Harbour. It was repeated over Armidale and in 2005, above the ocean at Bondi.
His works have also been exhibited as finalists in the Dobell Prize, and he received the Trustees Watercolour Award at the Wynne Prize in 1980.
In 1939, he volunteered with the AIF to fight in World War II. It was during the war years that Warren discovered his artistic vocation.
“Most people in the army are bored out of their minds,” he told this masthead. “You spent your time sitting round, or doing jobs like packing up or cleaning latrines.”
Warren spent his war years filling sketchbooks with drawings, especially from his time posted in Bougainville, in Papua New Guinea.
Warren ahead of his first show at the National Art School, aged 100, in 2021. Credit: Louie Douvis
There, he drew the landscape, soldiers at work and play, Japanese prisoners of war, and the local people with their amazing headdresses and body decorations. This interest in Papua New Guinea led to his friendship with a young BBC producer, David Attenborough, who became a lifelong friend.
He married his wife Joy in 1950 and the couple moved to London to live where he worked in the post office, while doing art in his spare time. In the UK he became friends with fellow Australian artist Fred Williams.
In a 2021 profile on the occasion of his 100th birthday, Warren told Sydney Morning Herald art critic John McDonald: “I still feel like I did when I was 55 or even 35 – there’s no difference. People talk about embracing the dignity of old age. F--k the dignity of old age! I don’t want to know anything about it.
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“If anyone thinks you should go into an old people’s home while you’re capable of doing what you’ve always been doing, you should tell them to go get nicked. Retirement is an absurdity! I’ve never understood the idea. People see it as the point where they can stop working and do what they’ve always wanted to do – but then they find it’s far too late! Give me another 10 years and I might start thinking about retirement.”
Guy Warren, Coffee Line, American airforce unit, Nadzab, New Guinea 1944.Credit: National Art School
Warren lived at home in Greenwich with his son Paul and is understood to have only gone to palliative care this past week.
A host of Australian artists, including this year’s Archibald winner, Laura Jones have paid tribute to the centenarian.
Lucy Culliton, a regular Archibald, Wynne and Sulman finalist who is also represented by King Street Gallery said: “Sad to hear the machine that was Guy Warren has stopped.”
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Art Gallery of NSW’s head curator of Australian art, Wayne Tunnicliffe said he was sad to hear of Guy Warren’s death, “but what a rich and long life to celebrate”.
“While Guy’s art often included human figures, he essentially painted with great lyricism in an abstract expressionist style. Inspired by the natural world, he sought to express how humankind and nature are deeply entwined,” Tunnicliffe said.
“His legacy is eight decades of remarkable creativity shared with many, as well as his multitude of bravura art works.”
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