NEW DISPLAY: Cairns-based artist Ray Crooke, at 90, is one of Australia's most venerated artists. His colourful works have been likened to that of French artist Gauguin. Picture: Darren England Source: The Courier-Mail
HE'S been dubbed Australia's Gauguin, but Queensland artist Ray Crooke has lasted a lot longer than the famous Frenchman he's so often compared to.
The syphilitic Gauguin died in 1903 at the age of 54. Cairns-based Crooke is 90 and still producing his colourful canvases.
Some thought his 2005 Brisbane exhibition might have been his last, but he's back with Ray Crooke Paintings: 1958 to 2009, showing until April 13 at the Philip Bacon Galleries in Fortitude Valley.
Bacon describes the artist, famous for his scenes of daily life in the islands of the Torres Strait and Fiji, as "the last of his breed".
Crooke's works have sold for as much as $135,000, although critics now predict they could sell for more than a quarter of a million dollars.
The artist has outlasted friends and contemporaries including William Dobell, Russell Drysdale, Donald Friend and Margaret Olley. He puts his longevity down to relatively clean living.
"My lifestyle has certainly been different to Gauguin's," he says. "I've had a more temperate life."
Crooke and his wife June, who died recently, moved to Cairns in the lean years after World War II, and raised three children there.
Born in Melbourne, he fell in love with far north Queensland while serving in the army, including a stint on Thursday Island as an intelligence operative.
Head of Australian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Julie Ewington, describes the nonagenarian artist as "one of our most important painters".
"He established a vision of life in Queensland and the South Seas and while people latch onto the bright colours, there's more to him than that," Ewington says.
Crooke, who won the Archibald Prize in 1959, is represented at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and in many other major collections here and overseas including the Vatican Collection in Rome.
He is best known, however, for those colourful paintings of islanders. After early years on Thursday Island, he began visiting Fiji and painting the people there in colourful garb, going about their daily work.
"Their lifestyle is so different to ours," Crooke says. "They make their own houses, grow their own food and spend days just sitting and weaving. 'They are perfect subjects for a painter."
The venerable artist was in Brisbane for the exhibition opening last night with his signature walking stick and a cardigan to ward off the relative cool of Brisbane.
He says he will continue to work but admits he is slowing down and can no longer stand for long hours painting.
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