Professional Artist
Dickerson is a self-taught artist who refused to go to art school. His art has been described as angular and high contrast chiaroscuro and executed in a range of materials including paint, pastels, charcoals and other graphic media.
The inspiration for his art comes from everyday life and he draws on the themes of loneliness, vulnerability and isolation. Lone characters with long noses and whimsical, often averted eyes feature heavily of his work. He says it is "the same style I've always used," and does not intend to change it.
In November 1955, art patron John Reed published an article in Ern Malley's Journal (Vol 2) which described Dickerson's work as containing "a new sense of beauty, a new truth". But his break as a professional artist came in 1954 when the National Gallery of Victoria purchased his work Man Asleep On The Steps. In 1959 he joined Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd and John Molvig, to form the Antipodeans – a group of figurative artists making a statement opposing abstractionism in their day. According to the former deputy director of the National Gallery of Victoria, Frances Lindsay, members of this group continue to be 'productive and innovative after many decades of practice.
Read more about this topic: Robert Dickerson
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