Bill Freeman, our artist, has won the 'Dobell Art Prize'......the most respected art prize in the Hunter Valley.

That's not surprising, he's a great artist. What surprised me was that he won with a painting that was hanging on the walls of Campbell's Store Gallery. One would think that an artist entering a competition like the Dobell Art Prize would enter a special painting. One that he has spent extra time on. A painting that was better than any that he had ever done before.....An extra good painting.....Not so.

In fact Bill just telephoned me and said "I have been asked to enter in the Dobell competition and because I have nothing finished could I come up and take the painting that you have in the Campbell Gallery". I said, "sure". It was titled, 'Early Morning, Yaccabah'. You may have even been lucky enough to have seen this painting in the gallery.

So Bill collected his painting, and off it went to Wangi Wangi. Next thing Bill is on the phone to say he had won. What this means is that your Bill Freeman painting could just as easily been the painting that won the Dobell Art Prize. To Bill every painting he does has to be the best. Otherwise he destroys it and starts again. That's the sort of uncompromising person that he is. Bill has never been an artist to chase accolades.....but they have followed him nevertheless.

In fact it was only at the insistence of others that he entered the prestigious Dobell competition. It is the first time that he has entered any contest for many a year. He only entered this art prize because a friend was running it and had asked Bill to enter as a special favour. Works signed by William Freeman hang in private collections throughout the world. He is an artist who has consciously sought not to overprice his work. To assist Bill and you in this endeavour we work on the lowest commissions of any gallery in the Hunter Valley.

It is a reflection of the 'honest week's pay for an honest week's work'. A Bill Freeman work reflect's his love of the country.....it's Australiana at it's best. There are landscapes, seascapes and paintings of dwellings of a by-gone era.