Bill Freeman, as he prefers to be known, 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 us was that he won with a painting that was hanging on the walls of Morpeth Gallery. If you were like me you 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 he had ever done before…an extra good painting. Not so.
Bill telephoned 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 gallery?” I said, “Sure”. It was titled, “Early Morning, Yaccabah”. So Bill collected his painting, off it went to Wangi Wangi, and 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 have been the painting that won the Dobell Art Prize. To Bill every painting he does has to be the best.
Bill has never been an artist to chase accolades, but they have followed him never the less. He is an artist who has consciously sought not to overprice his work. It is a reflection of the “honest weeks pay for an honest weeks work”. A Freeman artwork reflects his love of the country – Australia at its best. There are landscapes, seascapes and paintings of dwellings of a bygone era, nearly always with three chooks!
Bill Freeman and his family live in the shadow of Purple Hill, Minmi, a creek running by. Bill is a humble, down to earth man, born in 1929, who lives in the same area his grandfather settled in during the 1860’s, as a timber cutter. Bill has never ‘flogged’ a painting – art lovers beat a path to his door.
