$12,000.00
Mustering in the High Country Original Oil on Board 61cm x 51cm
Morning arrives quietly in the Snowy Mountains, not with a sound but with a breath. Mist lifts from the gullies and drifts upward through the towering eucalypts, thinning as it meets the first slanting light of day. The bush seems to wake all at once—softened, hushed, reverent—its colours muted by haze and promise. From the shadowed edge of the forest a rider emerges, horse stepping sure-footed through the tawny grass. Ahead, a small mob of cattle moves steadily, their backs catching the light as it breaks through the canopy above. Sunbeams stream between the pale trunks, fragmenting into ribbons of gold that settle briefly on hide, bark and leaf before dissolving again into mist. It is a moment that exists only for minutes, perhaps seconds, and then is gone. Kevin Best captures that fleeting miracle—the instant when light becomes the true subject. In Mustering in the High Country, light does not merely illuminate the scene; it defines it. Warm tones glow in the foreground where grass and earth hold the sun, while cooler blues and silvers recede into the distance, carrying the eye deep into the forest. The balance is delicate, assured, and deeply observed. The bush was Kevin’s sanctuary. He loved its honesty, its challenge, and its capacity for quiet drama. Here, the drama is subtle: the calm of a still morning, the soft backlighting that turns ordinary trees into towering sentinels, the gentle contrast between shadow and glow. Nothing is forced. Everything feels exactly as it should be, as if the land itself has arranged the composition.
The mist rising from the thick bush filters the sun, diffusing it into a dreamy veil that wraps the entire scene. It invites the viewer to step inside—to feel the cool air on the skin, to smell damp earth and eucalyptus oil, to hear only the low movement of cattle and the faint creak of saddle leather. This is not spectacle; it is intimacy with the land. Light, many say, was Kevin Best’s signature. In this painting, it is also his conversation with the great Australian tradition he so admired—Heysen’s slanting light on gum trees, Gruner’s clarity, the Heidelberg School’s reverence for place. Kevin accepted that challenge with delight, grappling not just with light on trees, but light across the whole landscape. Most importantly, he painted what he saw and felt on that day. His knowledge of the rugged Australian bush is evident in every detail, but it is his love for it that lingers longest. Mustering in the High Country is more than a depiction of rural life; it is a tribute to a moment of peace, to the quiet poetry of morning, and to an artist who understood that light, once seen truly, is never forgotten.
Kevin said one of the best parts of being a landscape artist was the challenge of light. In fact, Sir Hans Heysen said, “The greatest challenge is that of light slanting across the gum tree.” Kevin goes on…Not only light across gum trees; I grapple with light across the whole landscape! Kevin was born in January 1932 at Hamilton, NSW, a suburb of Newcastle, died in 2012.
Original painting by Kevin Best.
In stock
