Sunset Glow – Murrurundi – SOLD!

Sunset Glow – Murrurundi 30cm x 40cm Original Oil on Canvas Board by John Bradley SOLD!

Murrurundi is a small rural service centre located by the Pages River at the foot of the Liverpool Ranges. Murrurundi and its rural heritage have been well preserved with the main street, Mayne Street, being declared an urban conservation area and a large number of local buildings being placed on the National Trust register. It is a place of hidden delights with the side streets housing many interesting buildings and the hinterland being the home of both the Timor Caves and the remarkable Wallabadah Rock, the largest monolith in Australia after Uluru and Mount Augustus.

It is believed that the town’s name comes from a Wanaruah place name ‘Murrumdoorandi’ which probably referred to five unusual rock formations near Temple Court (four now remain) and may mean ‘five fingers’ or ‘meeting place at the five fingers’. Local bushrangers included the Jewboy Gang who murdered John Graham at Scone in 1840 and stopped at Murrurundi tp exchange their horses. Local police magistrate Edward Denny Day and his party caught up with the gang, captured them after a shoot-out and they were subsequently hanged in 1841.
Except for shale mining in the early 20th century there has been an absence of heavy industry in the locality and consequently change has been gradual. The first European in the vicinity was surveyor Henry Dangar who passed through the area to the west in 1824 while scouting for new grazing lands. When his party was attacked by the Wanaruah’s Geaweagal clan he retreated but settlers still moved into the upper Hunter Valley. William Nowland, a farmer from Singleton (then known as Patrick’s Plains), followed in Dangar’s footsteps, crossing the Range and establishing a station on Warrah Creek in the Liverpool Plains. He searched for three months before he found the gap just north of present-day Murrurundi in 1827. Others soon followed his dray track which formed part of the Great North Road, built by 3000 convicts between 1826 and 1834.
Born in Sydney in 1945, John has been interested in drawing and painting for as long as he can remember. He is emerging as Australia’s most desirable artist. With a background of Electronics Marketing and Advertising Management, it was quite a radical step to take up a career in art at 36 years of age. In 1981, John left corporate life, to take over a small art school in Sydney’s Western suburbs. It grew rapidly with nearly 300 students. In 1993 John stopped teaching to paint full time.

Working in oils, John’s techniques range from traditional realist work through to impressionistic works, with broad brush strokes and palette knife techniques. John is largely self-taught and has not been influenced by any past Australian Painter. John’s real love is the Australian landscape and he travels extensively in search of new material. Some of his favourite themes include steam locomotives, aircraft, sailing ships, old historic buildings, lighthouses and street scenes, all reminders of times when the pace of life was a little slower.