KEVIN CONNOR

Unseen Small Works

18 June - 18 July

 Kevin Connor was an observer, sitting in a corner of a café or on a park bench in the inner city sketching and drawing for hours..

 His subjects were ordinary people going about their day.  Smokers in Bill and Toni’s or a Bird Catcher in the park.

 Without question Connor was a great artist, modest but confident of his own ability.  He knew his standing in the art world.  Respected and loved by fellow practitioners and collected by museums, institutions and those with an eye.

 This show “Unseen Small Works” is a “dazzle of gems”.  It proves that size is often overrated.  These works live up to anything Kevin Connor painted.

 I got to know Kevin relatively late in his career when Steven Harvey said go see his new “enormous head paintings”.  I was flabbergasted, and those works are now iconic in Australian art history.

 Connor gave a lot to his profession and has earnt his place in its history.  He is dearly missed but his memory lasts forever in his work.

~James Erskine