MELBOURNE.- Albert Tucker and Fred Williams: The Springbrook Landscapes offers a rare opportunity to view the response of two highly acclaimed Australian painters to a particular region of Australia—the Springbrook rainforest in the Gold Coast hinterland.

In 1968 Albert and Barbara Tucker acquired a tract of virgin rainforest at Springbrook in the Gold Coast hinterland, to protect the land from imminent subdivision. They invited friend and celebrated landscape painter Fred Williams and his family to join them there for a holiday in 1971, during which time the two artists created a number of outdoor studies recording the distinctive features of the pristine environment. These works mark a period of exploration and change in both of the artists' practices, giving rise to new insights and fresh perspectives on the Australian landscape.

The examples featured in this exhibition are drawn from various collections including the Heide Collection, the Gold Coast City Gallery Collection, the artists’ estates and private collections in Melbourne and Brisbane. A selection of archival material is also being displayed, featuring photographs and film footage created by Albert Tucker of the rainforest environment.

This exhibition is part of the ongoing series of exhibitions based on The Albert and Barbara Tucker Gift to Heide.

Formalised in 2005, the Albert and Barbra Tucker Gift to Heide comprises over 200 works as well as photographs and historical documents and artefacts. Aspects of this gift are presented in the purpose-built Albert and Barbara Tucker Gallery, located in Heide III, in a series of changing exhibitions that explore themes and periods of Tucker’s oeuvre alternate with projects that examine his work within an historical, theoretical or contemporary context.