William Robinson: Lessons in Looking, guest-curated by Robinson’s former art student Anne Wallace, will open on September 15 at the William Robinson Gallery at QUT in Brisbane, as the first exhibition curated after the artist's passing in August 2025.
An acclaimed artist herself, Wallace said that for many of his students William Robinson’s passing was “like the loss of a lodestar’’.
“Curating this exhibition has felt like an important act, with the weight of an extra responsibility to get it right, to honour the legacy of this most gifted of painters,” she said.
“I’ve chosen work from each decade of his long career, and, in the process, have admired how he transformed his work to respond to the changing circumstances of his life, while he remained faithful to his central aim of representing the observed world.
“There is much to see in these paintings as they take us out of the city and into the places he knew well: from the vertiginous landscape of Beechmont and Springbrook to the riotous farmyards of his country life and later to the bayside suburbs with municipal parks full of human incident.”
Robinson’s art practice was inseparable from his teaching, both ideologically and practically, as teaching commitments and the demands of daily life shaped the rhythms of his artmaking.
Lessons in Looking brings together more than 60 pieces created between 1966 and 2025 to trace Robinson’s artistic evolution from his early years as a young lecturer and painter to the final months of his life.
The exhibition features works in oil, pastel, watercolour, pencil and gouache with some of Robinson sketchbooks, his palette and, for the first time, his easel.
Among the highlights is a significant early painting that was the first Robinson work QUT acquired back in 1967 which has never been exhibited at the William Robinson Gallery.
At the other end of the timeline is the final drawing by Robinson before his death that offers a poignant closing chapter to one of Australian art’s most important careers.
Together, works in this exhibition provide a rich portrait of William Robinson’s life by exploring his intertwined roles as artist, educator and mentor that informed his distinctive way of seeing that has left a lasting mark on Australian art.
William Robinson: Lessons in Looking runs from 15 September 2026 to 29 August 2027 at the William Robinson Gallery, Old Government House, next to the Botanic Gardens, at QUT's Gardens Point campus, 2 George Street, Brisbane CBD.
Main image at top: William ROBINSON Corner café 2020, oil on linen, 20 x 30 cm, Private collection, Brisbane. Photo: Carl Warner.
Media contact: media@qut.edu.au
About Anne Wallace, guest curator
Born in Brisbane in 1970, Anne Wallace completed a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts), at QUT in 1990. Between 1994 and 1996, she earned a Master of Arts (Distinction) at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, while on an Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship.
Wallace’s paintings depict scenes that feel faintly familiar, evoking a sense of nostalgia and longing. Drawing on influences from literature, music and film, her practice explores the interplay between memory and fiction.
Her work was the subject of a major 2019 survey exhibition,Strange Ways, curated by Vanessa Van Ooyen at QUT Art Museum. She is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, QAGOMA, QUT, Museum of Brisbane, and others. She currently lives and works in Melbourne.
