Paul Partos (1943-2002) came to Australia with his family in 1949, spending six months in a Perth orphanage before being reunited with his parents for their move to Melbourne. From 1959 to 1962, Partos studied at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Following his critically acclaimed, sell-out first solo exhibition in 1965 at Gallery A in Melbourne and Sydney (curated by James Mollison) and his inclusion in The Field in 1968, Partos became interested in conceptual art, producing, after two years in New York, a body of austere, sparsely painted works that were exhibited at Pinocotheca between 1974 and 1980. In 1987, he left his 14-year teaching position at the Victorian College of the Arts to paint full-time, exhibiting with Sherman Galleries in Sydney and Christine Abrahams Gallery in Melbourne from 1992. His work is held in the National Gallery of Australia, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, major state and regional collections and in several important corporate collections. His Estate includes an archive of written and visual documentation useful to researchers, curators and students interested in Australian art from the late 1960s until 2002.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
© Estate of Robert Rooney
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