Born in India in 1938, Fred Cress returned to England with his parents when he was 10 years old. After schooling, he studied at the Birmingham School of Art and later migrated to Australia in 1962. He started his career painting figuratively, but became well known for his abstract work in the late 60s and 70s. He returned to figurative painting in the late 80s after he won the Art Gallery of New South Wales Archibald Prize. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2003 for services to visual arts. In 1990 he purchased a stone farmhouse in France and for the next 20 years lived beteen France and Australia. He exhibited widely after his arrival in Australia.
Fred Cress is one of the most prolific of the artists listed in our database, with the number of works offered for sale by auction since 1975 of 469, of which 314 (67%) were sold. The highest price recorded for the artist is $144,000 for True Believers 1994 sold by Deutscher~Menzies in June 2009. This year 6 works have been offered for sale. Works by Fred Cress are held by the Art Gallery of NSW, National Gallery of Australia and a further ten major public national galleries (see list below).
Fred Cress is listed in the following standard biographical references:
Could the second and subsequent works by this artist sold after June 9, 2010 for over $1,000 be liable for the Artists' Resale Royalty? More info…
Yes, eligible, subject to the artist satisfying the residency test. The artist is alive or has been deceased for less than 70 years. Contact the Copyright Agency for information on the residency test.
The Australian Art Sales Digest is a database of over 610,000 works by more than 12,000 artists who are listed as having either lived or worked in Australia or New Zealand, and an additional 36,000 foreign and other artists, offered for sale by auction in Australia and New Zealand from the early 1970s to the present day.
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