Documentation: about

Sydney Ball

Sydney Ball was born in Adelaide in 1933. He studied at the South Australian School of Art and later at the Art Students League of New York under Theodore Stamos. Through Stamos, Ball became acquainted with artists such as Mark Rothko, William De Kooning and Robert Motherwell. In 1964, Ball had his first solo exhibition of colour abstraction paintings at the Westerly Gallery uptown New York and in the same year he won a Ford Foundation Scholarship for Painting. Returning to Australia in 1965, Ball won the Mirror-Waratah Invitation Prize and had his second solo exhibition, the Canto paintings at the Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, Other prizes he has won include the Corio and the Georges Invitation Art Prize 1968, Queensland Art Gallery Trustee Prize 1973 a Commonwealth Arts Grant 1974. Ball was Australia's representative in the 1969 International Print Biennial Exhibition in Tokyo, He has been the subject of over 60 Solo exhibitions in New York, Seoul, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide. He is represented in over 70 Collections world wide including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Munson-Williams-Proctor, Arts Centre, New York; The National Museum of Contemporary Art Seoul, the UBS collection Sydney, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the National Gallery of Australia Canberra, all State galleries and many regional and university collections throughout Australia...

AWARDS AND COMMISSION

1995-97	Commission for Opera Trust of New South Wales, design of three wine labels for auction.
1991	Commission for the Governor Phillip Tower, Sydney, (3 paintings)
1988	Two Print Purchase Awards, Tenth British International Print Biennale Exhibition, Bradford, UK
	Leeuwin Estate Wine Label, Perth, Western Australia
1984	Painting Purchase Award, Muswellbrook Painting Awards, NSW
	Painting Purchase Award, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Qld
1980	Patron Print Commission, Print Council of Australia, Melbourne
1978	Print Purchase Award, Caulfield City Council Permanent Collection, Vic
1977	Painting Purchase Prize-Australian Colourist 1977: Annual Invitation Exhibition, Western Australian Institute of Technology, Perth
	Print Purchase Award, National Print and Drawing Exhibition Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
	Print Purchase Award, The Alice Springs Art Awards, Alice Springs, NT
1973	Queensland Art Gallery Trustees Prize, Brisbane
	Commonwealth Visual Arts Grant
1972	Latrobe Valley Invitation Art Purchase Prize, Morwell
1968	Corio Prize, Geelong Art Gallery, Geelong
	Georges Invitation Art Prize, Melbourne
	Benalla Invitation Purchase Art Prize, Melbourne
1967	Special Prize, Perth Festival Invitation Exhibition, Perth
1965	Mirror-Waratah Invitation Art Prize, Sydney
1964	Ford Foundation Scholarship for Painting, New York USA

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

1996	Travelled to Nusa Teggara Islands of Indonesia visiting Animist villiages in Lombok, Sumbawa and Flores.
1993	Travelled to China, journeyed to Wutai Mountains visiting Tang and Song Dynasty Temples; the Buddhist caves at Datong and Luoyang.
1991	Travelled to Korea, visited Buddhist temples of Kyongju, Pulguk, Pusok, T'ongdo and Haein. Travelled to China visiting Wei Jin and Han Dynasty sites of Jiayuguan and Mogao caves at Dunhuang as well as the Buddhist caves at Bingliza, Lanzhou.
1990	Travelled to Korea, lectured on Australian Art at the Hong-Ik University, Suwon University and the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul. Worked in the studio of Master Ceramist Kim Ki-Chul.
1989	Travelled to India, trekking to Ladakh. Of special interest the Buddhist monasteries of Lamayuru, Sheh, Tikse and Hemis.
1988	Guest Lecturer, Arts Forum, Gippsland College of Advanced Education, Gippsland, Victoria.
1987	Visited China and Tibet; lectured on Australian Art at the Central Academy of Art, Beijing; The China Publishing Company, Beijing; Chengdu Academy of Art, Chengdu, Sichuan Province; the University of Tibet, Lhasa; Lhasa Artists Association, Lhasa. Of special interest the Buddhist and B'on symbols of Lamaseries, Serra, Drepung, Ganden, Jokhang. Journeyed to the Sacred Lake of Nam-Tso.
1985	Travelled Nepal and India, trekking to Khumbu glacier, the Himalayan High Plateau. Of special interest-Buddhist art and symbols: visited Buddhist monasteries and temples in Khatmandu, Hille, Bung and Thangboche. Journeyed to Western India, visiting Hindu and Jain temples in New Delhi, Jaipur and Agra.
	Artist-in-Residence, School of Art, Western Australian Institute of Technology, Perth.
1984	Panel member, Australian Art of the '80s seminar, Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne.
1983	Guest Lecturer, Arts Forum, Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania.
1981	Panel member, Australian and European Imagination seminar, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra.
1979	Six-month study tour of England, Western Europe, Greece and Hungary. Of special interest were the prehistoric sites of England, France and Spain; and ethnographical museums, especially the British Museum, Paris, Vienna, Cologne and Basel.
1978	Panel member, Art Gallery of New South Wales seminar-Painting in the '70s.
1975	Travelled to the islands of the South Pacific. Special interest in Polynesian and Melanesian art and artefacts.
	Artist-in-Residence, University of New England (summer school).
1974-88	Appointed Senior Lecturer in Art, City Art Institute, SCAE, Sydney.
1969-71	Returned to New York and full-time painting, extensive museum study and travel in USA. Returned to Australia.
1965-69	Lecturer at the South Australian School of Art, Adelaide.
1963-65	Travelled to New York. Full-time studies at the Art Students League of New York. Travelled to Canada and Japan. Of special interest the Buddhist and Shinto shrines of Kyoto and Nara