The University of Central Queensland has just acquired a major work by Richard Dunlop under the Cultural Gifts Program. The painting �Iron Ore 2�, oil on Belgian linen 180 x 300cm (pictured here), is from the artist’s series focused on mapping and Australian landscape painting from 2007/08, and is valued at $35,000.

Sue Smith, Director of the UCQ Art Collection recently commented:

“This is an important and timely acquisition for the University from a prominent Australian contemporary artist. Rockhampton was the birth place of the artist’s father, a university scholar, and mining has been a significant economic activity for the region for decades. The painting itself employs a unique mix of perspectives on the one picture plane – a bird’s eye view integrated with the latitudinal or layered cross-sectional perspective favoured by early European explorers. It represents an indebtedness to Nolan’s Central Australian series and Williams’strip paintings while making its own fresh and intelligent contribution to the Australian landscape painting tradition. It is appropriate that it will be sited in the forefront of the University library.”

Professor Scott Bowman, Vice-Chancellor, will officially accept the acquisition into the University collection at a ceremony on 23 October, 2012.