This book recognizes and celebrates the work of one of Australia's most significant and engaging artists. Working from the late 1950s through to the present, Larter's work is at times audacious, confronting, political, and in many works the result of a passionate collaboration with his wife Pat.
It confirms the artist's place as a remarkable colorist, a technical innovator and a painter of radiant luminosity. Written by curator and art historian Deborah Hart with Deborah Clark and Joanna Mendelssohn, the book also includes reminiscence from one of Larter's models, Nell. The lively and engaging essays convey the key themes in the artist's oeuvre - an ongoing interest in the human body and sexuality, popular culture, politics, opposition to censorship and feeling for the landscape. It traverses his figurative and non-figurative works revealing his mastery of abstract patterning, his abiding interest in current music, in science and natural phenomena. A chapter devoted to the relationship between Richard and Pat Larter (an artist in her own right, who died in 1996) looks at their unique collaborations which resulted in one of the most dynamic creative partnerships in Australian art.
