ART SUNDAY - DOUG SEALEY

“All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney

A single painting for Art Sunday, today. It is by Australian artist, Doug Sealy. He was born in 1937 in the Australian outback town of West Wyalong in central New South Wales. He recounts how he always wanted to become an artist, something he realised from a very early age. As he was growing up he didn’t know how to make his dream come true. While his father was away at war, he discussed it with his mother but art was not on the curriculum for boys in New South Wales at that time. There were no art classes available and even artists’ paints were not for sale in his town. He used to walk an extra mile on top of the six he had to walk to school in order to admire some paintings in hotel verandahs, but he felt that it was worth it.

Over the next 12 years, he picked up bits and pieces of information from correspondence courses and tried to produce pictures himself. He then had the good luck to meet established artist Reg Campbell who was exhibiting some of his paintings in a Department Store in the nearby regional centre of Forbes. The exhibition was a dream come true of young Sealy and he began an acquaintance with Campbell, which was to become that of Master and Student and finally that of a 33-year friendship.

Sealy has held many successful exhibitions and has been teacher, judge and art critic. He has won many awards, many of his paintings hang in renowned museums, as well as in private and corporate collections.

This is a very Australian painting in the tradition of the 19th century impressionists of the Australian Heidelberg School. It is called “High Country Gums, Razorback, Sofala” and is 66 by 91 cm.