How Guy Warren's 'amazing eye' has influenced UOW landscape for decades

But on the walls of the buildings around campus his influence is everywhere.

One of Australia's most prolific artists, celebrated for landscape paintings, portraits, printmaking, he was still working and producing art up until his death at age 103 on June 14.

In 1985, he famously won the Archibald Prize for a picture of his good friend Bert Flugelman after the pair dared each other to enter.

Then in 2021, a portrait by Peter Wegner of Warren - who was then in his 100^th year, just like the Archibald itself - took out the prize.

Today, both of these paintings are on campus at UOW, along with about 140 other works by Warren.

The university holds one of the biggest collections of his works, which are held in galleries and institutions around Australia.

This includes Warren's early lithographs and etchings, significant works like his huge painting Escarpment, Illawarra, as well as one painting from as late as 2020, which features a hut where he regularly painted at Jamberoo.

Right now, the iconic Flugelman portrait is in storage, "having a rest" according to current art collection manager Phillippa Webb, after being on tour around Australia.

But, after Warren's death on June 14, she this week organised to hang Wegner's painting of him (currently on loan to the university) in a prime position at the UOW Library.

Seated in a wooden chair with a red cardigan around his shoulders, Warren's calm, almost smiling face looks out through the glass of the library walls across the campus where he was the first Director of the Art Collection from 1992 to 2005.

Under his watch, and in the years afterwards, the collection of more than 4000 works became known as one of the most accessible and diverse in Australia.

Warren was brought in by UOW's original curator John Eveleigh, who started the art collection in the university's early days in the late 1970s.

"John Eveleigh realised he needed someone else to take the work on, so Guy took on that role as director and basically started to build the collection from what it was originally," Ms Webb said.

"He would purchase works by local artists and student works to display and fill the walls of the campus so that staff students and the general public could interact and enjoy artworks."

"Guy's knowledge and wealth of connections in the art world, as an artist, meant that he was able to also acquire works from significant artists and sometimes with his amazing eye, he would buy works from up and coming artists, who at the time might not have been as well known."

For instance, in the early 1990s, he bought a landscape painting from Emily Kame Kngwarreye, who was on the precipice of becoming an artist of national and international standing.

"He always used to say to me that he would kick himself that he didn't buy more at the time," Ms Webb said.

During an exhibition celebrating his contribution to the university and art world, held in 2021, Warren said he was thrilled at how far the UOW Art Collection had come since its inception.

"Art collections are terribly important for universities because anyone studying at university should have the opportunity to look at art alongside whatever they are studying," he said.

"UOW has the most attractive university campus I've ever seen, and the students are very lucky to have the opportunity to look at art as another dimension to their learning program."

Outside of the university, Warren's connection to the Illawarra also ran deep.

For instance, his Archibald Prize winning painting, Flugelman with Wingman, was conceived at a dinner party in a house at Fairy Meadow, when - over dinner and wine 40 years ago - Flugelman and Warren challenged each other to enter the popular portrait prize (which they did not regard highly, at the time).

"A woman leant over the table and asked, 'Have you ever gone in for the Archibald?' and we made the usual response at the time, which was 'oh god no'," Warren recounted in 2018, in a video interview with Ms Webb.

"Bert must have had one glass of wine more than I did, because he leant across the table and suddenly said, 'why don't we, I tell you what I challenge you - we'll both go in, you paint me and I'll paint you'."

Warren owned property at Jamberoo right next door to Flugelman, but according to Webb, was unable to build a home on the property due to council planning rules.

Nevertheless, he painted often there in a hut on site, with many of his works inspired by the landscape and rainforest.

Warren described how his portrait of the sculptor included a recurring theme of flight in his work, and a "wingman" motif inspired by paragliders he spotted working from his hut in Jamberoo.

"They were leaping off the escarpment above me and they reminded me of winged creatures - I thought it was very dangerous, about more than jumping off cliffs, it was about risk taking," he said.

"My little 'wingman' related to taking risks, it related to angels... to birds... and related to the story of Icarus if you wanted to believe that.

"When I started painting Bert for the Archibald... I wanted an image that related to Bert and I thought if I put the wingman in, it's about taking risks, and Bertie was about taking risks.

"It never occurred to me before that Bert's name, Flugelman, is a German translation that means 'wingman' - so that made the hairs stand up."

Reflecting on Warren's long and productive life, Ms Webb said his enduring legacy also went beyond the impact of his remarkable body of work.

"He was just the most wonderful, gentle, kind human being, and he shared his love of art and life and everything with staff, students and anyone he met," she said.

"He was a very humble man... and he constantly created and had an inquisitive mind - you could see it.

"He never lived in the Illawarra - because the council wouldn't let him - but he saw the beauty in our local area and he absolutely loved it.

"Through the art collection, his connection to the Faculty of Creative Arts and to Bert, he remains totally embedded in the landscape of UOW."