From 1967 until 1981 Matthew Perceval lived and painted in France and during those years produced a large body of portrait paintings. This exhibition comprises a selection of these portraits along with some painted in Australia in the 1980s.

Matthew Perceval was born in 1945 and grew up surrounded by painters. His father John was a painter of vigorous landscapes and his mother one of the Boyd family of artists. As a young man Matthew Perceval set up a studio in London but left there in 1967 to paint in the south of France, first at Tourrettes-sur-Loup then in Canaules-et-Argentieres and finally in Lezan where he stayed until moving to Paris in 1978.

These portraits are characterised by Matthew Perceval’s free-flowing and expressive brushwork and a direct and spontaneous approach. His subjects are varied; they include fellow artists, villagers, poets, and people who passed through the places he lived. There are self-portraits and family pictures of his wife Jutta and children.

Most of the portraits included in this exhibition have not been exhibited before. The exhibition is an opportunity to experience a little known part of the painterly career of Matthew Perceval.