Eric Mack

Began a long association with art and artists about 1952, opening an art gallery in Pitt Street Sydney, encouraged by Russell Drysdale, Arthur Boyd, and others, and the then NSW Art Gallery director Hal Missingham.   The gallery introduced many artists now well-known – Robert Klippel, sculptor, on his return from study in Europe,  Charles Blackman, Robert Dickerson, Laurence Hope (better known now in Europe than Australia), Dusan Marek, amongst others.   But none of their work was sold – so the gallery eventually closed, and all concerned went on to better things.

After a career ranging from journalism to farming, pottery, film-making, and shoe retailing, the call of painting triumphed.   Eric Mack worked with the well-known portraitist Robert Hannaford (several times winner of People’s Choice in the Archibald Prize) and others in Adelaide, before coming to Eltham about 1995 – just as Charles and Barbara Blackman urged him to do more than 40 years earlier!

Apart from oil painting – with a special interest in seascapes and landscapes, particularly in Tasmania – Eric Mack studied modelling and sculpting small waxes for bronze casting with Robert Hannaford in Adelaide, and clay modelling with Matcham Skipper in Eltham, and has focussed on these works for the past several years.