Peter Boggs (b. 1949, New Zealand) is one of the leading contemporary painters in Australia, with a career spanning nearly 40 years and 50 solo exhibitions. The award-winning painter is at home painting the mysteries of Italian Renaissance Gardens – most notably the Boboli Gardens in Florence, as he is in unveiling the secret and forgotten aspects of fast diminishing rural urban landscapes. Boggs lives and works in Leura in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales.
Boggs studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, graduating in 1973. His first exhibition was in Auckland in 1974, and thereafter exhibited annually in New Zealand through to his arrival to Australia. After completing teacher training at the Auckland Secondary Teachers College, and following a period teaching and studying in England and Spain, he commenced an art teaching career in Auckland that continued until 1987 when he moved to reside in Australia. From the early 1990’s he has continued to exhibit annually in Australia and abroad.
Boggs work evokes references to that of Giorgio Morandi, Edward Hopper, and such Macchiaioli painters as Guiseppe Abbati, Odoardo Borrani, Vito D’Ancona and Giovanni Fattori in his pursuit of that which is felt as much as that which is seen. Continuing in the tradition of these painters and that of his teacher in New Zealand, Colin McCahon, the sole purpose of his discipline is focused on a repeating and narrowing field of enquiry in a constant effort to reveal the secrets of the subject matter absorbing his. Providing a few visual clues only and encouraging interest in that which is unseen, is the seducing element to discovery.
“Peter Boggs is one of the finest tonal painters working in Australia today. Each work is beautifully distilled, resolved geometrically and tonally and where within the subdued palette there is a magical glowing inner luminosity” – Professor Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA
Boggs was the winner of the 1998 Tattersall’s Club Landscape Art Prize in Brisbane and won the Kedumba Drawing Award in 2004. Boggs’ work is represented in state and national collections, including the Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra, and Museum of New Zealand/Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, as well as private collections nationally and abroad.
Image: Peter Boggs, Interior xi (landscape), 2023, oil on linen, 56 x 61 cm
