Name Henk Guth | ||
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Henk guth painting
Henk Gerrit Guth (1921 – ca.20 July 2002) was a Dutch artist who had a career in Australia, remembered for "Panorama Guth" (1975–2005), a cyclorama in Alice Springs, Northern Territory.
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History
Guth was born in Arnhem, Netherlands, and studied at the Arnhem Academy of Art and Design from 1938 to 1942, then moved to Amsterdam to work as an artist. In 1960 he migrated to Australia and in 1960 moved to Alice Springs where he opened an Art Gallery specializing in works of Indigenous Australians as well as his own works and those of other Australian artists. In 1971 he commenced the work for which he is best known, the "Panorama Guth", the format of which he took from a seascape Panorama Mesdag in The Hague, Holland. The panorama as completed was a realistic Central Australian outback scene painted on 33 pieces of canvas six metres high arrayed as a continuous circle of 20 metres in diameter, the centre of which was a raised viewing platform; the floor was covered with actual soil, stones and other material to reinforce the illusion. Much of the work was done by Fritz Pieters, a fellow artist from Holland. The work, at 65 Hartley Street, Alice Springs, was completed in 1975 and the building was officially opened that year by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
In 2002 the exhibit was purchased by local businessmen Terry Leigh and Kevin King.
In October 2005 the work was destroyed by fire. Some other exhibits, (including paintings by Albert Namatjira and his family) and irreplaceable aboriginal artefacts, were saved.
65 Hartley Street was the temporary address of the Mental Health Association of Central Australia and from late 2014 or early 2015 was the home of the Yubu Napa Art Studio and Gallery.