Richardson, Mr D.

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (15:38): Mr Speaker, can I congratulate you first on your elevation. I wish to memorialise in this place and put on record the life of respected Hills artist, Donald Richardson. As you will know, Mr Speaker, as a fellow Hills MP, Donald Richardson OAM passed away on 5 April 2020 after a long illness. He was 91. A founding member and life member of the Mount Barker and Districts Residents' Association, Donald made a lasting contribution to the arts.

Born in Burnie, Tasmania, Donald's seminal texts, Art and Design in Australia and Teaching Art, Craft and Design, remain widely respected. He was also a frequent and intelligent contributor to the Adelaide Review, Overland, Frontier and The Advertiser. Donald's final text, Art, Design, Craft, Beauty and All Those Things, will shortly be published posthumously.

For many years, Donald lectured on topics including visual art and art history, and he also served on the board of the Hahndorf Academy and as chair of Artist's Voice. At the time of his death, and despite his failing health, Donald was still producing and exhibiting extraordinary new work. He always brought a clear eye to changing arts and was able to see through to new trends in the art world.

Donald enjoyed nurturing young artists and worked with students from Mount Barker High School. He understood that art needs to be carried in the quietness of the hearts of each generation. As the elegant and combative art critic Robert Hughes said, reportedly about art overall but in fact I understand he was confining his remarks to drawing:

…it holds on by the skin of its teeth, because the hunger it satisfies—the desire for an active, investigative, manually vivid relation with the things we see and yearn to know about—is apparently immortal.

Donald had the same desire. His own vivid relation with the things he saw and yearned to know about was manifest. Importantly, too, his contribution to the artistic life of our community will be lasting.

Speaking personally, I was grateful to Donald for his guidance and encouragement in local politics. He was a thoughtful and generous man. Donald is survived by his wife Penny, daughters Vanessa, Joanna and Fiona, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, and stepchildren Michael, Stephany, Timothy and Kate and their families.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, it is not now possible for Donald's family members to be present today or for members of the residents' association to be present. I hope to provide these remarks to them separately. If my remarks seem similar to remarks made in The Courier newspaper, that is no coincidence. I was honoured to be able to contribute to the preparation of that article which appeared in our local newspaper. I hope my contribution illustrates in some small way the esteem in which I held Donald.