Focus on The cricketers and explore the Composition and legacy.
The painting was a departure from earlier artistic visions of Australia with a Sydney Morning Herald review noting "Drysdale’s large composition of 'cricketers' under leaden skies in the wide open spaces of burning sands dramatises the 'outback' as it has never been dramatised before." The National Gallery of Australia claim that the work "succeeds as art by abandoning any pretence to illustrative realism."The model for the batsman was Teddy Woolard and Roy Holloway was the model for the bowler. In 1996, after the models were identified, Woolard was asked for his opinion of Drysdale's portrayal; "I just don't rate it ... It makes us all look out of proportion."The town of Hill End itself is not as desolate as shown in the painting, with a later visitor to Hill End remarking "Even the scattered buildings—so blank and menacing in The Cricketers—appear as if ripped from the cover of a chocolate box."
cricket Cricket National Gallery of Australia Hill End Sydney Morning Herald batsman bowler