Yachts on the Swan by Harold Vike
This watercolour painting by celebrated Western Australian painter Harald Vike perfectly captures a day of sailing on the Swan River in Perth. Anyone from Perth, simply calls the river 'the Swan'. Harold was an accomplished painter who travelled extensively around Australia to capture the characteristics of landscapes. He began work in Perth in the 1920s as an advertising illustrator and banner designer. George Pitt Morison, a former curator of the Western Australian Museum and Art Gallery, encouraged Harold to study the pencil drawings in the State Art Collection: this started a lifelong passion of painting landscapes, city scapes and people.