Curriculum Vitae

1936 Born Israel.

1956 Arrived in Australia.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

  • 2024 Early works 1956-79, Bayside Gallery, Melbourne
  • 2024 Blue Bilu, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
  • 2023 Cosmic Strings, &Gallery, Victoria
  • 2022 Circles, Qdos Fine Arts, Victoria
  • 2013 Cosmotifs, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria.
  • 2012 SpaceTime, Macquarie University Art Gallery, Sydney.
  • 2012 M- Theory, Langford120, Melbourne
  • 2007 In-Visible, Wilson Street Gallery, Sydney.
  • 2006-2007 Heavens, Jewish Museum of Australia, Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery; Latrobe Regional Gallery; Benalla Art Gallery.
  • 2005 Eppur Si Muove: Works from the Astronomer Series 2004-2005, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 2003 Mysterium, McClelland Gallery+Sculpture Park, Melbourne.
  • 2002 Explanandum, (in collaboration with Philip Lethlean), TheatreWorks, Melbourne.
  • 2002 The Infinity Towers, Brighton, Melbourne.
  • 2000 Life Forms, Gould Galleries at Span Galleries, Melbourne.
  • 1996 Recent Paintings, Gould Galleries, Melbourne.
  • 1993 Sanctum (Sculpture), Luba Bilu Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1992 Escape, Luba Bilu Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1990 Asher Bilu, Coventry Gallery, Sydney.
  • 1990 Recent Paintings, Luba Bilu Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1988 Recent Paintings, Luba Bilu Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1988 Recent Paintings, L.A Art Fair , Los Angeles, USA
  • 1985 Paintings by Asher Bilu, United Artists Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1984 Amaze, New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, N.S.W.
  • 1984 Amaze, Coventry Gallery, Sydney. 1983 Amaze, Institute Space, Mt. Gambier, S.A.
  • 1983 Arcs and Scrolls, United Artists Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1983 New Paintings, Coventry Gallery, Sydney.
  • 1982 Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.
  • 1982 Amaze, United Artists Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1981 Works 80/81, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne.
  • 1979 Infinities, Realities Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1974 Recent Works, South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1973 Asher Bilu Paintings, with Jim Dine Prints, Bonython Galleries, Sydney.
  • 1972 Asher Bilu Drawings, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1972 John Guild Gallery, Perth.
  • 1971 Paintings by Asher Bilu, Bonython Galleries, Adelaide.
  • 1970 Bilu at Holdsworth, Holdsworth Gallery, Sydney.
  • 1970 Asher Bilu, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1969 Asher Bilu, Clune Gallery , Sydney.
  • 1969 Asher Bilu, South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1968 Bilu, South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1967 Sculptron, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne.
  • 1966 Rowan Gallery, London.
  • 1966 Bilu, South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1965 Asher Bilu, South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1964 Rotterdamsche Kunstkring, Rotterdam.
  • 1963 Paintings by Asher Bilu, Rowan Gallery, London.
  • 1962 Asher Bilu: Paintings, Prints, Scrolls, Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.
  • 1962 David Jones Gallery, Sydney. 1962 Asher Bilu, Bonython Galleries, Adelaide.
  • 1960 Asher Bilu Paintings, Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.
  • 1959 Asher Bilu, Dalgety Street Gallery, Melbourne.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

  • 2022 Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize, Bayside Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 2021 Portrait of Place, Bayside Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 2019-2020 Between the Moon and the Stars, Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
  • 2018 BOAA (Biennale of Australian Art) Ballarat, Victoria.
  • 2017 Artist Profile/Australasian Painters 2007-2017, Orange Regional Gallery, NSW.
  • 2015 21st Century Heide: The Collection since 2000, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.
  • 2013 Contemporary Australian Drawing #2, University of the Arts, Wimbeldon Gallery, UK; Langford120, Melbourne; New York Studio School, New York.
  • 2012 Volume One: MCA Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
  • 2011 Lines of Thinking, Global Centre for Drawing and Langford120, Melbourne.
  • 2011 Forever Young; 30 Years of the Heide Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.
  • 2008 Abstract Works from the Latrobe University Art Collection, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, Melbourne.
  • 2007-8 Earthly reflections of heavenly things, 3 person exhibition with Leonard Brown & Emily Kame Kngwarreye, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne.
  • 2005 after Van Gogh: Australian artists in homage to Vincent, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria.
  • 2005 Abstraction 4, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 2005 Heide – Home and Haven for Art, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.
  • 2004 Abstracting the Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.
  • 2001 O Soul O Spirit O Fire, Queensland University of Technology Art Museum, Brisbane.
  • 1999 We are Australian, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne and touring.
  • 1997 I Had a Dream – Australian Art in the 1960’s, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
  • 1997 World Without End, St. Patricks Cathedral, Melbourne.
  • 1994 Forgotten Treasures, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne.
  • 1993 Chandler Coventry: A Private Collection, Campbelltown City Art Gallery, NSW.
  • 1990 100 Artists Against Animal Experimentation, Deutscher Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1990 SPECIAL… it’s been used before, Luba Bilu Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1989 Re:Creation/Re-creation, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1988 Images of Religion in Australian Painting 1942-1988, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
  • 1986 Pure Abstraction, Painters Gallery, Sydney
  • 1984 The Blake Prize: A Survey, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1983 Works on Paper, United Artists Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1982 United Artists Group Show, United Artists Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 1979 McCaughey Prize, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
  • 1975 Artist’s Artists-Painting, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
  • 1975 Looking Back, travelling exhibition by National Gallery of Victoria.
  • 1970 First Leasing Prize, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
  • 1969 Australian Art Today, touring exhibition to SE Asia, organized by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
  • 1965 Blake Prize for Religious Art, Sydney.

GRANTS AND AWARDS

1973 Grant, Visual Arts Board, Australia Council
1970 First Leasing Prize, Melbourne.
1965 Henry Caselli Richards Memorial Prize, Brisbane.
1965 Blake Prize, Sydney.

COMMISSIONS

2010 Circular Keys, Quay Restaurant, Sydney
2006 Heavens, Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourne
2003 Mysterium, McClelland Gallery, Langwarrin, Melbourne.
2000 Colour Fall, Quay Restaurant, Sydney
1994 Wedding, Melbourne
1982 Four paintings, Concert Hall, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne.

FEATURE FILM PRODUCTION DESIGN

2015: Force of Destiny, Director: Paul Cox
2005 Human Touch, Director: Paul Cox
1986 Cactus, Director: Paul Cox
1984 My First Wife , Director: Paul Cox
1983 Man of Flowers, Director: Paul Cox

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne.
National Australia Bank Collection.
Wespac Bank Collection
A.N.Z. Bank Collection.
B.H.P. Collection.
Latrobe University, Melbourne.
Jewish Museum of Australia
Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria
The Centre Gallery, Gold Coast, Queensland.
Albury Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales
Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne.
The Construction and Building Unions Superannuation Fund (C+Bus)

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS
The Art Collection of the Victorian Arts Centre, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne, Australia 1992
Victoria with Love, Government of Victoria Publishers, Melbourne 1981
Asher Bilu:Recent Paintings, The Art Gallery Pty Ltd, 1988
Bonython, Kym, Modern Australian Painting 1970-1975, Rigby Limited, Australia 1976
Bonython, Kym, Modern Australian Painting 1975-1980, Rigby Limited, Australia 1980
Crumlin, Rosemary, Images of Religion in Australian Painting, Bay Books, Kensington, NSW, Australia 1988
Crumlin, Rosemary, The Blake Book/Art, Religion and Spirituality in Australia, MacMillan Art Publishing, Australia, 2011
Drury, Neville (Ed)New Art Five, Craftsman House BVI Ltd, Tortola, BVI  1991
Drury,Neville, Images in Contemporary Australian Painting, Craftsman House BVI Ltd, Tortola, BVI 1992
Germaine, Max, Artists and Galleries of Australia and New Zealand, Landsdowne Editions, 1979
Gleeson, James, Masterpieces of Australian Painting, Landsdowne Press Pty Ltd, 1969
Gleeson, James, Modern Painters 1931‑1970, Lansdowne Press, Dee Why West, Australia 1971
Heathcote, Christopher, A Quiet Revolution: The Rise of Australian Art 1946-1968, The Text Publishing Company, Melbourne, Victoria 1995
Jones, Stephen, Synthetics/ Aspects of Art & Technology in Australia 1956-1975, MIT Press, 2011
Lindsay, Robert (Ed.), The Seventies: Australian Paintings and Tapestries – from the Collection of the National Bank of Australia, National Bank of Australasia, Melbourne, Australia, 1982
Manton, Neil, Cultural Relations: The Other Side of the Diplomatic Coin, Homosapien Books, 2003
McCaughey, Patrick, Australian Abstract Art, Oxford University Press, 1969 (cover image)
McCulloch, Alan, Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Hutchinson Group (Australia) 1984
McCulloch, Alan and McCulloch, Susan, The Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Allen & Unwin, 1994
McCulloch, Alan, with Susan McCulloch and Emily McCulloch Childs, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, The Meigunyah Press, 2006  Reed, John, New Painting 1952‑62, Longmans, Australia 1963
Space Place Space Time/ Asher Bilu Paintings and Installations, New Street Publishing, Melbourne, Australia 2010

MAGAZINES
Art International Volume X1V/10 Christmas 1970, Alan McCulloch, Letter from Australia
Pataphysics Double Issue D/E 1989 Interview Asher Bilu
Artlink, Vol 20 #4 December 2000, Heather Ellyard, Doing Business with the Cosmic
Time Magazine, May 2, 2005/No.17 Michael Fitzgerald, Film’s Man of Flowers
Essentials Magazine, Winter 2007, Ivan Durrant, Asher Bilu – A Perfect Monster
Indesign, Vol 33, May 2008, Penny Craswell, When Shadows Breathe
Essentials Magazine, Issue 17 mid-autumn 2012, Cover Image, Asher Bilu-Abstract artist in residence
Art Profile, Issue 18 2012, Glenn Barkley, Inside the New MCA
Essentials Magazine, Mid-Winter 2013, Cover Image, Jamie Durrant, Asher Bilu into the Cosmotifs
National Gallery of Victoria Magazine, July/Aug 2017, Jon Cattapan Wonderment and Destruction: Jon Cattapan on Asher Bilu’s Yuga 11, 1966.
Vault:Australasian Art & Culture, Issue 19 July 2017, Ashley Crawford, Asher Bilu: Divine Interventions
Essentials Magazine, Winter 2017, Ivan Durrant, Asher Bilu: Twenty Thousand Light Years above the Sea
Artist Profile, Issue 40, 2017, Ashley Crawford, Asher Bilu.