Being an Outsider Artist is a Noble Pursuit – Until Nobody Exhibits Your Work

THE GUARDIAN 
By Andrew Frost

Keith Looby painting, Resurrection (1964).

Keith Looby, now 80 years old, is one of Australia’s most significant painters, with an individual, iconoclastic style, a one-time teenage prodigy who would go on to win the Sulman, Blake and Archibald prizes, create and sell significant amounts of work, and have key paintings in the collections of Australia’s national galleries.And yet, as one talking head opines, Looby was his own worst enemy. Looby has had ressentiment all his life, and the cause of his debilitating hatred is the art world and pretty much everyone in it. Looby feuded with institutions such as the Art Gallery of NSW and its director, the late Edmund Capon; with other artists, including his famous enmity directed towards painter Tim Storrier; and with dealers, collectors and gallerists. [More]