Artist Kerrie Lester dies at 63 following two-year battle with leukaemia

KERRIE Lester leaves behind a stellar career in the art world but told a friend last weekend: “I wish I’d won the bloody Archibald.”

ONE of Australia’s most celebrated female artists Kerrie Lester died today after a two-year battle with leukaemia.

The artist was 63 and leaves behind a stellar career in the art world including being a finalist in the Archibald Prize 16 times.

Just before her death, she told a friend at the weekend:

“I’ve pretty much done everything I wanted to do but I certainly would like more time to do more. The only thing is I wish I’d won the bloody Archibald.”

Lester in front of her self portrait which made the shortlist for the Archibald Prize.

Lester had lived in Mosman since 1989, where she brought up her two sons and where most of her living area was devoted to her paints and large canvases.

One of her sons posted this tribute on Facebook:

“A person that departs from this earth never truly leaves, for they are still alive in our hearts and minds, through us, they live on.

My amazing mother Kerrie Lester will not be forgotten.”

She had the rare distinction of earning her living for most of her life from her paintings although she admitted there were many times, she had to scrape together petrol money to get her two sons to school.

Her work has been featured in more than 21 solo exhibitions and been selected on numerous occasions for the Wynne, Sulman and Portia Geach awards.

She also won the prestigious Mosman Art Prize in 2011 — the first Mosman artist to win the major award since Nancy Borlase in 1961.

This portrait of James Morrison was a finalist in the Archibald Prize.

Her portrait of singer Jimmy Barnes was also a finalist.

Lester was a big supporter of the local art scene in Mosman and was a familiar figure at the Mosman Art Gallery.

In an introduction to a solo exhibition devoted to Lester’s work at the Mosman Art Gallery in 2004, curator Katrina Cashman said of Lester:

“In 30 years of art practice, the trajectory of Kerrie Lester’s career can only described as meteoric, the artist attracting great critical acclaim and consistent achievements and success.”

Lester was known for her distinctive hand-stitched canvases.

Cashman described her work as intensely original and quirky which “elevate and celebrate life’s ordinary rituals, objects of the every day, the domestic, the suburban and insignificant moments of life evolve into vibrant, exuberant and extraordinary images”.

At a party with the late former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1999.

Lester was represented by Australian Galleries at Paddington and Stuart Purves from the gallery wrote a tribute to her today:

“She was always bold, vivacious and forthright. A true and genuine artist, creativity was her world. She awoke every morning with full embrace of it and her work reflected this with her joyful and optimistic view of ourselves and our daily activities.

“A conversation without laughter was simply an impossibility in all encounters with Kerrie. She was funny and serious in the same breath, deliberate and devoted in her objection.

“If you own a Kerrie Lester, it’s very likely you own three or four, such was the seduction of her stitched paintings.”

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