Look inside Ken Done: Art Design Life

At once ad man and artist, designer and entrepreneur, Ken Done has achieved what few others have. His signature style has graced ad campaigns and art cars, magazine covers and doona covers, public spaces and landmark cultural events, but it is his unabating passion for painting that sustains him. Ken Done: Art Design Life documents Done’s expansive art and design practice over four decades and provides a fascinating insight into the artist and his oeuvre.

Today, you can read an extract and look at some of the gorgeous images inside this new book right here on the blog. Read on!

The ‘Sydney Shirt’.

For a man who was granted an exemption to leave high school for art school at age fourteen and a half, it was not becoming an internationally recognised, award-winning advertising creative-gun-for-hire, nor his successful first art exhibition at age forty that ultimately made Ken Done a household name in Australia and around the world; it was an unexpected foray into fashion that all began with a simple T-shirt.

‘I never thought that I would be in the T-shirt business, or the clothing business or the shop business or the licensing business.’

On 29 June 1980 – his fortieth birthday – Ken Done fulfilled a promise he’d made to himself: to hold an exhibition of his own paintings in a commercial gallery. Just three months later, another promise-to-self came to fruition when he opened his own gallery. It was in a little terrace house in Ridge Street, North Sydney, and he called it the Art Directors Gallery – largely because he wasn’t yet confident enough to call it the Ken Done Gallery. Ken envisioned a space where he could show his own work, along with that of other art directors who were also quietly working on their own paintings. He had a little office upstairs where he continued to do freelance work, and the rest of the terrace house was devoted to the gallery, with the help of Kate Harding, who assisted with casual administration and bookkeeping. Kate went on to work for Ken for the next thirty years as his loyal secretary, friend and confidante.

As part of his first exhibition at the Holdsworth Galleries, Ken made a drawing of Sydney Harbour – a simple blue-and-white rendering of his now-iconic muse, though it had taken him quite a while to get it right. Ken decided to make a short run of twelve numbered, screen-printed T-shirts using this design to give to the press to promote his new gallery and exhibitions. They were very well received, especially by the highly respected style journalist Marion von Adlerstein, who wrote for Vogue magazine for two decades on the subjects of fashion, beauty, interiors and travel. Marion wrote, ‘He’s changed the way we think about art. You can hang a Done on your wall or a Done on yourself – there’s an integrity to everything he touches.’

That original T-shirt was a blue drawing on white, and given the first run was snapped up so swiftly, Ken thought, ‘Why not white on blue?’ – and suddenly he had a range of two. Ken decided it might be quirky to hang a ‘promotional’ T-shirt on a coathanger in the tree outside in the gallery courtyard, while his assistant, Kate, kept half a dozen T-shirts for quick sale in a wicker basket by her desk, priced at $15 each. They sold in a flash.

In those days, there wasn’t really anything else you could walk around wearing that boldly said, ‘I live in Sydney,’ and this was a key point of difference. Ken had by this time been all over the world, and he knew keenly how great Sydney was.

‘There was also around that time a surge in pride for Australia; we had won the Americas Cup in the 80s – it was “Come on Aussie, come on” – the cricket was very strong. They were very optimistic times – so maybe my timing was good, and the product simply fitted well within that national psyche.’

At that time, the new culture magazine Billy Blue, published by Ross Renwick and Aaron Kaplan – who had purchased Ken’s favourite painting from his first exhibition – had asked Ken to design some covers for them, and in return they gave him advertising space in the publication. Ken understood well from his advertising days that you needed to reach an audience; you couldn’t wait for the audience to come to you, and he used this medium to promote his gallery as well as his T-shirts.

Sales took off, and the range expanded to include sweatshirts. Ken also started to think that being tucked away on Ridge Street in North Sydney was not quite the right place to be; that he might need to be more visible – somewhere with more people. The demand for the T-shirts and sweatshirts also necessitated a larger space. One day Ken spied a tiny ad in the Sunday paper for a small gallery space located at 123 George Street in The Rocks, in the shadow of the Harbour Bridge he so loved. He promptly called the number first thing on Monday morning. It was a done deal.

—Ken Done: Art Design Life by Amber Creswell Bell and Ken Done (Thames & Hudson) is out now. Signed copies are available for a limited time only!*

*Only until stocks last.

Ken Done

Art Design Life

by Amber Creswell Bell and Ken Done

Is it not time we placed Done into the context of Streeton and Roberts, Olsen and Nolan - all of whom lived by and painted the harbour? - Glenn Barkley, curator and artist

At once ad man and artist, designer and entrepreneur, Ken Done has achieved what few others have. His signature style has graced ad campaigns and art cars, magazine covers and doona covers, public spaces and landmark cultural events...

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