Ken Done

Ken Done studied at National Art School and Mosman High School. Places of work recorded in the authority are Sydney. Work by Ken Done is recorded in the collections of National Portrait Gallery. Distinctions recorded are Member of the Order of Australia.

• Name — Ken Done • Honorific Suffix — AM • Birth Name — Kenneth Stephen Done • Born — 29 June 1940 • Birthplace — Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Education — National Art School • Website — kendone.com.au

Ken Done, an only child, grew up in the northern suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, and left high school at age 14 to study at the National Art School in East Sydney between 1954 and 1959. At the end of this decade he travelled abroad and began working with the New York and London based advertising agency J. Walter Thompson. He returned to Sydney in 1969 to follow his artistic desires. He became a full-time painter in 1975.

Done's first solo exhibition was in Sydney in 1980. To date, he has staged over 100 exhibitions dedicated solely to his work. Done's work has been exhibited in Australia, Japan, and France, amongst others. His first European exhibition was held in Paris in 1996. In the year 2000, his works were exhibited in Los Angeles and in London. His work for the 1988 World Exposition held in Brisbane Australia, the colourful Children of the World facade for the United Nations Pavilion, and the several 6 m high alphabet letter blocks that adorned the Entrance and Exit of the Australia Pavilion are largely regarded as playing a central role in the celebration and popular culture of Bicentennial Australia and were one of the most photographed works of art at the Expo. They have, as part of the 30th Anniversary celebration of Expo 88 in 2018, been fully restored, including an interview with Ken Done. In 1994, the Powerhouse Museum staged a major retrospective of Done's work. In 2015 from Dec 11 to Dec 20, 2015, Done exhibited a solo show of selected works produced throughout his career titled 'The Joy of Colour' at Trevor Victor Harvey Gallery in Seaforth, making this exhibition his first solo show within a commercial gallery that Ken Done has exhibited outside of his personally owned gallery located in The Rocks, Sydney. His touring exhibition Paintings you probably haven't seen travelled for almost 3 years, touring regional galleries around Australia from 2019. The 35 artworks were hung in 11 galleries, from Far North Queensland to Victoria. They travelled over 10,000 km, and were hung for 809 days.

Ken Done created a design company called "Done Art and Design" with his wife Judy Done. The company started out by producing small runs of T-shirts featuring Done's art and the garment design of his wife, Judy. In 1993 the company won the Fashion Industries of Australia's Grand Award. An original Ken Done work featured on the cover of the Japanese women's magazine Hanako every week between 1989 and 1999.

• Illustration — Done at Mosman Art Gallery in 2010 He was a UNICEF Australia Goodwill Ambassador from 1988 to 2024 and won the Australian father of the year award in 1989. During October 1995, Done was asked to create a series of flag designs by the then Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating. Republicanism in Australia was news at the time, and Done submitted sixteen designs to Ausflag, some of which he had created as early as 1981. He was commissioned to produce a series of works for both the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympics. Ken Done has long been a supporter of art in Australia, especially encouraging school students through awards and sponsorships, although Done decided to sue the Australian band TISM for appropriating his work on an album cover. The album formerly named Australia the Lucky Cunt was released in September 1993 and depicted a Done-style koala with a syringe in its mouth. Done was angered by this use and obtained an injunction order to ban the sale of the album. The album was then re-released in November under the a new title Censored Due to Legal Advice and a new cover depicting four edited pictures depicting Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor on the TV show Saturday Night Live when she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II. The images are edited to show the singer tearing up a sheet with TISM's logo and the album's new name on it. In 2006, he designed and created the United Buddy Bear for Australia. The Ken Done Gallery is located in The Rocks, Sydney.

• Australia: Order of Australia (AM) for services to Art, Design, and Tourism (1992)

• If I make a painting, it should be seen for what it's set out to do too. A lot of the things that I do, it's not all art. Some of it's design, some of it's illustration, some of it's graphics, some of it's concept, some of it's business and some of it, hopefully, is art. • Art shouldn't be something that you go quietly into an art gallery and dip your forelock and say 'I have to be very quiet, I'm in here amongst the art.' It's here, art's everywhere. It's how you use your eyes. It's about the enjoyment of visual things. And it's certainly not for any one group of people. • I've always thought that there shouldn't be any limit to the things that are well designed. And I think that people who consider that art should only be kept for art galleries and doesn't have a role in public life, I think that's too narrow. • In the times in which we live it is far too restricting to say that art can only be found in art galleries and not touch people's everyday lives.. I want to use any means that are necessary to communicate to people what I feel about things. There are no rules. And if there are rules, then you may as well break them. • Wherever you are in the world, there's always something about the Australian light. There's something about the sharpness of it, something about the clarity of it, something about the colours of Australia. And, hopefully, something optimistic about Australian painting too.