Michael Young is an Australian minimalist sculptor and painter, art curator and art teacher. He was born in Ballarat, Victoria in 1945, where he studied art at the School of Mines. He won the Morwell prize for drawing in 1967, and the Flotto Lauro and Alcorso Sekers Prizes in 1968. His minimalist, geometric, box-shaped and right-angled polished steel or aluminium sculptures brought him to attention in the decade 1965-1975, and a commission for a stainless steel sculpture for the foyer of the 1969 AMP St James Building, Melbourne and another for the Melbourne Cricket Ground WH Ponsford Stand foyer. Young exhibited at Strines Gallery 18 November–5 December 1969, and at the 4th (1970) and 5th (1973) Mildura Sculpture Triennials. He won the Dayton travelling scholarship 1970 and was in Europe and Asia until 1972, but sent back instructions for further works. He showed in the Minnie Crouch acquisitive print and watercolour exhibition at Ballarat Art Gallery from 21 March to 25 April 1973 amongst 26 male and six female artists, judged by art curator and writer Sonia Dean. Realities Gallery staged a public exhibition in Como Gardens which included Young’s Six Trapdoors (1973), which were later installed on the lawns at St, Pauls Cathedral, in the Caltex Exhibition at Ballarat, and later at McClelland Gallery, Langwarrin. In an excursion into earthworks, he showed Untitled Excavation No.1 (1973) at the Mildura Triennial. A solo show 13–23 August 1975 followed at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond. With Peter Booth, Ian Burn, Dale Hickey, Robert Hunter, Paul Partos, Mel Ramsden, Trevor Vickers, Robert Jacks and others he showed sculptural work in Minimal art, 26 February–28 March 1976 at the National Gallery of Victoria with a catalogue essay by Jennifer Phipps. In 1977 Geelong Water Works and Sewerage Trust commissioned an aluminium environmental work for the forecourt of new building in Geelong, Victoria. His 10 black rods for dispersal, 10 white rods for dispersal (1969) is held by the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Australian National Gallery, Ballarat, McLelland, and Mildura have collected his works.
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- Date written:
- 2025
- Last updated:
- 2025
