Draft talk:Graeme Stevenson

Response to the 1 September decline

Addressing Absurdum4242's points.

Broken link. A dead Smithsonian Libraries URL on the Atlas of Parrots of the World citation. Removed; the book is now cited by ISBN alone.

Further sources. Three more Tweed Daily News articles added:

• Sue Gardiner, "Colour up your lives, like thousands of TV viewers", 20 June 2014
• "Three from Tweed make 2017 honours list", 26 January 2017
• Bob Anthony, "Virus keeps TV series host brushing up at home", 13 May 2020

With the 2013 article already cited, that is coverage by at least three different reporters across 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2020, independently sourcing the broadcast footprint, the production base and staffing, episode counts across a decade, the subject's studio practice, and the not-for-profit art-therapy fund he founded in 2013.

Weaknesses I will flag myself. All four are the same masthead. The 2017 piece is a shared honours-list report covering three recipients, so the subject's share is about four paragraphs. I searched for coverage of the art-therapy fund in other outlets and found only gallery and promotional pages, which I have not used. All four sit behind the News Corp paywall; I can supply text on request.

Germaine, Artists and Galleries of Australia. On independence, it looks sound: held by the National Library of Australia and the Australian War Memorial, sold by the National Trust, published by Craftsman House across three editions (1979, 1984, 1990), and treated as a standard reference by the Australian Art Sales Digest. I have found no indication of paid entries. On extent, I have not seen the volume. The 1990 edition carries over 5,300 entries in 832 pages, roughly six per page, so I would expect a short directory entry rather than substantial coverage. I am trying to see p. 647 and will report what it actually says rather than overstate it.

Declaration. I have no financial connection to the subject and have never been paid in relation to this draft. I built a website, unpaid, for an artist who appeared on the subject's television series, and started this draft on my own initiative.

CaptainCoox (talk) 02:45, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

@CaptainCoox ok, the new sources are helpful to a point, the 2014 article, unfortunately all the parts that are about him (rather than the show) are interview answers, so not applicable for notability, but the 2017 article is good, if short, and the 2020 article is solid. Unfortunately, the are all from the same newspaper as the one source that we already had which was super solid, so we are left with the same issue of needing at least one more. Your description of the Germaine book makes it sound like it would be a solid source, but if we are using sources as references to write an article, especially references for notability, we really need to actually have sighted it, read what it says, and be citing specific information and then using it in the article, which we can’t do if we haven’t seen it (I pinged another editor for this the other day and had him go off at me, because he thought it was enough that he could see that the book existed, without ever having seen it, but AT BEST that would mean it could go in a “further reading” section, not that he could cite it). If you could in fact find that page, and cite actual information for it, I would be inclined to accept the article, given the strength of the other two sources (in the same publication), so that would be great. I’m going to see if I can track anything down online too, to see if I can help get this over the line, but we will see - online sources are always a bit hit and miss finding them even if they do exist 😆. Anyway, good luck to the both of us 😆 Absurdum4242 (talk) 08:50, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Not useful for notability, but here’s an article which talks about plans for Stevenson’s show to be sent to the moon by Elon Musk (that may have fallen through) https://region.com.au/canberra-artist-has-designs-on-the-moon-and-back-via-queanbeyan/657247/ There was an ABC radio interview about it too, but with that being an interview… might be able to turn something more up maybe?

An article on his “colour in Canberra” initiative which was funded by the ACT govt. https://region.com.au/seven-canberran-artists-colouring-outside-the-lines/232431/ unfortunately again from a notability perspective, it mostly talks about the artists, and where it talks about Stevenson, doesn’t really give us anything we can cite, except that he did this initiative.

An article about Stevenson winning the Order of Australia Medal, which is decent, but again touch and go for notability because it is an announcement. https://fineartconnoisseur.com/2017/02/honoring-his-global-reach/ There must have been more news coverage of this in Australia at the time though surely? Thoigh it would need to be an article article rather than a bare announcement.

Everything else I can find is either an interview, an article written by Stevenson himself, or else something published by a gallery etc with some tie to Stevenson, many of which have information to use, none of which help us with notability. Hopefully you have more luck than I did 😆 Absurdum4242 (talk) 09:15, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

@Absurdum4242 Thank you - and thanks for going looking yourself, that was generous.

Germaine p. 647 is done. I have now seen the page. The entry is quoted in full in the section below, and the article cites specific information from it: his birthplace (Wagga Wagga), that he had no formal art training, and a dated 1984-88 exhibition record including a solo show at Elizabeth Bay House.

I should be straight with you about what it is, though. It is nine lines - a directory entry. It is not significant coverage and I am not going to argue that it is. I have stopped citing it as evidence of notability and use it only for those facts. If that changes your view, I would rather know now than have the article accepted on a misunderstanding.

On your three finds:

• Fine Art Connoisseur - added, but used lightly. Most of that piece is explicitly prefaced "Via the press release", so I have cited only what the magazine says in its own voice.
• Region on Colour in Canberra - added. It gave the article something it did not have: the project was funded through Tourism ACT after the chief minister invited the agency to invest in it.
• Region on the moon - genuinely useful. I had already narrowed a claim that the Lunar Codex had reached the lunar surface, because Astrobotic's Peregrine lander failed in January 2024 and I could not verify it had. That article confirms a launch failure put the project on hold, so the caveat is now sourced rather than my own inference.

Three others have turned up since:

• Patrick Williams, Tweed Daily News, 9 November 2009, on a five-metre canvas titled The Golden Mean. Same masthead, but it predates the television series by two years, which is the answer to any reading that he is notable only as a TV host.
• Kirsty Noffke, Tweed Daily News, 30 October 2010, on the first broadcast on Briz TV.
• Jeremy Tan, The Star, 18 October 2021. Coverage of a charity auction, so a mention rather than coverage of him, but a different masthead, and it independently corroborates both the Alderton book and the Lunar Codex - each of which previously rested on a single weak source.

The article now cites four mastheads. I would still not claim that any single source outside the Tweed Daily News amounts to significant coverage of him. CaptainCoox (talk) 10:59, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Germaine, p. 647 - answered

Absurdum4242 asked how much Artists and Galleries of Australia has on the subject, and whether it is independent. I have now seen the page. The entry reads in full:

STEVENSON, Graeme - QLD

Born Wagga NSW 1958. Painter. No formal art training.
Exhibitions Solo shows at Elizabeth Bay House, Sydney 1984; Prouds Gallery, 1984; Laguna Wildlife Gallery USA 1988; Participated at Galloway Gallery, Brisbane 1985, 88; Visions Gallery, Gold Coast 1987; Hoisser Gallery, Brisbane 1987; Los Angeles Design Center, USA 1987; Gallery Nino Tucci, Gold Coast 1988.
Publications Illustrations for Parrots of the World: TFH Publications USA 1990.

Represented Institutional and private collections in UK, Europe, USA, Canada, NZ and Australia.

— Germaine, Artists and Galleries of Australia, 3rd ed., Craftsman House, 1990, vol. 2, p. 647

That is the whole entry - nine lines. It is a directory listing, not significant coverage, and I am not going to argue it satisfies the GNG. I have stopped citing it as evidence of notability and now use it only for what it actually establishes: birthplace, the absence of formal training, and a dated 1984-88 exhibition record.

Two details in it may still be worth something. The 1984 solo show was at Elizabeth Bay House, a heritage-listed museum property now administered by Museums of History NSW. And the entry records institutional as well as private collections - but it does not name the institutions, so I am not claiming WP:ARTIST #4 on it.

On independence, my earlier answer stands: held by the National Library of Australia and the Australian War Memorial, sold by the National Trust, published by Craftsman House across three editions (1979, 1984, 1990), and treated as a standard reference by the Australian Art Sales Digest. I would add one thing now that I have seen an entry. The entries are uniform in format and plainly factual, and this one opens by recording that the subject had no formal art training. That is not a line an artist supplies about himself for a paid listing. It reads as an editorially compiled directory rather than PR.

The book is in copyright, so I have not uploaded an image of the page. I am happy to send a photograph directly to any reviewer who wants to check the transcription, or to take it to WP:REX for independent verification.

CaptainCoox (talk) 09:41, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

That’s frustrating. The whole thing is frustrating honestly, so many sources that are NEARLY good enough 😆 I would love to track down whether that Elon Musk thing about sending his stuff to the moon ever panned out - because that would definitely count towards the “significant notice paid to his works” and “part of a permanent collection” criteria for artists - especially the permanency 😆

The good news is that there is no time limit on this, we can just keep chipping away for a few months if necessary until it either pans out or doesn’t, but as long as it’s not actually published out of draft, it can’t be deleted 😆 Absurdum4242 (talk) 07:34, 9 September 2026 (UTC)