If we consider the several components manifested in a work of art ... foremost is man himself, the artist ... but equally important is the use of his intuitive faculties - the influence of the unconscious.

Tony Tuckson 1964

It is for his later paintings such as 'White lines (vertical) on ultramarine' that Tony Tuckson is admired as one of Australia's finest abstract expressionists. From the late 1950s, he used increasingly simplified forms and restricted colour to concentrate on the act of painting. While absorbing developments in European and American abstraction and admiring the work of fellow Australian artist Ian Fairweather, Tuckson's approach is perhaps most strongly allied to his lifelong interest in Aboriginal and Melanesian art.