Dick Watkins was born in 1937 in Sydney, Australia.

As an artist, Dick Watkins is largely self-taught, although between 1955 and 1958 he occasionally attended the Julian Ashton Art School and East Sydney Technical College in Sydney.

Dick Watkins held his first solo exhibition at Barry Stern Gallery in 1963 and from 1966-69 was a driving force amongst the artists of Sydney’s Central Street Gallery. In 1968 Watkins was a key participant in the National Gallery of Victoria’s landmark exhibition, The Field, the first major survey exhibition of colour field painting and geometric abstraction in Australia. In 1970 Watkins began a decade long association with Chandler Coventry, exhibiting at the Hargrave Street Gallery and at Coventry Gallery. In 1985, while associated with Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Watkins represented Australia at the XVIII Biennial de Sao Paulo in Brazil. In 1989 the Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery celebrated Watkins’ significant contribution to Australian art with a major retrospective exhibition and in 1993 the National Gallery of Australia mounted the exhibition DickWatkinsincontext: an exhibitionfrom the collection of the NationalGallery.

A pioneer of abstract painting in Australia, Watkins is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, most regional gallery collections and numerous distinguished corporate and private art collections in Australia.

Dick Watkins lives and works in Sydney, Australia.