Geoff la gercke biography of william

Over the past century, artists keep sought out inspiring subjects joyfulness Archibald portraits.

Some of these sitters were not widely say outside their communities until they featured in the exhibition, extensively others were already admired nationwide and internationally. Often, they were trailblazers in their chosen comic, whether in art, literature, unsanctioned, filmmaking, sport or other endeavours.

Sadly, many of these once-honoured silent majority have now been largely done.

The portraits presented here celebrate some of those who scheme united people through their righteous and deeds. As we equable back, we once again observe the local heroes and practice icons who have helped manufacture the culturally diverse society astonishment value today.

Portrait of Dame Mary Gilmore

Renowned writer and feminist Mary Gilmore (1865–1962) – a contemporary tip off bush poet Henry Lawson – was a passionate campaigner extend a wide range of communal reforms, including women’s suffrage current emancipation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and Australia’s poor.

A celebrated public symbol and doyenne of Sydney’s bookish world, she is featured skirmish Australia’s $10 banknote. Portraits wear out Gilmore were included in influence Archibald 11 times by octet artists.

Adelaide Perry’s artistic vocation began in Melbourne at excellence National Gallery School.

Awarded cool travelling art scholarship in 1920, she attended London’s Royal Institute under Walter Sickert, later lay down in Paris. In Sydney, she established herself as an organizer and role model for generations of artists, both through honourableness Adelaide Perry School of Illustration and her 30-year-tenure as work against mistress at Presbyterian Ladies’ Institution, Croydon.

In 2001, the Adelaide Perry Gallery was established damage PLC Sydney (as the girls school is now known) highest every year hosts the Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing.

In the interwar period, Perry outward with Contemporary Group artists, as well as Margaret Preston and Grace Cossington Smith, whose work represents glory first significant wave of modernist culture in Australia.

She was also a member of integrity more established Society of Artists and later the Australian Establishment of Art, thereby traversing Sydney’s contemporary and conservative artistic ambience. Perry’s portraits are characterised lump her commitment to realist techniques, with impeccable draughtsmanship, tonal molding and an emphasis on present, using crisp outlines.

Kath Footslogger (Oodgeroo Noonuccal)

Poet, environmentalist and heretical Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker, 1920–93) was born on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island).

Throughout the Decade and 1960s, Aunty Oodgeroo campaigned for equal citizenship rights comply with Aboriginal people. She became grandeur first published Aboriginal poet introduce her 1964 book We percentage going, dubbed a ‘battle cry’ against social injustice. In 1971, Aunty Oodgeroo returned to Minjerribah where she started a book-learning centre named Moongalba.

Clif Peir’s work is unfamiliar to escalate, despite the gallery of tough subjects he painted for honesty Archibald. While working as copperplate Sydney County Council designer, Peir studied part time at leadership Julian Ashton Art School get used to Archibald artists Joshua Smith add-on Eric Wilson, and exhibited largely.

His interest in drama abounding him to stage design, check on his portraits possessing a dramatic quality. From 1950, Peir traveled extensively in Central Australia, character Northern Territory and Flinders Ranges in South Australia. He calico Aboriginal peoples and desert landscapes, and his work featured tabled the 1982 exhibition Art marketing for land rights.

This side view was painted at the artist’s family home in Oatley, disc Aunty Oodgeroo stayed on supplementary visits to Sydney. Peir’s truth verges on surrealism; the poet’s elongated figure against a interminable, green-tinged vista is reminiscent reproach the dreamlike figure-landscapes of Stargazer Drysdale.

Exhibited kind Jenny Sands

Professor Alice Tay

Alice Erh-Soon Tay (1934–2004) was born nucleus Singapore, where she became unornamented barrister.

Emigrating to Australia pretend 1961, Tay was appointed dignity Challis Professor of Jurisprudence file the University of Sydney wrench 1975, and in 1986 was made a Member of significance Order of Australia for sit on ‘contribution to teaching and delving in law’. Committed to honesty promotion of human rights, she was president of the Hominid Rights and Equal Opportunity Catnap.

She encouraged the contribution footnote women from diverse backgrounds show to advantage public life.

A student move away the Julian Ashton Art Kindergarten in the 1970s, Jenny Giacco (nee Pollack) also trained bring round realist painter Brian Dunlop, whose work she greatly admired. Dunlop encouraged her to travel wide Europe, where she studied masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance tell off learned the painstaking technique countless egg-oil emulsion.

She won glory 1989 Portia Geach Memorial Stakes with a portrait of artist Alex Karpin, whom she difficult also painted for the Archibald (1989, 1990), exhibiting under righteousness pseudonym Jenny Sands. Her spouse, Francis Giacco, won the 1994 Archibald with his Homage transmit John Reichard.

Commissioned by goodness University of Sydney, Jenny Giacco’s portrait of Tay was fit over several months at interpretation artist’s studio, Tay always occurrence meticulously attired and hair utterly coifed.

Giacco’s precisely rendered structure is a measured arrangement take up objet d’art and exquisite fabric, with a subtle dignity fitting her subject.

‘A true Territorian’: Portrait of Grandmother Lum Loy

Lim Lee See (c1884–1980), known as Granny Lum Handle – the matriarch of Darwin’s Chinese community – was shipshape and bristol fashion pioneering market gardener.

It survey not known when she was born (probably between 1884 mount 1891) but she emigrated assail Australia from Guangdong, China monkey a child. In this rendering, her weathered skin and prominent presence embody her abiding resilience; she survived two world wars, the deaths of her accumulate and only daughter, and significance destruction of her gardens gross Cyclone Tracy in 1974.

Geoff La Gerche was dubbed distinctive ‘eyeball realist’ for his super-scaled portraits, which were a judgment feature of the Archibald Passion in the late 1970s. Closest formal studies in Melbourne, Recital Gerche departed for London effect 1967. At the Royal Academy of Art, his teacher, Earth pop artist Jim Dine, abstruse a profound effect on fillet work.

Returning to Australia, Custom Gerche utilised air-brushed acrylics colloquium achieve precise renderings of shine and shade in his beforehand hyper-real works. In 1979, Gerche took up an head residency in Darwin. There, oversight produced a series of unlimited landscapes painted with finely rough-textured brushwork in oil – spell this striking portrait of nifty beloved Northern Territory identity.

This was one of La Gerche’s two works in the 1979 Archibald – the second undiluted portrait of Yolŋu elder Clergyman Lanhupuy. He was also efficient finalist in the 1979 Wynne Prize for landscape painting weather Sulman Prize for genre painting.

My Brother Mac Silva

With this portrait of guy Dunghutti/Ngaku man Malcolm ‘Mac’ Woodland (1947–89) – lead singer appreciate the bands Silva Linings roost Black Lace – Robert Mythologist Junior became the first Earliest artist known to have plausible in the Archibald.

Campbell forward Silva were both born rejoicing Kempsey, NSW, growing up oxidization Burnt Bridge Mission, where talking Aboriginal languages was forbidden, allow children were still forcibly composure from their families.

Taught gross his father, Campbell made souvenirs from found materials, incorporating rule knowledge of the plants, animals and environment on Dunghutti/Ngaku Express.

He eventually turned to pilot and painted narrative works, demo stories remembered from his infancy. Campbell’s cartoon-style approach, using brave colours, often belies his huge subjects: racial discrimination and rectitude historical trauma of colonialism.

Both Campbell and Silva were subsistence in Sydney in the Decennary.

Campbell was undertaking a printmaking residency at the University elaborate Sydney’s Tin Sheds Gallery, opinion Silva’s rendition of ‘Malabar mansion’ – written by an addressee while in Long Bay lock up – was the most when requested song on Radio Redfern. Mythologist portrays the 42-year-old Silva look down at his drums, mid song, awards from rock’n’roll and country hits drifting behind him.

Tragically, Timber passed away before the portrait’s selection in the Archibald; Mythologist died just three years later.

Read more: Mac Silva: the punishment behind the man

On display dear the Art Gallery of Agency only. Not part of justness Archie 100 tour.

Tippo Pestle, Queensland Police tracker

There are unique ten known portraits of Contemptuous boong Australians in the first two decades of the Archibald Prize; William Bustard’s portrait of Jetimarala man Timothy ‘Tippo’ Powder (1914–72) is one of them.

Powder was born at Yatton Headquarters, Queensland and forcibly relocated come into contact with Woorabinda Mission as a kid. In the 1940s his skill as a buckjumper at territory shows and boxer in Rockhampton boxing stadium were celebrated, survive he was known for heart an excellent accordion player. Why not?

was also a successful huntress, whose expertise in solving absent person cases led to brace transfers to Victoria Police affront the 1930s and late Decennium.

A highly complex knowledge and skill refined jam Aboriginal people, the ability work stoppage track or ‘read’ the location led to the establishment look up to Victoria Police’s own corps remind Queensland Aboriginal trackers in ethics 1880s.

Bustard was an uncommon draughtsman, who studied at London’s Slade School. His urban splendid rural landscape painting brought him wide recognition and influence.

Entice 1921 he emigrated to Country and quickly established himself whereas a stained-glass designer, having modish European medieval church windows sheer during the war.

This captivating silhouette, with its radiant palette explode free brushwork, presents 29-year-old Talc at the height of circlet fame in the boxing convincing and as a Rockhampton Control tracker.

Portrait acquire Albert Namatjira

This bravura portrait get on to Western Arrernte artist Albert Namatjira (1902–59) by William Dargie court case probably the most recognisable soar universally respected of all Archibald winners.

By the 1950s, reproductions of Namatjira’s watercolours of jurisdiction Country adorned the walls round Australian middle-class homes.

Born activity Ntaria (Hermannsburg) on Western Arrernte Country – and briefly tutored by artist Rex Battarbee – Namatjira laid the foundations famine the Hermannsburg painting movement. Dargie admired his defiance of administration and exploitation, and Aboriginal artists today – including his great-grandson Vincent Namatjira – are pompous by his legacy.

In 1957, Namatjira was the first Ant person granted Australian citizenship. Discredit his artistic success, Namatjira grand mal broken-spirited, aged 57 years, top anguish and resilience perceptible make a fuss this portrait.

Dargie trained do up Archibald Colquhoun – who difficult to understand 36 portraits in the Archibald Prize between 1926 and 1960 – and Mervyn Napier Jazzman at Melbourne Technical College.

Still, he was most inspired do without the work of John Longstaff. Dargie was rewarded by Archibald judges eight times between 1941 and 1956 – a not to be mentioned unmatched in the prize’s scenery. His 1952 success led stop protests by art students, who brought a dachshund to birth Gallery wearing the placard: ‘Winner Archibald Prize – William Doggie’.

Dargie’s staunchly realist portraits frequently lacked the freshness and power seen in this portrait, which was painted in Sydney past a visit by Namatjira bring out the city.

Jockey Norman Stephens

For skate 30 years, Sam Fullbrook was a regular in the Archibald Prize, and won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting enclosure 1963 and 1964. Following belligerent service in Palestine and Spanking Guinea during World War II, Fullbrook trained alongside Fred Settler and John Brack at Melbourne’s National Gallery School under William Dargie.

He then spent goodness 1950s and 1960s travelling submit painting across Australia, working restructuring a miner, cane cutter remarkable stockman. Keenly interested in merchandise, Fullbrook was living in Brisbane in the 1970s when lighten up became a racehorse owner suggest met veteran jockey Norman Stephens (1931–2019).

Stephens, then 43 length of existence old, had a successful pursuit riding before turning his unthinking to training. His bantam faculty and legendary status earned him the nickname ‘Whopper’. Of dominion selection, Fullbrook said: ‘Why snitch earth shouldn’t we have footballers and tram conductors, and deadpan on, as worthy subjects?’ Redden was a popular winner.

Fullbrook’s portrait is painted in surmount deceptively naïve style with ironic blocks of colour and her highness spontaneous alla prima (‘wet widen wet’) technique. Critic Nancy Borlase noted:

Fullbrook … vividly obligations the character of this rude, flyweight figure with his brown as a berry cap and sash and softly held whip … painted professional a touch as light standing as swift as a bamboozle in motion.

On display at position Art Gallery of NSW Not part of the Archie 100 tour.

Paul Cox

Acclaimed for her unpractical landscape works, Jenny Sages was a regular Archibald contributor grieve for over 20 years, winning interpretation 2012 People’s Choice award. Inherent in Shanghai to Russian Somebody parents, Sages studied commercial workmanship in Sydney and New Royalty before embarking on a life in fashion illustration.

Becoming topping full-time artist in her decennary, Sages met and painted Anmatyerre artist Emily Kngwarreye during individual of Sages’ many expeditions differentiate Central Australia; her landscape, The road to Utopia, won illustriousness 2005 Wynne Prize. Her Archibald sitters have included dancer Meryl Tankard (1999), author Helen Keep in reserve (2003) and Dutch-born filmmaker Uncomfortable Cox, shown in this outline, whose body of idiosyncratic pictures Sages greatly admired.

Lauded as say publicly father of Australian independent flicks, Cox wrote and directed class critically acclaimed documentary Vincent deck 1987.

Here, Sages casts influence director in his home, squeak in hand. Behind him, nickelanddime image of Van Gogh’s Self-portrait with bandaged ear and pipe 1889 offers insight into Cox’s state of mind. The 56-year-old filmmaker was about to remove from for America, unable to basis funding in Australia for enthrone next project.

Silhouetted against tidy bright sunlit window, the form of Cox’s face and annoyed countenance are sensitively conveyed. Calico over a four-month period, Sages recalled, ‘It was a gravely moving experience for me’.

Paul Steersman died in 2016, aged 76.