Arch(i)etypal

A co-founder of the ‘Bulletin’, a talented and tireless sub-editor, a supporter of Australian writers (championing Henry Lawson, Banjo Patterson and Louis Becke), a self-confessed francophile (changing his birth name from John Feltham to Jules François and … recreating his family history to match), a husband to a woman whose maiden name was (unfortunately and aptly) Frankenstein, a bon vivant and excellent cook (his speciality was a chicken casserole), today Jules François Archibald is best-remembered for the money he left to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1919 for the establishment of an annual prize for portrait painting.

Despite being a trustee of the Art Gallery, Archibald’s interest in art was not primarily concerned with encouraging young artists. Rather, in the same way that his journalistic endeavours focussed on inclusiveness and the many and varied members of the Australian population and their stories, he wanted an ongoing visual representation – an Australian pantheon – that captured local character.  

This year the Archibald Prize celebrates its one hundredth year and continues to be awarded for “the best portrait, preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters Science or Politics, painted by an artist resident in Australia during the twelve months preceding the date fixed by the trustees for sending in the pictures”. Over the century the prize money has increased from £400 to $100,000.

The ‘centenary’ prize was awarded this month to Melbourne artist Peter Wegner for his portrait of centenarian artist Guy Warren. From 938 entries, whittled down to 52 finalists, the sixth time finalist was a unanimous winner. His portrait of a previous winner (Warren won in 1985 for his portrait of artist Bert Flugelman) was described by AGNSW director Michael Brand as a: “tender portrait of Guy Warren [providing] a moving insight into the artist’s state of mind as he navigates his 101^st year with characteristic grace and good humour… Who wouldn’t want to look this content at the age of 100?”.

Warren, who coincidentally started his working life at ‘The Bulletin’ magazine, has been an Archibald subject seven times, including a self-portrait in 1996. Wegner chose Warren as his sitter as part of his ‘Centenarian Project’ which he began in 2013 with a drawing of his aunt Rita. This project explores the maintenance of human dignity and the question of what it means to have a productive and meaningful life as we age. Over the past eight years, Wegner has drawn 100 Centenarians, living independently and in low-care residential accommodation, in both Victoria and New South Wales, completing each drawing from life in a morning or afternoon with little alteration.

Although a favourite gallery experience for the public, over the years the ‘Archibald’ has not been without controversy and even resulted in court cases – the most famous of which concerned Dobell’s winning portrait of Joshua Smith in 1943 which was challenged on the grounds of it being a caricature rather than a portrait. Other controversies have related to John Bloomfield’s 1975 painting of Tim Burstall which was disqualified on the grounds that it was painted from a photograph, rather than from life; and Evert Ploeg’s 1997 painting of ‘Bananas in Pyjamas’ which was deemed ineligible as it was not a painting of a person. This year’s competition was not controversial and, with a record number of entries, was the first time that there was gender parity between the finalist artists.

Jules François Archibald’s interest was in visually celebrating and remembering Australians. And, notwithstanding the public’s clear enjoyment in seeing and critiquing representations of familiar members of society – as well as the Archibald Prize there is also the People’s Choice Award, Packing Room Prize, Salon des Refusés (and its People’s Choice Award), and the television series Ahn Do’s ‘Brush with Fame’ –  portraiture as an art form has declined in popularity due, in part, to the widescale use of photography and the advent of modernism. As a result, apart from specialist portrait galleries, portraits have largely been overlooked in the collection policies of public art galleries.

However, does ‘Archibald fame’ result in career recognition and inclusion in public collections? Considering this, it is interesting to examine which (if any) works of art have been acquired by Archibald winners over the past decade by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia, and the National Gallery of Victoria.

Surprisingly, the answer is very few. Melbourne-based Louise Hearman’s first Archibald entry, a portrait of Barry Humphries, in 2016 is the most ‘collected’ of the Archibald winners with substantial holdings in all three public collections. Her dark, dreamlike paintings often have a figurative element but would not be considered ‘portraits’. Her works in public collections date from the 1980s and 1990s without a new acquisition since her Archibald win.

New South Wales artist, Tim Storrier’s self-portrait, ‘The historic wayfarer (after Bosch)’, won in 2012 but is once again not representative of his mysterious and poignant landscapes that highlight the melancholy and vastness of the Australian outback or his extraordinary ability to capture the incandescence of fire. As a senior artist, the public holdings of his works are not recent and, particularly at the NGV, date to the 1980s when Fred Genis, a master lithographer from Holland who settled in Australia after a career in both Europe and New donated a large number of lithographs including a self-portrait lithograph by the artist.

Newcastle artist Nigel Milsom (2015) is well-represented in the AGNSW collection with six works – including a portrait from 2012 ‘Untitled (Kerry)’ – but not in other public galleries. Del Kathryn Barton, a two- time winner (2008 and 2013) has two figurative works in the AGNSW and the 75 collages from her 2017 series ‘inside another land’ at the NGV. Sydney artist Fiona Lowry (2014) has one figurative work in the NGV collection ‘What have you to confide to me’ (2010), a gift in 2018 through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, but is not in other collections. Some winners are not represented at all in public collections. There are no works by Mitch Cairns (2017), Yvette Coppersmith (2018), or Tony Costa (2019) in any of the three major public galleries.

Vincent Namatjira, winner of both the Archibald and People’s Choice awards in 2020 has two works at the AGNSW – ‘Studio self-portrait’ (2018) and the Archibald winning ‘Stand strong for who you are’ (2020) – and one work at the NGV, ‘Australia in black and white’ (2018). With his focus on people – Namatjira has recently shown portraits of the Queen, James Cook, Australian Prime Ministers, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin – he comes closest to an ‘Archibald artist’ who is recognised and collected for his portraiture. (Due to copyright restrictions, the NGV work can be viewed at: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/142346/ and the AGNSW works at: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/?artist_id=namatjira-vincent)

And, this year’s winner, Peter Wegner, has only a simple sketch from 2012 at the AGNSW but no works in either the NGA or NGV. Examples of his portrait painting ability can be seen in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery at: https://www.portrait.gov.au/portraits.php?i=both&p=768 Interestingly, his daughter Lydia, an abstract inkjet print artist, has two series of three works each from 2013 (Folded colour) and 2017 (Swing) at the NGV.

Delving deeper into the NGV’s collection history, there is only one work that references the Archibald Prize. Painted in 1951 by Louis Kahan, it was an Archibald entry but not a winner. The ‘Portrait of Max Meldrum’ entered the collection in 2002, presented through the NGV Foundation by NGV Fellows Louis and Lily Kahan. Kahan (1905-2002) was an Austrian-born artist who arrived in Australia following World War Two. His long career (worthy of its own blogpost) included fashion design, illustration for magazines and journals, drawing, printmaking and painting. He won the Archibald Prize in 1962 with his portrait of writer Patrick White and is represented by 63 works in the NGV collection – most of them sketches of his contemporaries which were given to the gallery in 1963 by ‘The Age’ newspaper.

Max Meldrum was a fitting subject for Kahan’s portrait. A Scottish-born Australian artist and art teacher, he was best known as the founder of Australian tonalism, a style of painting that was popular in Melbourne during the interwar period. Meldrum had won the Archibald Prize twice – in 1939 for his portrait of politician George John Bell (now in the collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery) and again in 1940 for his portrait of Dr John Forbes Cock (now in the collection of St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne).

 Kahan’s painting of Meldrum has some eerie resonances with Wegner’s painting of Warren. Senior artists, seated, hands folded, contemplative expressions, captured by their juniors. With a focus on heads and hands – the tools of their professions – we have a real sense of their creative personas.

However, it would be interesting to hear Meldrum’s views on the prize today with its equal gender mix. In 1938 when Nora Heysen became the first woman to win the prize, Meldrum said: “Men and women are differently constituted. Women are more closely attached to the physical things of life, and to expect them to do some things equally as well as men is sheer lunacy […] A great artist has to tread a lonely road. He becomes great only by exerting himself to the limit of his strength the whole time. I believe that such a life is unnatural and impossible for a women.” He must have felt relieved when he was the prize winner immediately following Heysen!

After an illustrious editorial career, and several bouts of mental illness requiring hospitalisation, Jules François Archibald launched a monthly magazine in 1906. Named the ‘Lone Hand’, the title derived from Archibald’s adventures in ‘frontier Australia’ during his younger years where he encountered all manner of local prospectors and international visitors seeking fortunes and eking out their livings. Archibald was fascinated by people and their experiences – and particularly the solitary journey that makes creativity possible. Given the current marginalisation of portraiture in the art world, perhaps artists who explore this genre are best thought of as ‘lone hands’.

Tonight, ABC television will present the first in a three part series, ‘Finding the Archibald’. Hosted by Australian actor, Rachel Griffiths, the programs will explore the one hundred year history of the prize. I can think of no better presenter than Griffiths who has demonstrated a remarkable ability to portray different characters. Further to this, Griffiths husband, Andrew Taylor is an artist with a work in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. Taylor’s elegant, meditative, vibrant ‘floral’ abstract work gives a fleeting sense of time and place – it could not be further removed from portraiture.