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William Dobell Portrait of an Artist Painting of Joshua Smith |
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Painting
Title: Portrait of an Artist (Joshua Smith) 1943
Oil on Canvas - 107 x 76cm
William Dobell
Famous
Australian artists - Famous
Portrait Paintings
About the Portrait of an Artist Painting
William Dobell's 1943 portrait of the artist Joshua Smith won the Archibald prize,
but was contested by two artists that had entered and lost the prize (Mary Edwards
and Joseph Wolinski).
The battle in court was a very public battle, with
everyone having an opinion on the issue. It made Dobell a household name in Australia
and also made the Archibald prize in Sydney the most well known art competition
in the country.
The challenge was dismissed, but the stress of the Archibald
controversy took a toll on the health of William Dobell. He fled Sydney to the
idyllic surrounds of Wangi Wangi on Lake Macquarie, NSW.
"A sincere
artist is not one who makes a faithful attempt to put on to canvas what is in
front of him, but one tries to create something which is, in itself, a living
thing." William
Dobell Quote
 Joshua
Smith's parents wanted to buy "Portrait of an Artist" from William Dobell
after the controversy and the public spotlight it put on the family, but Dobell
refused to sell it to them as he thought they may just want to destroy the painting.
Instead, he sold it to Sir Edward Hayward.
In 1958 the work was burnt
in a fire at Hayward's home in Adelaide. The top half of the Joshua Smith painting
was destroyed beyond repair.
Sir Edward Hayward had the painting restored
in 1969 by the conservator Kenneth Malcolm, but it was a poor version of the portrait.
It kept none of the atmospheric magic of Dobell's original version of Joshua Smith
and could no longer be considered an original work by the artist.
"I
just wanted to show a man in a warm night light setting, and I wanted to work
in the sculptural setting - a light figure in a dark setting - so I built it up
as a sculptor builds up any form; I glazed my colors on to it." William
Dobell Quote
The famous Australian artist Brett Whiteley referenced
the Dobell Portrait of Joshua Smith in his Archibald winning 1978 self portrait
called Art,
Life, and the Other Thing.
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