William Dobell Biography

Seven Treasures

William Dobell Biography

Sir William Dobell

(b 24/9/1989, Newcastle, NSW; d. 13/5/1970, Lake Macquarie, NSW) Painter

STUDIES

Apprentice architect to Wallace J. Porter, Newcastle, 1916-24; Julian Ashton’s School, Sydney (evening classes), 1924-29; Slade School, London, 1929; Holland, The Hague, 1930; the continent and London, independent study, 1931-39.

When Dobell returned to Sydney in 1939, after ten years abroad, his portrait and genre paintings added a new dimension to the stature of Australian painting. The assimilation of varied influences – the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt, satire and simplicity of Daumier, wit of Hogart, Renoir’s feathery brushstroke, and other features – appealed to all schools. The fact of having exhibited at the RA gained Dobell a cirtain conservative following, which remained until increasing numbers of returning Australian expatriates, and a growing body of migrant artists, claimed him as the figurehead of the Sydney modernist wartime movement.

The circumstances and pressures of the time, the life and environment of Sydney, soon gave his work a new, added vitality. With two other painters, James Cook and Joshua Smith, he engaged in war service, first in a camouflage unit and then in the Civil Construction Corps as a labourer before receiving an appointment as an official war artist. The CCC experience particularly provided a succession of portrait subjects that gave full scope to talents expressed with an underlying quality of Cockney whimsicality already evident in his pictures of London costermongers. His best portraits, The Billy Boy, The Strapper, Scotty Allan, The Cypriot, all resulted from this wartime period of inspiration.

In 1944 he made a final sensational break with local academic tradition by winning the 1943 Archibald prize with a portrait of his colleague, Joshua Smith. The notoriety resulting from this award made his name known throughout Australia, but it had an inhibiting effect on his work because of the disproportionate publicity attached to everything he painted afterwards. He was offered tempting commissions, many of which represented subjects quite alien to his temperament; after a life of comparative poverty in London for ten years, the sudden accession to fame and wealth did his work more harm than good.

In 1948 he attained further celebrity by winning the Archibald and Wynne prizes simultaneously, the Archibald with a baroque-styled portrait, Margaret Olley, the Wynne with a landscape, Storm Approaching, Wangi. He visited and worked in New Guinea, 1950-51, and on his return was commissioned by the Commonwealth Government to paint a landscape in celebration of Commonwealth Jubilee year.

Towards 1956 his health deteriorated and seemed in danger of total collapse; he celebrated his recovery with a third successful Archibald painting in 1959, the subject being his surgeon, Dr Edward McMahon. Dobell won the £1500 Australian Women’s Weekly portrait prize with a portrait of Helena Rubinstein in 1957, and Time magazine commissioned a cover portrait of the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. Robert G. Menzies, in 1960. These events were to be the precursors of great changes not only in Dobell’s own affairs but also in the local status of all artists; by 1962 the economic status of artists throughout Australia bore little relationship to the conditions of 1939. Dobell was affected rather more than his contemporaries.

In 1962 he had the experience of seeing pictures for which he would probably have accepted £50 at the time they were painted sold at auction for prices up to £7000. The crowning touch to Dobell’s career was a large retrospective exhibition held at the AGNSW in July 1965: it comprised 224 pictures from all periods.

The last years of his life were spent living alone in his house at Lake Macquarie, the only diversion from painting being the visits of his more intimate friends and drinks in the evening at the local pub. After his death the whole of his estate went to the creation of the Dobell Foundation.

REPRESENTED

NGA; AGNSW; AGSA; AGWA; MAGNT; NGV; QAG; QVMAG; TMAG; AWM; many regional galleries; uni. and other public collections.