DOBELL, Sir WILLIAM (1899-1970)

**PRICE ON APPLICATION**
 
"Study For Kanana" (c.1950)
oil on board
14 x 29cm
signed lower left
*private collection, Sydney

Dobell is arguably the most renowned Australian portrait & landscape artist of the 20th century. Dobell won the Archibald Prize, Australia's premier award for portrait artists on three occasions, including his controversial portrait of Joshua Smith. He studied at the Sydney Art School, with Henry Gibbons as his teacher. In 1929, Dobell was awarded the Society of Artists' Travelling Scholarship and travelled to England to the Slade School of Fine Art where he studied under Philip Wilson Steer and Henry Tonks. In 1930, he won first prize for figure painting at Slade. In 1931 he moved on to Belgium & Paris, and after 10 years in Europe returned to Australia. In 1939, he began as a part-time teacher at East Sydney Technical College. After the outbreak of war, he was drafted into the Civil Construction Corps of the Allied Works Council in 1941 as a camouflage painter; he later became an unofficial war artist. In 1941, he was the centre of Australia’s greatest art controversy, when his Archibald Prize-winning portrait of Joshua Smith was contested in a court case, which Dobell ultimately triumphed, but seriously affected his life afterwards. In 1944, he had his first solo exhibition including public collection loans at the inauguration of the David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney. In 1949, he visited New Guinea as a guest of Sir Edward Hallstrom with writers Frank Clune and Colin Simpson. The trip inspired a new series of tiny, brilliantly coloured landscapes. In 1950, he revisited New Guinea; on his return to Australia he continued to paint scenes of New Guinea, as well as portraits. In 1964, Dobell exhibited in a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the first monograph of his work was written by James Gleeson.