DOBELL, Sir WILLIAM (1899-1970)

"Sketch For Winge (Wahgi) Valley, Papua New Guinea" (1949)
ink on paper
11 x 15.5cm
signed lower right
*gift of the artist, 1954
*thence by descent
*private collection, Brisbane
 
Dobell was arguably the most renowned Australian portrait and landscape artist of the 20th century. He won the Archibald Prize, Australia's premier award for portrait artists on three occasions, including his controversial portrait of Joshua Smith. The Dobell Prize is named in his honour. He studied at the Sydney Art School (which later became the Julian Ashton Art School), with Henry Gibbons as his teacher. He was influenced by George Washington Lambert. 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 and also travelled to Poland. In 1931 he moved on to Belgium and Paris, and after 10 years in Europe returned to Australia – taking with him a new Expressionist style of painting as opposed to his earlier naturalistic approach. 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. 
 
This piece comes from his important series of works completed on his first tour of Papua New Guinea from May to August, 1949. In an endeavour to escape publicity after his 1948 Archibald Prize win, Dobell left Australia with his friend, writer Colin Simpson, in the company of philanthropist and trustee of Taronga Park Zoo, Sir Edward Hallstrom. This sketch was gifted to a friend for helping him with his David Jones Exhibition in February, 1954. One of 27 guests flown by Hallstrom from Australia to Port Moresby and on to his experimental sheep station and bird of paradise sanctuary at Nondugl in the central highlands of New Guinea, it was the first time Dobell had ever stepped inside an aircraft and despite initial nerves, the artist was captivated by everything he saw. For the following three months he drew and painted watercolours of the landscape, village life and the highlanders themselves, adorned with magnificent bird of paradise plumes, intricately constructed jewellery and elaborately painted faces and bodies.