Clifton Pugh
Encyclopedia
Clifton Ernest Pugh AO
, (17 December 1924 – 14 October 1990) was an Australian artist and three-time winner of Australia's Archibald Prize
. He was strongly influenced by German Expressionism
, and was known for his landscapes
and portraiture
. Important early group exhibitions include The Antipodeans, the exhibition for which Bernard Smith
drafted a manifesto in support of Australian figurative painting
, an exhibition in which Arthur Boyd
, David Boyd
, John Brack
, Robert Dickerson
, John Perceval
and Charles Blackman
showed; a joint exhibition with Barry Humphries
, in which the two responded to Dada
ism; and Group Four at the Victorian Artists Society Gallery
with Pugh, John Howley
, Don Laycock and Lawrence Daws
.
Pugh was a pioneering environmental activist in Australia.
Pugh was made an Officer of the Order of Australia
in 1985 for service to Australian Art. In 1990 he was appointed as the Australian War Memorial
's official artist at the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Gallipoli landing.
. Both Pugh's parents were amateur painters, and as a young man during the 1940s Pugh attended evening classes at the Swinburne Technical College to study cartoon drawing. Two years later whilst living in Adelaide
he took evening classes in life drawing
at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts.
He served with the AIF
in New Guinea
and Japan
from 1943-1947. Pugh killed a Japanese soldier during fighting in New Guinea
, and killed Japanese prisoners of war, an act which led him to reject war in all its forms.
After serving in World War II
, with the financial support of the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Training Scheme, Pugh returned to Melbourne
and enrolled in the National Gallery of Victoria Art School
.
, 50 kilometres (31.1 mi) northeast of Melbourne, which he named Dunmoochin.
Pugh at first camped on the site, then built a wattle-and-daub
shack. He was joined on the place, to which he added in mud brick, by Marlene ("of whom he painted some of his best portraits"), who became his second wife. They had two children, Shane and Dailan, and Pugh added to the house to accommodate the family's needs.
Artists, potters and others also settled at the site. In order to protect and jointly control the area they formed the Dunmoochin Artists Co-operative with a constitution of 13 articles. It was not a commune
in any sense of the word except that the titles
were communally held.
When the co-operative eventually disbanded each member took a section of the land. Artists who worked or resided at Dunmoochin have included
Rick Amor
,
Frank Hodgkinson
,
John Howley
,
Helen Laycock,
Peter Laycock,
Mirka Mora
,
Kevin Nolan,
John Olsen
,
John Perceval
,
Alma Shanahan,
Albert Tucker
,
Frank Werther,
Fred Williams
and Peter and Chris Wiseman.
Pugh became a pacifist
during World War II, while on active service, and retained this position during the Vietnam War. He joined the Labor Party
to campaign for the end of Australia's involvement in that War.
The marriage to Marlene ended in 1969, they divorced in 1971. In 1970 Pugh met Judith. He became very well known, as he and Judith used his status as a painter to improve that of the ALP. They did this in order to ensure the election of the ALP as Pugh was an anti war activist, horrified in retrospect by his own murder of Japanese prisoners of war. They separated in 1980 and divorced in 1981.
For some years Pugh lived with Adrianne Strampp, who trained as a painter.
The Story of Modern Art (1941) while recuperating in hospital in New Guinea during World War II. Pugh's primary influence was Wassily Kandinsky
: "I can see Kandinsky in everything I do." He was also influenced by Russell Drysdale
and Sidney Nolan
.
Pugh travelled across the Nullarbor Plain
to Perth
in 1954 then the Kimberley in 1956. These journeys led to radical changes in his style. Pugh encountered indigenous Australian art for the first time and began utilizing incision, cross-hatching
and collage
. The work inspired by these journeys was part of the Group Four Exhibits in 1955 and 1956.
In 1959 Pugh wrote to Bernard Smith:
Close observation of nature and its cyclical and savage rhythms became a constant theme in Pugh's painting.
Pugh held his first solo show in 1957 at the Victorian Artists Society
Gallery, where he displayed landscapes and portraits. The show was well received by critics. Col. Aubrey Gibson
, chairman of the National Gallery, was an early patron, as were a group of businessmen led by David Yencken and the businessman Andrew Grimwade
. Pugh joined the stable of the Sydney art dealer Rudy Komon. Komon paid his artists a stipend, balanced against sales of their work, and this generosity made them very loyal, as it gave them stability and freedom from daily money worries.
Pugh had consistent official support in the crucial early stages of his career. His inclusion in the 1961 Whitechapel and 1963 Tate
exhibitions of Australian art gave him international exposure. In 1966 Komon arranged a one-man show for Pugh at the Artists' Guild Gallery in St Louis in the United States; The Commonwealth Institute
staged a retrospective of his work in 1970. He was represented in London by Andre Kalman, who showed him in 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1979, and with the Athol Gallery on the Isle of Man.
The Historic Memorials Committee bought his 1964 portrait of the Governor-General Lord De L'Isle
and his 1972 portrait of Gough Whitlam
.
Pugh's fame as an artist grew in the 1970s following the print publication of two radio plays by Ivan Smith: Death of a Wombat and Dingo King, both works featured Pugh's drawings and paintings.
Stanley Hayter
for three months in Paris in 1970. He brought Hayter’s oil viscosity printing technique back to Australia the same year. Pugh and John Olsen purchased an etching
press and operated it at Dunmoochin. In 1971 Pugh invited Frank Hodgkinson
to move to Dunmoochin and Pugh's "enthusiasm proved to be a major stimulus for Hodgkinson's printmaking."
who refused to implement the policy Pugh and his fellow committee members had crafted and then taken through the processes of the Victorian and Federal ALP conferences to become official ALP arts policy. Pugh resigned from the Council in 1974.
Pugh also donated Dunmoochin land to the Victorian Conservation Trust (now Trust for Nature) in 1989. Two plants of national significance have been recorded on this land.
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
, (17 December 1924 – 14 October 1990) was an Australian artist and three-time winner of Australia's Archibald Prize
Archibald Prize
The Archibald Prize is regarded as the most important portraiture prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after a bequest from J. F. Archibald, the editor of The Bulletin who died in 1919...
. He was strongly influenced by German Expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
, and was known for his landscapes
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
and portraiture
Portrait painting
Portrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. Beside human beings, animals, pets and even inanimate objects can be chosen as the subject for a portrait...
. Important early group exhibitions include The Antipodeans, the exhibition for which Bernard Smith
Bernard William Smith
Bernard William Smith was an Australian art historian, art critic and academic.-Biography:Smith was born in Balmain, Sydney to Charles Smith and Rose Anne Tierney on 3 October 1916. In 1941, he married his first wife, Kate Challis, who died in 1989. Smith married his second wife, Margaret Forster,...
drafted a manifesto in support of Australian figurative painting
Figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...
, an exhibition in which Arthur Boyd
Arthur Boyd
Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd, AC, OBE was one of the leading Australian painters of the late 20th Century. A member of the prominent Boyd artistic dynasty in Australia, his relatives included painters, sculptors, architects or other arts professionals. His sister Mary Boyd married John Perceval,...
, David Boyd
David Boyd (artist)
David Fielding Gough Boyd, OAM was an Australian artist, and a member of the Boyd artistic dynasty.-Boyd family artistic dynasty:...
, John Brack
John Brack
John Brack was an Australian painter, and a member of the Antipodeans group.-Life:...
, Robert Dickerson
Robert Dickerson
Robert Dickerson is an Australian figurative painter and former member of the Antipodeans group of artists. Dickerson is one of Australia's most recognised figurative artists and one of a generation of influential artists who include Ray Crooke, Charles Blackman, Laurence Hope, Margaret Olley and...
, John Perceval
John Perceval
John de Burgh Perceval AO was a well-known Australian artist. Perceval was the last surviving member of a group known as the Angry Penguins who redefined Australian art in the 1940s...
and Charles Blackman
Charles Blackman
Charles Blackman is one of the best known Australian artists still living today, especially for the famous Schoolgirl and Alice in Wonderland series of the 1950s...
showed; a joint exhibition with Barry Humphries
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...
, in which the two responded to Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
ism; and Group Four at the Victorian Artists Society Gallery
Victorian Artists Society
Victorian Artists Society established in 1856 in Melbourne, Australia promotes artistic education and exhibition in Australia. Fore-runner of the Victorian Academy of Arts, founded in 1870. In 1888 the Australian Artist's Association amalgamated with the Victorian Academy of Arts to form the...
with Pugh, John Howley
John Howley
John Howley is an Australian painter whose core work is related to the Fantastic Art genre. - Life :Howley was born in Melbourne and studied at the National Gallery School of Art in Melbourne under Murray Griffin. In 1954 and again in 1956 he exhibited with Group Four, which established his...
, Don Laycock and Lawrence Daws
Lawrence Daws
Lawrence Daws is an Australian painter and printmaker, who works in the media of watercolour, drawing, screenprints, etchings and monotypes.In the 1980s he started making computer prints, and was probably the first artist to use this medium....
.
Pugh was a pioneering environmental activist in Australia.
Pugh was made an Officer of the Order of Australia
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
in 1985 for service to Australian Art. In 1990 he was appointed as the Australian War Memorial
Australian War Memorial
The Australian War Memorial is Australia's national memorial to the members of all its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died or participated in the wars of the Commonwealth of Australia...
's official artist at the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Gallipoli landing.
Early life
Pugh was born in Richmond, VictoriaRichmond, Victoria
Richmond is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra...
. Both Pugh's parents were amateur painters, and as a young man during the 1940s Pugh attended evening classes at the Swinburne Technical College to study cartoon drawing. Two years later whilst living in Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
he took evening classes in life drawing
Figure drawing
In art, a figure drawing is a study of the human form in its various shapes and body postures - sitting, standing or even sleeping. It is a study or stylized depiction of the human form, with the line and form of the human figure as the primary objective, rather than the subject person. It is a...
at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts.
He served with the AIF
Australian Imperial Force
The Australian Imperial Force was the name given to all-volunteer Australian Army forces dispatched to fight overseas during World War I and World War II.* First Australian Imperial Force * Second Australian Imperial Force...
in New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
from 1943-1947. Pugh killed a Japanese soldier during fighting in New Guinea
New Guinea campaign
The New Guinea campaign was one of the major military campaigns of World War II.Before the war, the island of New Guinea was split between:...
, and killed Japanese prisoners of war, an act which led him to reject war in all its forms.
After serving in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, with the financial support of the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Training Scheme, Pugh returned to Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
and enrolled in the National Gallery of Victoria Art School
National Gallery of Victoria Art School
The National Gallery of Victoria Art School , associated with the National Gallery of Victoria, was founded in 1867. It was the leading centre for academic art training in Australia until about 1910. Among its luminaries, the school was headed by John Brack from 1962-68 and Sir William Dargie was...
.
Personal life
Pugh married three times: to June Byford, Marlene Harvey and Judith Ley. In 1951, after his marriage to June ended, Pugh bought 15 acres (60,702.9 m²) of bushland near Cottles BridgeCottles Bridge, Victoria
Cottles Bridge is a town in Victoria, Australia, 30 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Nillumbik...
, 50 kilometres (31.1 mi) northeast of Melbourne, which he named Dunmoochin.
Pugh at first camped on the site, then built a wattle-and-daub
Wattle and daub
Wattle and daub is a composite building material used for making walls, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw...
shack. He was joined on the place, to which he added in mud brick, by Marlene ("of whom he painted some of his best portraits"), who became his second wife. They had two children, Shane and Dailan, and Pugh added to the house to accommodate the family's needs.
Artists, potters and others also settled at the site. In order to protect and jointly control the area they formed the Dunmoochin Artists Co-operative with a constitution of 13 articles. It was not a commune
Commune
Commune may refer to:In society:* Commune, a human community in which resources are shared* Commune , a township or municipality* One of the Communes of France* An Italian Comune...
in any sense of the word except that the titles
Torrens title
Torrens title is a system of land title where a register of land holdings maintained by the state guarantees an indefeasible title to those included in the register...
were communally held.
When the co-operative eventually disbanded each member took a section of the land. Artists who worked or resided at Dunmoochin have included
Rick Amor
Rick Amor
Rick Amor is an Australian artist and figurative painter. He was an official war artist.-Life and work:Rick Amor was born in Frankston, Victoria, Australia. He has a certificate in art from the Caulfield Institute of Technology, and Associate Diploma in Painting from the National Gallery School,...
,
Frank Hodgkinson
Frank Hodgkinson
Frank Hodgkinson AM was a noted Australian printmaker, painter and graphic artist.-Life:Hodgkinson was educated at Fort Street High School and after leaving began work as a commercial artist and newspaper illustrator...
,
John Howley
John Howley
John Howley is an Australian painter whose core work is related to the Fantastic Art genre. - Life :Howley was born in Melbourne and studied at the National Gallery School of Art in Melbourne under Murray Griffin. In 1954 and again in 1956 he exhibited with Group Four, which established his...
,
Helen Laycock,
Peter Laycock,
Mirka Mora
Mirka Mora
Mirka Mora is a prominent French-born Australian Visual artist who has contributed significantly to the development of Contemporary Art in Australia. Her mediums include painting, sculpture and mosaics.- Early life :...
,
Kevin Nolan,
John Olsen
John Olsen (artist)
John Henry Olsen, AO, OBE is an Australian artist. Olsen's primary subject of work is landscape.-Biography:John Olsen was born in Newcastle on 21 January 1928 and moved to Bondi Beach with his family in 1935, which began his lifelong fascination with Sydney Harbour...
,
John Perceval
John Perceval
John de Burgh Perceval AO was a well-known Australian artist. Perceval was the last surviving member of a group known as the Angry Penguins who redefined Australian art in the 1940s...
,
Alma Shanahan,
Albert Tucker
Albert Tucker (artist)
Albert Lee Tucker , a pivotal Australian artist, was a member of the Heide Circle, a group of leading modernist artists and writers that centred on the art patrons John and Sunday Reed, whose home, "Heide", located in Bulleen, near Heidelberg , was a haven for the group...
,
Frank Werther,
Fred Williams
Fred Williams
Frederick Ronald Williams OBE was an Australian painter and printmaker. He was one of Australia’s most important artists, and one of the twentieth century’s major painters of the landscape...
and Peter and Chris Wiseman.
Pugh became a pacifist
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
during World War II, while on active service, and retained this position during the Vietnam War. He joined the Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
to campaign for the end of Australia's involvement in that War.
The marriage to Marlene ended in 1969, they divorced in 1971. In 1970 Pugh met Judith. He became very well known, as he and Judith used his status as a painter to improve that of the ALP. They did this in order to ensure the election of the ALP as Pugh was an anti war activist, horrified in retrospect by his own murder of Japanese prisoners of war. They separated in 1980 and divorced in 1981.
For some years Pugh lived with Adrianne Strampp, who trained as a painter.
Career
Pugh was heavily influenced by German Expressionism. He read Sheldon Cheney'sSheldon Warren Cheney
Sheldon Warren Cheney was an American author, born at Berkeley, California, the son of Lemuel Warren Cheney , California lawyer and writer. At first he worked in his father's real estate business, later moving to Detroit where he founded the Theatre Arts Magazine in 1916 and edited it until 1921...
The Story of Modern Art (1941) while recuperating in hospital in New Guinea during World War II. Pugh's primary influence was Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
: "I can see Kandinsky in everything I do." He was also influenced by Russell Drysdale
Russell Drysdale
Sir George Russell Drysdale, AC was an Australian artist. He won the prestigious Wynne Prize for Sofala in 1947, and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1954...
and Sidney Nolan
Sidney Nolan
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan OM, AC was one of Australia's best-known painters and printmakers.-Early life:Nolan was born in Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, on 22 April 1917. He was the eldest of four children. His family later moved to St Kilda. Nolan attended the Brighton Road State School and...
.
Pugh travelled across the Nullarbor Plain
Nullarbor Plain
The Nullarbor Plain is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its north. It is the world's largest single piece of limestone, and occupies an area of about...
to Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
in 1954 then the Kimberley in 1956. These journeys led to radical changes in his style. Pugh encountered indigenous Australian art for the first time and began utilizing incision, cross-hatching
Hatching
Hatching is an artistic technique used to create tonal or shading effects by drawing closely spaced parallel lines...
and collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
. The work inspired by these journeys was part of the Group Four Exhibits in 1955 and 1956.
In 1959 Pugh wrote to Bernard Smith:
Close observation of nature and its cyclical and savage rhythms became a constant theme in Pugh's painting.
Pugh held his first solo show in 1957 at the Victorian Artists Society
Victorian Artists Society
Victorian Artists Society established in 1856 in Melbourne, Australia promotes artistic education and exhibition in Australia. Fore-runner of the Victorian Academy of Arts, founded in 1870. In 1888 the Australian Artist's Association amalgamated with the Victorian Academy of Arts to form the...
Gallery, where he displayed landscapes and portraits. The show was well received by critics. Col. Aubrey Gibson
Aubrey Gibson
Aubrey Hickes Lawson Gibson was an Australian businessman, arts patron and art collector. Born and educated in Melbourne, Gibson became a successful businessman in the city, establishing his own company, A.H. Gibson Industries, which was listed on the stock exchange in the 1950s...
, chairman of the National Gallery, was an early patron, as were a group of businessmen led by David Yencken and the businessman Andrew Grimwade
Andrew Grimwade
Sir Andrew Sheppard Grimwade, CBE is an Australian chemical engineer, scientist, philanthropist, businessman and cattle breeder. He is best known for his service for 15 years as honorary President of the National Gallery of Victoria, and 15 years honorary Presidency of the Walter and Eliza Hall...
. Pugh joined the stable of the Sydney art dealer Rudy Komon. Komon paid his artists a stipend, balanced against sales of their work, and this generosity made them very loyal, as it gave them stability and freedom from daily money worries.
Pugh had consistent official support in the crucial early stages of his career. His inclusion in the 1961 Whitechapel and 1963 Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
exhibitions of Australian art gave him international exposure. In 1966 Komon arranged a one-man show for Pugh at the Artists' Guild Gallery in St Louis in the United States; The Commonwealth Institute
Commonwealth Institute
The Commonwealth Institute was an educational charity connected with the Commonwealth of Nations, and the name of a building in West London formerly owned by the Institute...
staged a retrospective of his work in 1970. He was represented in London by Andre Kalman, who showed him in 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1979, and with the Athol Gallery on the Isle of Man.
The Historic Memorials Committee bought his 1964 portrait of the Governor-General Lord De L'Isle
William Sidney, 1st Viscount De L'Isle
William Philip Sidney, 1st Viscount De L'Isle and 6th Baron De L'Isle and Dudley VC KG GCMG GCVO KStJ PC , was the 15th Governor-General of Australia and the final non-Australian to hold the office...
and his 1972 portrait of Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
.
Pugh's fame as an artist grew in the 1970s following the print publication of two radio plays by Ivan Smith: Death of a Wombat and Dingo King, both works featured Pugh's drawings and paintings.
Printmaker
Pugh worked with the printmakerPrintmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
Stanley Hayter
Stanley William Hayter
Stanley William Hayter , CBE was a British painter and printmaker associated in the 1930s with Surrealism and from 1940 onward with Abstract Expressionism. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers of the 20th century, in 1927 Hayter founded the legendary Atelier 17 studio in Paris...
for three months in Paris in 1970. He brought Hayter’s oil viscosity printing technique back to Australia the same year. Pugh and John Olsen purchased an etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
press and operated it at Dunmoochin. In 1971 Pugh invited Frank Hodgkinson
Frank Hodgkinson
Frank Hodgkinson AM was a noted Australian printmaker, painter and graphic artist.-Life:Hodgkinson was educated at Fort Street High School and after leaving began work as a commercial artist and newspaper illustrator...
to move to Dunmoochin and Pugh's "enthusiasm proved to be a major stimulus for Hodgkinson's printmaking."
Politics and Art
Pugh chaired the Victorian ALP Arts Policy Committee from 1971, and Gough Whitlam appointed Pugh to the Australia Council for the Arts in 1973. Pugh made public his disagreements with Council chairman H C "Nugget" CoombesH. C. Coombs
Herbert Cole H.C. "Nugget" Coombs was an Australian economist and public servant.-Early years:Coombs was born in Kalamunda, Western Australia, Australia, one of six children of a country railway station-master and a well-read mother.Coombs's political and economic views were formed by the Great...
who refused to implement the policy Pugh and his fellow committee members had crafted and then taken through the processes of the Victorian and Federal ALP conferences to become official ALP arts policy. Pugh resigned from the Council in 1974.
Protanope colour vision deficiency
Pugh's brother and grandnephew had protanope colour vision deficiency and it is probable that he did on biographical, gene pedigree inheritance and other grounds (such as failing the colour vision test when endeavouring to enlist in the Navy).Death and legacy
Pugh returned to painting full time after his experience with the Australia Council, and despite suffering three heart attacks and minor ischaemic episodes, continued to paint and make prints until his fatal heart attack in 1990. Pugh established the Dunmoochin Foundation which now forms part of his legacy, and provides residences for artists in his bush property.Pugh also donated Dunmoochin land to the Victorian Conservation Trust (now Trust for Nature) in 1989. Two plants of national significance have been recorded on this land.
Archibald Prize winning works
- 1965 - R A Henderson
- 1971 - Sir John McEwenJohn McEwenSir John "Black Jack" McEwen, GCMG, CH , was an Australian politician and the 18th Prime Minister of Australia...
- 1972 - The Hon E G WhitlamGough WhitlamEdward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
Documentary films featuring Clifton Pugh
- Painting People (Commonwealth Film UnitFilm AustraliaFilm Australia was a company established by the Government of Australia to produce films about Australia. Its mission was to create an audio-visual record of Australian culture, through the commissioning, distribution and management of programs that deal with matters of national interest or...
, directed by Tim BurstallTim BurstallTim Burstall was an Australian film director, writer and producer, best known for the motion picture Alvin Purple....
) - Bird and Animal (Eltham Films)
- Four Painters (ATV Channel 0, Melbourne)
- See It My Way (ABC Channel 2, Sydney)
- The Diamantina (De Montignie Media Productions)
- A Fragile Country
Further reading
- After fire : a biography of Clifton Pugh by Sally MorrisonSally MorrisonSally MorrisonSally Morrison is an Australian writer of fiction and biography. She was born in Sydney NSW in 1946 but her family moved to Canberra when her father moved there for a position in the federal public service....
- a well researched work. - Clifton Pugh by Noel Macainsh
- Clifton Pugh, patterns of a lifetime : a biography by Traudi Allen
- Unstill Life : art, politics and living with Clifton Pugh by Judith Pugh - a personal memoir written by his third wife
External links
- Interview with Clifton Pugh, Australian painter: Oral History Recording, National Library of AustraliaNational Library of AustraliaThe National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...
. Recorded at Carlton, Melbourne and Dunmoochin on 11 and 18 May 1983. Interviewer: Barbara Blackman (8 hours) - A cat in a rabbit-trap 1957
- Barry Humphries 1958
- Europa and the Bull 1971
- (Self portrait in hospital bed, with thermometer in mouth) 1977
- Dunmoochin Foundation
- Pugh discusses his work and influences - Australian National Film and Sound ArchiveNational Film and Sound ArchiveThe National Film and Sound Archive is Australia’s audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national collection of audiovisual materials and related items...
