William Beckwith McInnes
Encyclopedia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n portrait painter, winner of the 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...
seven times for his traditional style paintings.
Early life
McInnes was born in St KildaSt Kilda, Victoria
St Kilda is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km south from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Port Phillip...
, a suburb of 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...
to Malcolm McInnes and his wife Alice Agnes, née Beckwith. Despite lack of family artistic tradition, he was keen to draw from the time he could hold a pencil. In 1903, at 14 years of age, he enrolled in the drawing school of the National Gallery of Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
under Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin was an Australian painter who was prominent in the Heidelberg School, one of the more important periods in Australia's visual arts history....
. Later he moved up to the painting school under Lindsay Bernard Hall
Lindsay Bernard Hall
Lindsay Bernard Hall was an English-born Australian artist and art gallery director.Hall was born at Garston, Liverpool, England, the son of a broker of the same family as Captain Basil Hall, writer of books of travel. Hall was well educated and grew up in an atmosphere of culture...
.
Artistic career
He won the first prizes for drawing the figure from life, and for painting a head from life, and shared the prize for a landscape in 1908.Soon afterwards McInnes held a successful show of his paintings at the Athenaeum gallery in conjunction with F. R. Crozier
Frank Crozier
Frank Rossiter Crozier was a war records artist who is represented in the Australian War Memorial's art collection along with other Official War Artists such as H...
, which was followed in 1911 by a journey to Europe, where he did much landscape painting and made acquaintance with the masterpieces of Rembrandt, Velasquez and Raeburn.
McInnes was represented in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
at the exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in oils in 1913.
McInnes returned to Melbourne in the same year. A one man show was held at the Athenaeum gallery and nearly everything was sold. In 1916 he acted as locum tenens for Frederick McCubbin, master of the school of drawing at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, during his six months' leave of absence, and after his death was temporarily appointed to the position in 1918. In 1920 he was permanently appointed.
In 1921, he won the first of his 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...
s for portraiture.
McInnes revisited Europe in 1925 and on his return found he was in great demand as a portrait painter. For many years he was unable to spare time to do landscape work. In 1928 he exhibited with the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
, and in 1933 he visited England again to paint the Duke of York (later King George VI
George VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
).
In the following year, on Bernard Hall leaving for England as adviser for the Felton
Alfred Felton
Alfred Felton was an Australian entrepreneur, art collector and philanthropist.-Biography:Alfred Felton was born at Maldon, Essex, England, the fifth child of six sons and three daughters of William Felton, a currier, and his wife Hannah...
bequest, McInnes was appointed acting-director of the National Gallery of Victoria, and on Mr Hall's death was appointed head of the painting school.
Amongst other portraits by McInnes were those of the surgeons Archibald Watson
Archibald Watson
Archibald Watson FRCS was an Australian surgeon and professor of anatomy at the University of Adelaide.-Early life:...
and Wood Jones.
Late life
McInnes had suffered from an imperfect heart all his life, his general health became affected and in July 1939 he resigned his position as master of the school of painting. He died on 9 November 1939. He married Violet Muriel Musgrave in 1915, a capable flower painter, who survived him with four sons and two daughters.McInnes' artwork has been featured at the Art Gallery of South Australia
Art Gallery of South Australia
The Art Gallery of South Australia , located on the cultural boulevard of North Terrace in Adelaide, is the premier visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of over 35,000 works of art, making it, after the National Gallery of Victoria, the largest state...
. In addition, McInnes has painted a variety of important people in Australian history including officials and aristocratic families.
McInnes' Archibald Prize winners
- 1921 - Desbrowe Annear
- 1922 - Professor Harrison Moore
- 1923 - Portrait of a Lady
- 1924 - Portrait of Miss Collins
- 1926 - Silk and Lace
- 1930 - Drum-Major Harry McClelland
- 1936 - Dr. Julian Smith
McInnes also won the Wynne Prize
Wynne Prize
The Wynne Prize is an Australian landscape painting or figure sculpture art prize. One of Australia's longest running art prizes, it was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne...
in 1918 with The Grey Road.