Let's Face It: The History of the Archibald Prize (1999) was a great book by Peter Ross. See earlier references to the prize-winning Portrait of the Artist Joshua Smith by William Dobell, for example.
Rabbi I Porush, 1961
by WEP
Archibald Prize Archives
Archibald Prize Archives
John Feltham Archibald (1856-1919) was born to a hard-working, rural Irish family. The lad was first apprenticed to the Warrnambool Examiner, then at 19 he moved to Melbourne to work in a newspaper’s printing room. Archibald headed north in 1878. He created a partnership in Sydney with a newspaper colleague, and started The Bulletin in 1880, Australia’s first quality weekly magazine of politics, business and literature. Famous literary men eg Henry Lawson, Banjo Patterson visited often, as did top illustrators eg George Lambert, Norman Lindsay.
Peter Ross was very honest about the Bulletin, saying first editor Archibald was a racist and anti-Semite. Its motto was "Australia for the white man". Alas this bizarre mix of political activism and bitter xenophobia seemed popular then.
In 1902 Archibald was locked in a Sydney Psychiatric Asylum. When he could go back into the community, he sadly had to sell his share of The Bulletin. But happily he was made a NSW Art Gallery Trustee, 1915. He died in 1919, leaving a large estate with these clauses in his will. Part was used to
1] create WW1 fountain in Hyde Park by French sculptor François Sicard
2] fund the Journalists' Association Benevolent Fund and
3] endow the art prize, judged by NSW Art Gallery Trustees.
The Archibald Bequest gave a prize for the best portrait painted by an Australian artist, of someone distinguished in art, letters, science or politics. Clearly Archibald’s intentions had been to perpetuate the memory of great Australians. But there were many legal challenges.
So the Trustees had to be specific in their Conditions of Entry. The portrait must be painted from life; it could be of any size; it must be painted in the year before the competition; the artist had to be resident in Australasia in the year before; the Trustees need not award a prize if no picture seemed worthy.
The prize was first awarded was 1921, won by WB McInnes for his Portrait of architect Desbrowe Annear. Then McInnes again in 1922 with a Portrait of Prof Harrison Moore. And in 1923 with his Portrait of a Lady-Wife. Then in 1924 with a Portrait of Miss Collins. By then the Sydney critics were annoyed because one Melbournian was hogging the award. And he won 3 more times before WW2! And from 1925, another Victorian artist John Longstaff won 5 of the prizes!
The 1920s was a European decade of great innovation with Cubism, Surrealism, Dadaism and Bauhaus abstracts competing. But in Australia, the tradition of C19th academic portraiture was thriving, ?preserved by its geographic isolation from Europe. Did the Archibald Prize attract conservative artists who weren’t in the modernist movement? Or did more modernist artists adopt tonal realism, to win the prize?
A modernist who resisted the traditionalism of the early Archibalds Grace Crowley had entered the competition, only to be turned down by the trustees. The Bulletin knew that women artists should be excluded! The first woman artist to win was Nora Heysen, Hans Heysen’s daughter. Even then the Sydney Morning Herald questioned the trustees’ sanity, in giving her the 1938 award!
In the 1940s the younger, more modern artists were becoming more frustrated with the same conservative, male choices made by the trustees. William Dobell received much criticism when his work Portrait of the Artist Joshua Smith was awarded the Prize in 1943.
Archibald Prize went to William E Pidgeon, 1961
Israel Porush (1907-91) grew up in Jerusalem, studied in an Israeli yeshiva until 15 then was sent to secular German school in 1922. From 1927 he studied at Berlin Uni and at Berlin’s Rabbinical Seminary, then he completed a doctoral thesis in maths at Marburg Uni. In 1933 he migrated to London. In 1939, war encouraged him to become senior rabbi at Sydney’s Great Synagogue, holding it for c33 years. He was head of the Sydney Rabbinical Court 1940-75 and welcomed the post-war refugees. He was respected for combining rabbinical learning, secular scholarship and leadership, becoming President of the Association of Jewish Ministers of Australia & New Zealand.
W.E Pidgeon/WEP left his magazine in 1949 to do portrait painting, commissions becoming his livelihood for 25 years. He joined the Journalists' Club Sydney, WEP submitting a portrait of the modernist journalist Kenneth Slessor to the Archibald. He didn’t win until his portraits of Ray Walker 1958 and artist Lloyd Rees 1968.
Ray Walker, by WEP, 1958, Art Gall NSW
Lloyd Rees, by WEP, 1968, Art Gall NSW
WEP was fascinated with religions and had close Jewish associates eg Sali Herman, Judy Cassab. He believed other portraits were moving towards more abstract expressions, whereas his style was still traditional. And many of his portraits were commissioned, imposing greater constraints.
R’Porush was the only rabbinical portrait that won the Archibald, but he was not the first hopeful. R’Francis Lyon Cohen by Joseph Wolinski featured in the first Archibald (1921). And the same artist put in a portrait of Cohen’s successor, R’Abraham Wolinski (1931). A 1940 portrait of R’Leib Falk by Valerie Lazarus also got into the exhibition.
The Archibald was never far from controversy. The 1961 winning portrait was of Rabbi Dr Israel Porush by WE Pidgeon/WEP (1909-81). R’ Porush was dressed in his traditional prayer shawl, apparently at the reading platform before the Holy Ark. But it was actually painted in WEP’s Northwood studio in 6 sittings in 1961. WEP’s portrait of R’ Porush could have been seen as too traditional, but the AGNSW curator emphasised that this rabbinical portrait won at a time when the White Australia Policy was still nasty!
Sydney Morning Herald art critic dismissed WEP’s work as tame, traditional and completely pedestrian. The critics didn’t acknowledge the portrait’s social significance, calling it just another depiction of a white middle-aged man in ceremonial robes.
How ironic that racist Archibald had funded a competition which eventually charted Australia’s transformation into one of the world’s successful culturally diverse societies. Not only was this WEP’s 12th entry in the competition, and his 2nd win. Since Archibald died, 3 Jewish artists have won:
1] Viennese Australian Judy Cassab won for her portraits of fellow artists Stan Rapotec 1960 and Margo Lewers 1967.
2] Wendy Sharpe won for self-portrait Goddess Diana 1996
3] Yvette Coppersmith did a winning self-portrait, referencing New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern (2018). Archibald must have been turning in his grave.
See the ABC’s 2021 series Finding The Archibald. Rachel Griffiths’ mission was to find an Archibald portrait that captured Australia’s changes, with the NSW Art Gallery’s Archie 100: Century of the Archibald Prize.
R’Porush was the only rabbinical portrait that won the Archibald, but he was not the first hopeful. R’Francis Lyon Cohen by Joseph Wolinski featured in the first Archibald (1921). And the same artist put in a portrait of Cohen’s successor, R’Abraham Wolinski (1931). A 1940 portrait of R’Leib Falk by Valerie Lazarus also got into the exhibition.
The Archibald was never far from controversy. The 1961 winning portrait was of Rabbi Dr Israel Porush by WE Pidgeon/WEP (1909-81). R’ Porush was dressed in his traditional prayer shawl, apparently at the reading platform before the Holy Ark. But it was actually painted in WEP’s Northwood studio in 6 sittings in 1961. WEP’s portrait of R’ Porush could have been seen as too traditional, but the AGNSW curator emphasised that this rabbinical portrait won at a time when the White Australia Policy was still nasty!
Sydney Morning Herald art critic dismissed WEP’s work as tame, traditional and completely pedestrian. The critics didn’t acknowledge the portrait’s social significance, calling it just another depiction of a white middle-aged man in ceremonial robes.
How ironic that racist Archibald had funded a competition which eventually charted Australia’s transformation into one of the world’s successful culturally diverse societies. Not only was this WEP’s 12th entry in the competition, and his 2nd win. Since Archibald died, 3 Jewish artists have won:
1] Viennese Australian Judy Cassab won for her portraits of fellow artists Stan Rapotec 1960 and Margo Lewers 1967.
2] Wendy Sharpe won for self-portrait Goddess Diana 1996
3] Yvette Coppersmith did a winning self-portrait, referencing New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern (2018). Archibald must have been turning in his grave.
See the ABC’s 2021 series Finding The Archibald. Rachel Griffiths’ mission was to find an Archibald portrait that captured Australia’s changes, with the NSW Art Gallery’s Archie 100: Century of the Archibald Prize.
Kenneth Slessor
by WEP, 1962
Art Gall NSW
Read Let's Face It: The History of the Archibald Prize by Peter Ross, published by NSW Art Gallery in 1999.
And read Bulletin magazine in June 1964.
To see each winning portrait, go to The Art Gallery of NSW