William Dargie; 'The Australian' obit
Hyfler/Rosner
Artist. Born Footscray, Melbourne, June 4, 1912. Died Melbourne,
July 26, aged 91.
AONE-TIME schoolteacher, the renowned painter William Dargie enjoyed a long
career which included such entrepreneurial activities as setting up
Australia's first television production company and producing a talent quest
program.
But it was academic portrait painting and art teaching for which he was best
known and which gained him an OBE and a knighthood.
Born in Melbourne in 1912, Dargie first studied sculpture before taking up
painting in the early 1930s. He studied with modernist painter and
stained-glass designer Napier Waller and later painter Archibald Colquhoun.
However, it was one of Colquhoun's contemporaries, John Longstaff, whose
huge allegorical naturalistic pictures Dargie particularly admired and whose
style became a major influence in his work.
The young Dargie's soon-developed skill at realistic portraiture and
sketches led to his appointment in 1941 as a war artist during World War II.
He was, he described later, digging a trench in Tobruk in 1942 when he heard
he had won the Archibald Prize for the second time, with a portrait of a
soldier, Jim Gordon. This was in a far freer and more naturalistic style
than his first Archibald win the previous year with a more sombre view of
banker James Elder.
The '40s was a volatile era for the Archibald Prize and Dargie -- who won it
eight times between 1941 and 1956 -- was in the thick of the debates. Heated
arguments arose between modernists and conservatives, leading to a court
case about William Dobell's 1943 win with his portrait of fellow artist
Joshua Smith.
In years to follow Dargie's academic style was to dominate the prize with
formalised portraits of generals, academics, bank and company directors.
Other important commissions he acquired included portraits of top-level
members of the establishment and royalty, including the Queen and Prince
Philip. Other subjects included the industrialist and former head of BHP Ess
ington Lewis and former Victorian premier Henry Bolte.
If his paintings were embraced by the establishment and lovers of
conservative art, critics and artists often railed against them: "How
threadbare can a tradition become before it finally dissolves into thin
air?" wrote critic and artist James Gleeson of Dargie's 1956 win with the
portrait of artist Albert Namatjira. That Dargie had won the Archibald so
often, said Gleeson, offered a "sad commentary on the wretched condition of
portrait painting in this country". Peter Ross's 1999 history of the
Archibald Prize, Let's Face It, quotes Dargie in 1947 defending such attacks
through questioning the qualifications of some critics. "Modern art," he
said, "is anti-democratic and is the last refuge of the snob and the
reactionary."
He also hotly denied having staged a demonstration by art students headed by
John Olsen in 1952 on his seventh Archibald win. "Some bloody journalist put
the word around that I was a very astute businessman and I'd promoted the
protest myself for the publicity," he complained.
Dargie's last Archibald win was his 1956 portrait of Namatjira (now
featuring in a touring Namatjira retrospective about to open at the
Queensland Art Gallery). With its strong red background and more
naturalistic pose, it was one of Dargie's favourites. Namatjira, he said,
possessed "one of the most wonderful face[s] for a portrait I've ever seen".
As an art teacher Dargie was also influential in Australia's -- especially
Melbourne's -- artistic life. Head of the National Gallery School from 1946
to 1953, he never wavered in his belief that realism formed the basis for
successful painting. But he also recognised that others may believe
differently and suggested to National Gallery of Victoria Trustees that the
school employ teachers such as Alan Sumner, whose more modernist style
offered broader opportunities for students.
NGV director Gerard Vaughan said yesterday that Dargie was a "superlative
practitioner of that realist school which is so crucial to the understanding
of Australian art in the first half of the 20th century.
"He was a key player in the robust debate in the 1960s in which the tonal
realism, which had been the NGV School style to that date, clashed with the
new international modernism and abstractionism."
A similar breadth of vision, says art historian and emeritus gallery
director Daniel Thomas, could be seen in Dargie's support during the '50s,
'60s and '70s for the development of a national collection. As a member of
the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board and its chairman from 1962 to 1973,
Dargie was a strong supporter of the acquisition of Pacific and islander art
as a significant area of collecting for the then nascent National Gallery of
Australia.
It was an unusual trait for one regarded in artistic circles more often as a
conservative painter. His interest in this subject is explained perhaps by
other positions he held, including membership of the Interim Aboriginal Arts
Advisory Committee, 1969-71, as a trustee of the Museum and Art Gallery of
Papua New Guinea, 1970-74, and member of the Native Cultural Reserve of Port
Moresby, 1970-1977.
Concurrently Dargie continued his career as a successful portrait painter.
In 1992 his swashbuckling portrait of aviation pioneers Charles Kingsford
Smith and Charles Ulm, painted in 1961, was featured as the cover image of
the catalogue of the large touring exhibition, Uncommon Australians,
conceived by Melbourne art patrons Gordon and Marilyn Darling. Its aim was
to raise interest in the establishment of an Australian portrait gallery
(opened in Canberra in 1996).
With its sense of bravado, this was one of Dargie's livelier and more
engaging portraits. It was this style which, says National Portrait Gallery
director Andrew Sayers, showed that Dargie was a broader thinker than his
more conservative painting implied and which has influenced several of
today's most successful portrait painters.
"Nobody else in 20th-century Australian portraiture covered so much ground,"
says Sayers. "A lot of Dargie's boardroom paintings and official commissions
didn't have the vitality which comes from a genuine engagement with his
sitters. When he did have that genuine engagement, there was a freshness and
vitality to his work." The Namatjira painting was a good example.
Sayers says modern artists such as Robert Hannaford are not unlike Dargie in
that they have "a real sense that the artist's role is to record as
faithfully what is there and to paint on a human scale ... I can see a very
strong continuing tradition of the sort of portrait painting of which Dargie
was the most popular exponent."
The death of Dargie's wife Kathleen just two months ago, aged 93, is
believed to have been a turning point in his battle against ill-health.
Dargie's brother Horrie, who died in 1999, was the popular band leader and
harmonica player. William Dargie is survived by two children, Roger and
Faye, four grand-daughters and a great-grandson.
Susan McCulloch is The Australian's national art critic.