William Dobell In New Guinea

Painter in Paradise: William Dobell In New Guinea is an extraordinary collection of around 100 drawings, paintings, watercolours, and photographs from private and public collections showcasing one of Australia's most recognised and well-loved 20th century painters.

Conceived by Natalie Wilson, Curator of Australian & Pacific Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, it is the first exhibition to focus solely on this time in the life of the artist, who is renowned for his sensitive portraits of Australian cultural icons, as well as internationally respected dignitaries and political figures.

William Dobell (1899-1970) won the 1943 Archibald Prize with a controversial portrait of his friend and fellow artist, Joshua Smith. Other artists argued that the painting was a caricature rather than a portrait, which led to a Supreme Court hearing in 1944, where the suit was eventually dismissed.

Later that decade, Dobell was again awarded the 1948 Archibald Prize for a portrait of Margaret Olley, as well as the Wynne Prize for landscape with Storm approaching Wangi.

In an endeavour to escape publicity, Dobell and his friend, writer Colin Simpson, left Australia for Port Moresby as guests of Sir Edward Hallstrom, a philanthropist and trustee of Taronga Park Zoo. Dobell was captivated by everything he saw at Hallstrom's experimental sheep station and bird of paradise sanctuary at Nondugl in the central highlands of New Guinea.

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.

In 1950 he returned to the area, this time taking his camera to record daily life in Mount Hagen and Nondugl, as well as rare early images of the Upper Sepik region. His photographs and sketches formed the basis of many paintings he was to produce in the following two decades.

"The natives up there in the Wahgi Valley are immensely beautiful, physically superb, and with a sense of human dignity which sophisticated civilisation seems to have forgotten...Combine this with marvellous light and colour, and primitive vigour, and you have a completely satisfying artistic experience. This attitude of simple dignity is what I'll try to get. Whether I succeed or not is another matter". WIILLIAM DOBELL, 1949

Need to know - Join the Curator Floor Talk on March 5th at 2.30pm.