Clifton Pugh

Clifton Pugh
Clifton Pugh
Born 17 December 1924
Richmond, Victoria, Australia
Died 14 October 1990
Nationality Australian
Field Painting, Printmaking
Influenced by Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso[1]
Awards Order of Australia; Archibald Prize 1965, 1971 and 1972

Clifton Ernest Pugh AO, (17 December 1924 – 14 October 1990) was an Australian artist and three-time winner of Australia's Archibald Prize.[2] He was strongly influenced by German Expressionism,[3][4] and was known for his landscapes and portraiture.[5] 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;[6] a joint exhibition with Barry Humphries, in which the two responded to Dadaism;[7] and Group Four at the Victorian Artists Society Gallery with Pugh, John Howley, Don Laycock and Lawrence Daws.[8]

Pugh was a pioneering environmental activist in Australia.[9]

Pugh was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1985 for service to Australian Art.[10] In 1990 he was appointed as the Australian War Memorial's official artist at the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Gallipoli landing.[11]

Contents

Early life

Pugh was born in Richmond, Victoria.[12] Both Pugh's parents were amateur painters,[13] and as a young man during the 1940s Pugh attended evening classes at the Swinburne Technical College to study cartoon drawing.[8] Two years later whilst living in Adelaide he took evening classes in life drawing at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts.[8]

He served with the AIF in New Guinea and Japan from 1943-1947.[14] 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.[15]

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.[14]

Personal life

Portrait of a Woman (Marlene Pugh) 1956, oil on hardboard

Pugh married three times: to June Byford, Marlene Harvey and Judith Ley.[14] In 1951, after his marriage to June ended, Pugh bought 15 acres (61,000 m2) of bushland near Cottles Bridge, 50 kilometres (31 mi) northeast of Melbourne, which he named Dunmoochin.[14][16]

Pugh at first camped on the site, then built a wattle-and-daub shack.[4][16] He was joined on the place, to which he added in mud brick, by Marlene ("of whom he painted some of his best portraits"[17]), who became his second wife. They had two children, Shane and Dailan, and Pugh added to the house to accommodate the family's needs.[13][18]

Artists, potters and others also settled at the site.[16][18] In order to protect and jointly control the area they formed the Dunmoochin Artists Co-operative with a constitution of 13 articles.[16] It was not a commune in any sense of the word except that the titles were communally held.[16] When the co-operative eventually disbanded each member took a section of the land.[18] 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.[16][19][20][21]

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[14] to campaign for the end of Australia's involvement in that War.[15] The marriage to Marlene ended in 1969, they divorced in 1971.[14] 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.[15]

They separated in 1980 and for some years Pugh lived with Adrianne Strampp,[22] who trained as a painter. After that relationship broke up he developed a number of liaisons, forming a fond loving relationship with the designer Prue Acton.[citation needed] She kept her independence, never moving to Dunmoochin.[citation needed] To the end of his life Pugh kept close friendships with his three wives, June, Marlene and Judith.[citation needed]

Career

Pugh was heavily influenced by German Expressionism. He read Sheldon Cheney's The Story of Modern Art (1941) while recuperating in hospital in New Guinea during World War II.[4] Pugh's primary influence was Wassily Kandinsky: "I can see Kandinsky in everything I do."[1] He was also influenced by Russell Drysdale and Sidney Nolan.[23]

Pugh travelled across the Nullarbor Plain to Perth in 1954 then the Kimberley in 1956. These journeys led to radical changes in his style.[24] Pugh encountered indigenous Australian art for the first time and began utilizing incision, cross-hatching and collage.[23][25][26] The work inspired by these journeys was part of the Group Four Exhibits in 1955 and 1956.[8][14]

In 1959 Pugh wrote to Bernard Smith:

Art must be indigenous...arising out of the environment and background of a particular place and time. This could be nationalistic but I prefer to call it geographical art. For instance, Chinese and Mexican art reflect the background and the 'soul' of the country but are also universal... I therefore believe very much in the development of an Australian art -- it is the only truth for us to express to the rest of the world.[27][28]

Close observation of nature and its cyclical and savage rhythms became a constant theme in Pugh's painting.[4][29][30]

The Hon E G Whitlam (1972)

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.[29] Col. Aubrey Gibson, chairman of the National Gallery, was an early patron,[31] as were a group of businessmen led by David Yencken and the businessman Andrew Grimwade.[5] Pugh joined the stable of the Sydney art dealer Rudy Komon.[5] 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.[31][32]

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.[5][31][33] In 1966 Komon arranged a one-man show for Pugh at the Artists' Guild Gallery in St Louis in the United States;[31] The Commonwealth Institute staged a retrospective of his work in 1970.[5][31] 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.[33]

The Historic Memorials Committee bought his 1964 portrait of the Governor-General Lord De L'Isle and his 1972 portrait of Gough Whitlam.[31][34]

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.[14]

Printmaker

Pugh worked with the printmaker Stanley Hayter for three months in Paris in 1970.[35] He brought Hayter’s oil viscosity printing technique back to Australia the same year.[21][29] Pugh and John Olsen purchased an etching press and operated it at Dunmoochin.[29] In 1971 Pugh invited Frank Hodgkinson to move to Dunmoochin and Pugh's "enthusiasm proved to be a major stimulus for Hodgkinson's printmaking."[36]

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.[14] Pugh made public his disagreements with Council chairman H C "Nugget" Coombes 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.[37]

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).[9][38]

Death and legacy

Pugh returned to painting full time after his experience with the Australia Council, and despite suffering three heart attacks[31][39] 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.[14][33]

Pugh also donated Dunmoochin land to the Victorian Conservation Trust (now Trust for Nature) in 1989.[23][40] Two plants of national significance have been recorded on this land.[40]

Archibald Prize winning works

See also: List of Archibald Prize winners

Documentary films featuring Clifton Pugh

  • Painting People (Commonwealth Film Unit, directed by Tim Burstall)[41]
  • 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)[42]
  • A Fragile Country

References

  1. ^ a b Pugh, Clifton. "Australian landscape painter Clifton Pugh cites the painters who have influenced him". Australian National Film and Sound Archive. http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/clifton-pugh/clip2/. Retrieved 27 August 2010. 
  2. ^ Toby Creswell; Samantha Trenoweth (2006). 1001 Australians You Should Know. Pluto Press (Australia). p. 190. ISBN 978-1864033618. http://books.google.com/books?id=QqtinbjO0oEC&lpg=PA190&dq=clifton%20pugh%20artist%20born%201924&pg=PA190#v=onepage&q=clifton%20pugh%20artist%20born%201924&f=false. Retrieved 26 August 2010. 
  3. ^ Noel Macainsh (1962). Australian Art Monographs: Clifton Pugh. Melbourne: Georgian House. p. 3. 
  4. ^ a b c d Sally Morrison (7 August 2010). "NGV Floor Talk: The Shooting of Wild Dogs 1958 by Clifton Pugh". p. 5. http://people.aapt.net.au/~sallymorrison/NGV%20floor%20talk%207.8.10.pdf. Retrieved 26 August 2010. 
  5. ^ a b c d e "A Sketch for some Portraits: Judith Pugh reflects on Clifton Pugh’s approach to portrait-making.". National Portrait Gallery (Australia). http://www.portrait.gov.au/exhibit/pugh/index.htm. Retrieved 26 August 2010. 
  6. ^ Bernard Smith (2007). The formalesque: a guide to modern art and its history. p. 13. ISBN 978-1876832339. http://books.google.com/books?id=2IGaopdaq2AC&lpg=PA13&dq=%22clifton%20pugh%22%20Antipodeans&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q=%22clifton%20pugh%22%20Antipodeans&f=false. Retrieved 26 August 2010. 
  7. ^ Margaret Plant (1985). Irreverent sculpture. Monash University Gallery, Dept. of Visual Arts. p. 15. 
  8. ^ a b c d National Commercial Banking Corporation of Australia (1982). The seventies: Australian paintings and tapestries from the collection of National Australia Bank. National Gallery of Victoria. pp. 28, 46, 74. ISBN 978-0909873349. 
  9. ^ a b Clarke, Suzanna (29 August 2009). "Clifton Pugh's use of colour in his prints is quite special". Courier Mail. http://www.couriermail.com.au/entertainment/arts/clifton-pughs-use-of-colour-in-his-prints-is-quite-special/story-e6freqkf-1225766735691. Retrieved 26 August 2010. 
  10. ^ "Search Australian Honours". Awards and Culture Branch. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/honours/honour_roll/search.cfm?aus_award_id=870096&search_type=quick&showInd=true. Retrieved 20 September 2010. 
  11. ^ "ART29530 - Fisherman's hut, North Beach". Australian War Memorial. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/ART29530. Retrieved 26 August 2010. 
  12. ^ Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries, ed (2003). The Houghton Mifflin dictionary of biography. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 1246. ISBN 978-0618252107. http://books.google.com/books?id=wZkLOoNZrREC&lpg=PA1246&dq=clifton%20pugh%20artist%20born%201924&pg=PA1246#v=onepage&q=clifton%20pugh%20artist%20born%201924&f=false. Retrieved 26 August 2010. 
  13. ^ a b John Aikman Hetherington (1964). Australian painters: Forty profiles. Angus & Robertson. p. 219. 
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  15. ^ a b c Judith Pugh (2008). Unstill Life: Art, Politics and Living with Clifton Pugh. Allen & Unwin. pp. 131, 332. ISBN 978-1741754773. 
  16. ^ a b c d e f Bick, David (David Bick). "DUNMOOCHIN - CLIFTON PUGH'S STUDIO RESIDENCE AND ALL STRUCTURES BUILT BY AND FOR PUGH". Victorian Heritage Database. Heritage Victoria. http://vhd.heritage.vic.gov.au/places/heritage/55217. Retrieved 1 September 2010. 
  17. ^ Geoffrey Dutton (1995). Out in the Open: An Autobiography. Univ of Queensland Press. p. 231. ISBN 978-0702228100. http://books.google.com/books?id=prpbjvSde_gC&lpg=PA231&dq=marlene%20clifton%20pugh&pg=PA231#v=onepage&q=marlene%20clifton%20pugh&f=false. Retrieved 27 August 2010. 
  18. ^ a b c Kath Duncan; Dailan Pugh. "Re-imagining Utopia 3 - Art Is Life". Radio National: ABC. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/lm/stories/s853520.htm. Retrieved 26 August 2010. 
  19. ^ Gary Catalano (2001). The solitary watcher: Rick Amor and his art. Melbourne University Publishing. p. 93. ISBN 978-0522849486. 
  20. ^ Jenny Zimmer; Ken McGregor (2007). John Olsen: journeys into the "You beaut country". Macmillan Art Publishing. p. 55. ISBN 978-1921394058. http://books.google.com/books?id=yNNxOv69KScC&lpg=PA53&dq=%2Bdunmoochin%20residents&pg=PA55#v=onepage&q=dunmoochin&f=false. Retrieved 1 September 2010. 
  21. ^ a b McDonald, Anne (Autumn 2002). "Frank Hodgkinson 1919 - 2001". Imprint (Melbourne) 37 (1): 8–9. http://www.printsandprintmaking.gov.au/catalogues/bibliography/131111/mcdonald-anne-frank-hodgkinson-1919--2001.aspx. Retrieved 9 September 2010. 
  22. ^ Alan McCulloch; Susan McCulloch (1994). The encyclopedia of Australian art. University of Hawaii Press. p. 585. ISBN 978-0824816889. 
  23. ^ a b c Sally Morrison (2009). After Fire: A Biography of Clifton Pugh. Melbourne: Hardie Grant. pp. 99–100, 117, 137, 177, 519. ISBN 9781740666114. 
  24. ^ Roslynn D. Haynes (1999). Seeking the centre: the Australian Desert in literature, art and film. Cambridge University Press. p. 249. ISBN 978-0521571111. http://books.google.com/books?id=Q9R6Tjwd1_4C&lpg=PA249&dq=clifton%20pugh%20nullarbor%201954&pg=PA249#v=onepage&q=clifton%20pugh%20nullarbor%201954&f=false. Retrieved 2 September 2010. 
  25. ^ Clarke, John R. (1988). "Australian Painting of the Sixties in the Mertz Collection". The Library chronicle of the University of Texas at Austin 42/43: 180–197. 
  26. ^ Robert Hughes (1966). The art of Australia: a critical survey. Ringwood, Vic: Penguin Books. p. 215. 
  27. ^ Anna Bonshek; Corrina Bonshek, Lee Fergusson (2007). The Big Fish: Consciousness as Structure, Body and Space. Rodopi. p. 312. ISBN 978-9042021723. http://books.google.com/books?id=KUbmdGhkQvsC&lpg=PA312&dq=clifton%20pugh%20%22Art%20must%20be%20indigenous%22&pg=PA312#v=onepage&q=clifton%20pugh%20%22Art%20must%20be%20indigenous%22&f=false. Retrieved 9 September 2010. 
  28. ^ Peter Beilharz (2002). Imagining the Antipodes: Culture, Theory and the Visual in the Work of Bernard Smith. Cambridge University Press. pp. 113–114. ISBN 978-0521524346. http://books.google.com/books?id=DwIj6IngjIMC&lpg=PA97&dq=the%20antipodean%20manifesto&pg=PA114#v=snippet&q=pugh&f=false. Retrieved 9 September 2010. 
  29. ^ a b c d Clifton Pugh: Printmaker. La Trobe University Art Museum. pp. 6, 11, 28. http://www.artmuseum.qut.edu.au/downloads/Clifton_Pugh_Education_Kit.pdf. Retrieved 26 August 2010. 
  30. ^ Bernard Smith; Terry E. Smith, Christopher Robin Heathcote. Australian Painting, 1788-2000. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 323. ISBN 978-0195515541. 
  31. ^ a b c d e f g Traudi Allen (1981). Clifton Pugh, patterns of a lifetime: a biography. Nelson. pp. 77,118,148,180,202. ISBN 978-0170054430. 
  32. ^ Lenore Nicklin (2006). "Komon, Rudolph John (Rudy) (1908 - 1982)". Australian Dictionary of Biography, Online Edition. Australian National University. http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A170652b.htm. Retrieved 2 September 2010. 
  33. ^ a b c "RESUME OF THE ARTIST". The Dunmoochin Foundation. http://www.dunmoochin.org/history.htm. Retrieved 26 August 2010. 
  34. ^ "Historic Memorials Committee". Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. http://www.naa.gov.au/naaresources/publications/research_guides/fedguide/legacy/act/act40.htm. Retrieved 26 August 2010. 
  35. ^ Ken McGregor (2005). Teeming with Life: John Olsen. His Complete Graphics, 1957-2005, 2nd Edition. Macmillan Art Publishing. p. 13. ISBN 978-1876832230. http://books.google.com/books?id=vxxRh3UCKzkC&lpg=PA13&dq=clifton%20pugh%20john%20olsen%201970&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q=clifton%20pugh%20john%20olsen%201970&f=false. Retrieved 9 September 2010. 
  36. ^ "Frank Hodgkinson". Landscapes in Sets and Series: Australian Prints 1960s to 1990s. National Gallery of Australia. http://nga.gov.au/landscapes/Hodg.htm. Retrieved 9 September 2010. 
  37. ^ Tim Rowse (2006). Nugget Coombs: A Reforming Life. Cambridge University Press. pp. 298–299. ISBN 978-0521677837. http://books.google.com/books?id=UT1sM6_KoS8C&lpg=PA298&dq=clifton%20pugh%20%22arts%20policy%20committee%22&pg=PA298#v=onepage&q=clifton%20pugh%20%22arts%20policy%20committee%22&f=false. Retrieved 27 August 2010. 
  38. ^ Cole BL, Harris RW (September 2009). "Colour blindness does not preclude fame as an artist: celebrated Australian artist Clifton Pugh was a protanope". Clin Exp Optom 92 (5): 421–8. doi:10.1111/j.1444-0938.2009.00384.x. PMID 19515095. 
  39. ^ Donald Friend (2006). Paul Hetherington. ed. The Diaries of Donald Friend: 1967-1999. Antipodes Books and Beyond, Ltd.. p. 331. ISBN 978-0642276445. http://books.google.com/books?id=xkTCZIK5-VIC&lpg=PA331&dq=clifton%20pugh%20heart%20attack%20bali&pg=PA331#v=onepage&q=clifton%20pugh%20heart%20attack%20bali&f=false. Retrieved 27 August 2010. 
  40. ^ a b "Port Phillip & Westernport properties". Trust for Nature (Victoria). 2007. http://www.trustfornature.org.au/content.asp?PageId=81. Retrieved 2 September 2010. 
  41. ^ Peter Cowie (1967). International film guide. Tantivy Press. p. 49. 
  42. ^ Vincent Serventy (1985). The desert sea: the miracle of Lake Eyre in flood. Macmillan Australia. p. 12. ISBN 978-0333400500. 

Further reading

External links

Awards
Preceded by
Not awarded
(J. Carrington Smith, 1963)		 Archibald Prize
1965
for R. A. Henderson		 Succeeded by
Jon Molvig
Preceded by
Eric Smith		 Archibald Prize
1971
for Sir John McEwan
1972
for The Hon. E. G. Whitlam		 Succeeded by
Janet Dawson

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