Sir William Dobell

The Australian artist Sir William Dobell (1899-1970) was one of the world's leading modern portraitists. His best portraits revealed extraordinary psychological insight.

William Dobell was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, on Sept. 24, 1899. He moved to Sydney in 1925 to study at the Julian Ashton Art School. In 1929 he went to London on a traveling scholarship to study at the Slade School, where he won prizes for draftsmanship and painting. Later he exhibited at the Royal Academy and before the New English Group.

Dobell returned to Sydney in 1939. He maintained a subjective approach to painting, and his work was very different from that of current Australian styles. In 1943 he won the Archibald Prize, Australia's principal award for portraiture, for a painting of fellow-artist Joshua Smith. The award was immediately challenged on the grounds that Dobell's entry showed a degree of distortion which made it a caricature rather than a true portrait, but the court upheld the judging panel's decision. Resultant newspaper publicity greatly expanded interest in Dobell's work, but as a result of the controversy Dobell withdrew to Wangi, a small coastal town north of Sydney, and became a shy and enigmatic figure.

Gentle by nature, Dobell was also shrewd, warm, and strong in feeling, and these characteristics shone through his work. He was intensely interested in his fellowman. He achieved some of his effects by deft underscoring of aspects that typified the subject's character, and others by sharp delineation of exciting and unusual features of the subject.

Dobell was also a notable landscapist. He painted local scenes, views of Southeast Asia, and a series of cameos capturing the strangeness of New Guinea. He belonged to no school but acknowledged inspiration from Rembrandt, William Hogarth, Pierre Auguste Renoir, and Chaim Soutine.

Dobell gained numerous significant awards and received many commissions, among them four for portraits for use as Time magazine cover subjects, including one of Australian prime minister Robert Menzies in 1960. Exhibitions of his work attracted exceptionally widespread attendance; and a sale in Sydney in 1962 realized record prices for an Australian artist. He was knighted in 1966 and died in Wangi on May 14, 1970.

Further Reading

A good general reference work on Dobell is The Art of William Dobell, edited by Sydney Ure Smith (1946). Dobell's place in Australia's art history is analyzed in several publications giving concise coverage of the work of various painters. Two of the most useful are a catalog produced by the Australian Government, Commonwealth Art Advisory Board, with commentaries by leading critics, for the 1962 Exhibition, Australian Painting: Colonial, Impressionist, Contemporary; and Bernard W. Smith, Australian Painting 1788-1960 (1962). An illuminating outline of Dobell and his work is contained in James Gleeson's elaborately illustrated review, Masterpieces of Australian Painting (1969).

Additional Sources

Adams, Brian, Portrait of an artist: a biography of William Dobell, Richmond, Vic.: Hutchinson of Australia, 1983.

Gleeson, James, William Dobell, a biographical and critical study, London: Angus & Robertson, 1981. □

Dobell, Sir William (b Newcastle, NSW, 24 Sept. 1899; d Wangi Wangi, NSW, 13 May 1970). Australian painter. In 1929 he won a travelling scholarship that enabled him to study at the Slade School (he also had some private tuition from Orpen) and he did not return to Australia until 1938. By this time his style had changed from the carefully studied, solidly constructed naturalism of his early works to a much looser and more Expressionist manner, sometimes with a satirical air. The rich colours and textures were influenced by art he saw on his travels in Europe, particularly the paintings of Soutine. He immediately acquired a circle of admiring patrons in Sydney, and in 1944 he became a household name in Australia when he was involved in a cause célèbre for modernism. In January of that year he was awarded the 1943 Archibald Prize for portraiture, given annually by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. His winning picture was Portrait of an Artist (damaged beyond repair by fire in 1958), representing his fellow painter Joshua Smith (1905–95). Two of the unsuccessful competitors contested the award in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, on the grounds that the winning work was not a portrait but a caricature—a ‘pictorial defamation of character’. Their suit was dismissed and the case was regarded as a significant victory for the cause of modern art in Australia. Some critics think that this marks the peak of Dobell's career and that much of his later work shows a decline in confidence. However, he continued to be much in demand as a portraitist and also painted landscapes, some of them inspired by visits to the highlands of New Guinea in 1949 and 1950.

Dobell, Sir William (1899–1970). Australian painter. In 1929 he won a travelling scholarship that enabled him to study at the Slade School (he also had some private tuition from Orpen) and he did not return to Australia until 1938. By this time his style had changed from the carefully studied, solidly constructed naturalism of his early works to a much looser and more Expressionist manner, sometimes with a satirical air. The rich colours and textures were influenced by art he saw on his travels in Europe, particularly the paintings of Soutine. He immediately acquired a circle of admiring patrons in Sydney, and in 1944 he became a household name in Australia when he was involved in a cause célèbre for modernism. In January of that year he was awarded the 1943 Archibald Prize for portraiture, given annually by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. His winning picture was Portrait of an Artist (damaged beyond repair by fire), representing his fellow painter Joshua Smith (1905–95). Two of the unsuccessful competitors contested the award in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, on the grounds that the winning work was not a portrait but a caricature—a ‘pictorial defamation of character’. Their suit was dismissed and the case was regarded as a significant victory for the cause of modern art in Australia. Some critics think that this marks the peak of Dobell's career and that much of his later work shows a decline in confidence. However, he continued to be much in demand as a portraitist and also painted landscapes, some of them inspired by visits to the highlands of New Guinea in 1949 and 1950.

Dobell, Sydney Thompson (1824–74), published The Roman (1850), a dramatic poem inspired by sympathy with oppressed Italy, and Balder (1854), one of the most extreme productions of the Spasmodic school. This lengthy dramatic poem, of which only the first part was completed, describes the inner turmoil and aspirations of a young poet, who has taken his bride and baby daughter to live in ‘a tower gloomy and ruinous’ while he plans his great work. His search for the ultimate experience of death is rewarded by the death of his baby in mysterious circumstances; his wife Amy goes mad; and finally, unable to witness her sufferings, Balder kills her. Balder's destructive egoism so shocked readers that Dobell prefaced a second edition with an explanation claiming that his hero was not held up for admiration. In 1855 Dobell published (jointly with Alexander Smith) Sonnets on the War and in 1856 England in Time of War, which contains the ballad with the refrain ‘O Keith of Ravelston’ (‘A Nuptial Eve’).

Sydney Thompson Dobell , 1824–74, English poet. He is best known for the melodramatic, extravagantly emotional poem Balder (1853). In 1855 he published jointly with Alexander Smith (1830–67) some sonnets on the Crimean War.