Dobell, Sir William (1899–1970). One of the best-known Australian painters of the 20th century. He was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, the son of a building contractor, and originally trained as an architect. In 1923 he settled in Sydney, where he attended evening classes in art, and in 1929 he won a travelling scholarship that enabled him to study at the Slade School in London (he also had some private tuition from
Orpen). Dobell remained in London for a decade. During this time he won prizes for drawing and figure painting at the Slade and exhibited at the Royal Academy and with the
New English Art Club and the
London Group. By the time he returned to Sydney in 1939 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.
Dobell immediately acquired a circle of admiring patrons in Sydney, some of whom commissioned portraits from him, 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 (since damaged beyond repair by fire), representing his friend and fellow-painter Joshua Smith (1905–95). ‘Smith was a thin, bony man with prominent features and Dobell produced a portrait which, though not unsympathetic, adopted a manneristic attenuation of form and an expressionistic intensity of colour more vigorous and thoroughgoing than anything he had attempted previously’ ( Bernard Smith,
Australian Painting 1788–1990, 1991). 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: ‘The irony of the case was that Dobell was not a self-conscious modernist … He considered himself a ‘traditionalist', but in his hands the tradition proved too malleable for his Archibald rivals. What they seemed to find intolerable was that the expression of the inner being of the sitter should be allowed to distort the external form of his body beyond the bounds of “objective” likeness … One witness in the trial said the picture reminded him of something he had seen in a psychiatric textbook’ ( Christopher Allen,
Art in Australia, 1997). Some critics think that the Smith portrait marks the peak of Dobell's career and that much of his later work shows a decline in confidence. He continued to be much in demand as a portraitist (
Dame Mary Gilmore, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1957), however, and also painted landscapes, some of them inspired by visits to the highlands of New Guinea in 1949 and 1950. In 1954 (with
Drysdale and
Nolan) he represented Australia at the Venice
Biennale. He was knighted in 1966. His house at Wangi Wangi, New South Wales, was opened to the public in 1972.
