Trudie Leigo
Portraiture has been a popular and enduring genre of art for centuries. However, it has undergone significant changes, many of which can be traced in the collection held by the Rockhampton Museum of Art (RMOA), formerly the Rockhampton Art Gallery. Two significant historical developments have impacted the collection greatly. Firstly, the development and evolution of photography over a nearly 200-year period. Secondly, in an Australian context, the establishment of the Archibald Prize, the country’s best-known art prize, which has been running for almost 100 years.
Rockhampton’s art collection began with a portrait. In 1931, Edward Cureton Tomkins donated Portrait of Dr Francis Robert Tomkins 1785–89 to the City of Rockhampton.1 Painted by Lemuel Francis Abbott, who was an established portrait artist known for capturing prominent eighteenth-century British figures, it exemplifies British portraiture of the time.
However, within a few decades, portrait artists experienced a disruption to their practice. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, experiments were eagerly carried out across Britain and France in chemicals, optics and image making. Despite earlier efforts, photography did not spread until the 1840s, when lasting images were able to be produced.2 By the 1850s, families such as the Scottish Mackay family—who were pioneers of the Rockhampton region—were having studio portraits taken. Two tintypes from this time, one of a toddler (identified as Patrick Mackay) and one of four children (one of whom might be Colin Campbell Mackay), are the earliest examples of portrait photography in the RMOA collection.
The Mackay Family collection includes over eighty photographs dating from the 1850s through to the 1920s. To families like the Mackays, portraiture photography held great appeal; it was more cost-effective, portable and accurate in likeness than a painting.
Thankfully, the rise of photography did not spell the end of painted portraiture. By 1921, the Art Gallery of New South Wales had launched an annual portraiture prize of paintings only, thanks to the bequest of founding Bulletin editor and Gallery trustee Jules Francois Archibald.3
Since its inception, the Archibald Prize has attracted wide media coverage, controversy, and high visitor numbers. A household name, it has grown to become one of Australia’s most well-known and well-attended exhibitions.4 The Archibald Prize has been enormously influential on the trajectory of numerous artists’ careers and the shaping of collectors’ tastes; to this day, it has the power to push a winning artist’s name out of the vocabulary of art dealers and curators alone into the wider public’s.
Many Archibald-winning artists have made their way into the Rockhampton Museum of Art Collection. Of the fifty-eight artists who have won the Archibald Prize to date, a staggering twenty-five have artworks in this collection.5 In 1976 and 1977, Rockhampton Mayor Rex Pilbeam and the Art Acquisition Committee travelled south to meet with art dealers, galleries and artists to acquire artworks for Rockhampton’s new gallery.6 With locally raised funds and additional support from the Commonwealth Government, Pilbeam was able to acquire notable portraits by some of Australia’s leading artists, many of which were Archibald Prize winners. Acquisitions included Arthur Murch’s George Wallace 1950, Judy Cassab’s Portrait of Desiderius Orban 1976, Louis Kahan’s Woman Sitting 1975, Eric John Smith’s Hector Gilliland 1990 and Brett Whiteley’s Katharine Hobbs.
Acquisitions from 1976 to 1977 also included portraits by Archibald Prize finalists, Russell Drysdale (Portrait of George Johnston 1966 and Outback Postmistress and Daughter 1976) and John Brack (Portrait of Lyn Williams 1976), along with Joshua Smith’s 1964 Portrait of Chips Rafferty, which won the Archibald Prize that year. However, the influence of the Archibald Prize on the RMOA collection is perhaps best demonstrated through William Dargie’s commissioned portrait from 1977, Portrait of Rex Pilbeam (Mayor of Rockhampton 1952–1982). Dargie had dominated the Archibald Prize in the 1940s and 1950s, winning it a staggering eight times.
The RMOA Collection’s fervent link to the Archibald Prize has continued. Artist Del Kathryn Barton, who won the Archibald Prize in 2008 and 2013, had her self-portrait Saplings 2014 acquired by gallery only a year after her second win. Similarly, the gallery acquired Ben Quilty’s The Evo Project, Sheep Wash Road 2011 a year after he won the Archibald Prize in 2011. Notably, the acquisition of both portraits by Barton and Quilty were made possible by public donations, demonstrating the popular support and notability these artists had built.
As well as its rich selection of painted portraits, photographic portraiture has not been overlooked in the RMOA collection. Indeed, it features strong contemporary photographic portraiture. Today, artists are no longer limited to merely capturing someone’s likeness in order for a work to be called a portrait. Artists now have the freedom to explore concepts and to push boundaries. For example, three artists in the collection have created faceless photographic portraits: Abdul Abdullah’s Bride I (Victoria) and Groom I (Zofloya) 2015; Petrina Hick’s Venus 2013; and Deborah Paauwe’s Entwined Strands and Adorned Tresses 2013.
RMOA’s collection of contemporary photographic portraiture was further enhanced in 2019 when the Queensland Centre of Photography donated [insert number of artworks donated]. Among them were William Yang’s Self Portrait #3 1948/2007, Peter Milne’s Nick Cave 1991, and Louise Whelan’s Rockabilly at Home NSW 2019.
The development of photography and the Archibald Prize have been the two most significant influences on the historical development of portraiture in the RMOA Collection. For decades, the Archibald Prize has influenced the tastes of the Australian public but also the tastes of curators, including those in Rockhampton.
Reviewing the Rockhampton Museum of Art Collection, one can see that portraiture has been at the heart of the earliest and most recent acquisitions. Over 90 years of astute acquisitions and generous donations, Rockhampton has amassed a significant portraiture collection that not only reflects the developments of portraiture as a genre, but also includes portraits by some of Australia’s most revered artists.
February 2022
1 Rockhampton Art Gallery, “History,” https://www.rockhamptonartgallery.com.au/About-Us/History.
2 National Museum of Scotland, “Victorian Photographic Techniques,” https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/science-and-technology/victorian-photography/victorian-photography/victorian-photographic-techniques/.
3 Peter Ross and Jo Litson, Let’s Face It: The History of the Archibald Prize, 6th ed. (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2017), 11.
4 The 2019 Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales was attended by over 130,000 people. See Michaela Boland, “Sydney Artist Tony Costa Wins 2019 Archibald Prize for Portrait of Zen Buddhist,” ABC News, 10 May 2019, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-10/tony-costa-wins-archibald-prize-2019-lindy-lee/11088494
5 Ross and Litson, Let’s Face It, 158-181.
6 Diana Warnes, Cream: Four Decades of Australian Art (Rockhampton: Rockhampton Art Gallery, 2014), 8.