Peter Purves Smith
Encyclopedia
Peter Purves Smith born Charles Roderick Purves Smith, was an Australia
n painter. Born in Melbourne
, Purves Smith studied at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art
in London
and under progressive art teacher George Bell
in Melbourne.
In his student years, Purves Smith emerged as a uniquely confident artist. He was the first modern art
ist in Australia to paint historical Australian subjects, including the explorers Burke and Wills
, and was among the first Australian artists to have direct contact with the international Surrealist movement. He travelled throughout Europe in the late 1930s, painting many of his most celebrated works in Paris
. In 1941, art critic Clive Turnbull
identified Purves Smith, William Dobell
, and Purve Smith's close friend Russell Drysdale
as "the three most significant Australian artists" of the era. However, Purves Smith's artistic career was put on hold while he served in World War II
, and later by illness. He died in 1949, leaving behind a small yet influential body of work.
, the second child and only son of Victorian-born graziers William Purves Smith and Loe Purves Smith. The family's male line in Australia extends back to Peter's grandfather Thomas Smith (1830–87), who emigrated from Darnick
, Roxburghshire
, in the Scottish Borders
to the Colony of Victoria during the early days of the Victorian gold rush
in 1854. Thomas rapidly prospered, establishing various businesses and acquiring farming properties and inner Melbourne mansions. William—although distant from Thomas—took to his father's alternating lifestyle of rural farming and leisured vacations in the city. By 1905, William had married Laura (Loe) Chapman and was wool-growing at Dwarroon, outside Warrnambool. They raised their children Alison (known as Jocelyn) and Peter in various places throughout Victoria, never settling permanently in one place. Purves Smith attended a prep school in England and Geelong Grammar School
in Australia, alongside future artist and friend Russell Drysdale
. In order to please his father, Peter entered the Royal Australian Naval College in 1926, but dropped out three years later to become a jackaroo
near Hay
by the Murrumbidgee River
. William Purves Smith committed suicide on Christmas Eve, 1932.
Following his father's suicide, Peter travelled extensively throughout Europe. In England, 1934, Purves Smith's sister Jocelyn noticed his hobby of drawing, and suggested he attend an art school. He studied under Iain Macnab
at Grosvenor School of Modern Art
in 1935, and back in Australia under George Bell
at the Bourke Street Studio School. There he met again old Geelong friend Russell Drysdale, and fellow Bell student Maisie Newbold, whom he married in 1946 at Toorak
with Drysdale as best man. Drysdale, too, had been a jackaroo, and both artists worked closely together and influenced each other's art. Apart from his teachers and Drysdale, Amedeo Modigliani
, Paul Nash
, Henri Rousseau
, Maurice Utrillo
, Christopher Wood
and surrealism
impacted what would become Purves Smith's highly personal style.
cites as his most important era. Not only did Purves Smith paint his new physical surroundings (1939's Early Morning in Paris) and political environment (1938's The Nazis, Nuremberg), but also recalled works of the Australian landscape, namely Kangaroo Hunt (1938), which was included in the touring exhibition Art of Australia 1788-1941, and acquired by the Museum of Modern Art
, New York. In 1939, art critic Gino Nibbi said "Purves Smith seems one of the most qualified at the present time to give some allegorical interpretations of the virgin appearance of the Australian landscape". He painted a scene from the Burke and Wills expedition
in 1937 (several years before Sidney Nolan
began his Burke & Wills series), and the "pole-like trees, elongated figures, sheets of iron, and low horizons" of his early 1940 Drought landscapes anticipated "in more ways than one" the future direction of Drysdale's art. According to art historian Sasha Grishin, Purves Smith's "apocalyptic" depictions of Australia's desolate interior convey a fear of vast space, and employ a "recognizable Australian setting to express both personal, as well as broader social anxieties" in the lead up to war.
with his mother; the outbreak of war caused him to make a detour to the Grand Canyon
, about which he wrote to Maisie in a characteristically facetious tone: "If one is to die gloriously one might as well see a few things first". He returned to London in October and tried to enlist in the British army, but was told to wait. During the intervening months his state of mind became "paralytic" and he withdrew from social life. Maisie, now back in Melbourne, urged Peter to return to Australia. Despite missing Maisie and suffering from homesickness, he successfully joined up in May 1940.
Purves Smith's first role in the army was to transport petrol and military supplies across the south of England. Life in the training camps was mentally numbing, and before each academic exam Purves Smith feared being given the bum's rush. In September 1941, having volunteered for a posting abroad, he went on active service in West Africa
(then known by soldiers as the "white man's grave"). Purves Smith was a lieutenant stationed in Nigeria
with the West African Forces' 11th General Transport Company. Not much is known about his time there as the postal censor checked mail from the front for military information. What remains of Purves Smith's letters describes the day-to-day aspects of life in the jungle, including dashes into the African wilds and his growing revulsion at body odour and the sight of sweat. Detailed histories of the West Africa Campaign
indicate his company travelled along the Takoradi supply route, which was established in August 1940 as a means of bypassing Vichy French territories
to reach upper Egypt
. The route lasted until September 1943, coinciding with the end of Purves Smith's service in Africa. Much later, Purves Smith painted a memory of Chad
in West Africa (1948, National Gallery of Victoria).
In 1944, he was one of Major General Orde Wingate's "chindits
" behind Japanese lines in Burma. Immediately after the war, he was hospitalised with tuberculosis
.
. Purves Smith's final oil painting was a landscape painted from the perspective of his home in Sassafras
, in the Dandenong Ranges
. It was an attempt to "paint like the old boys", a reference to early Australian colonial artists such as John Glover
.
-based Angry Penguins
in the mid to late 1940s. Two retrospective exhibitions were held in Melbourne: one at the Stanley Coe Gallery in 1950, and the other at the Joseph Brown Gallery
in 1976. A touring exhibition of his work commenced in 2001 following the publication of Mary Eagle's biography Peter Purves Smith: A Painter in Peace and War.
George Bell wrote an obituary for him in The Sun
, saying Purves Smith
Following the death of Russell Drysdale's wife in 1963, Drysdale married Maisie Purves Smith in 1964. In March 2000, burglars stole two paintings by Peter Purves Smith from Maisie's home in Woy Woy
on the Central Coast, as well as a Drysdale painting which was given to Maisie as a gift soon after Peter's death. The works were valued at $350,000.
Peter Purves Smith's 1938 painting The Pond was the subject of an ekphrastic poem by scholar Peter Steele in the 2006 book The Whispering Gallery: Art Into Poetry. In 2008, several of Purves Smith's works were included in the exhibition Australian Surrealism: the Agapitos/Wilson Collection, held at the National Gallery of Australia
, and his major student work New York was shown in the 2008 Powerhouse Museum
exhibition Modern Times. Purves Smith is also represented in the National Gallery of Victoria
's Joseph Brown Collection
, a survey of Australian art from its colonial beginnings to contemporary times. Of the collection, former Christie's
director of art sales Jon Dwyer said "There are many iconic pictures, including von Guerards
, some great Streetons
and McCubbins
- and arguably the best work Peter Purves Smith ever painted, which is my favourite." Lucile, Purves Smith's 1937 portrait of Melbourne socialite Lucile Stephens (daughter of Henry Douglas Stephens
), was acquired in 2011 by the Queensland Art Gallery
through its Foundation Appeal, and is deemed by the gallery to be a collection highlight.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n painter. Born in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Purves Smith studied at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art
Grosvenor School Of Modern Art
Situated at 33 Warwick Square in Pimlico, London,The Grosvenor School of Modern Art was a British Art School founded by the printmakers and linocut artists Claude Flight, Iain McNab, Cyril Edward Power and Sybil Andrews in 1925....
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and under progressive art teacher George Bell
George Bell (painter)
George Frederick Henry Bell was an Australian painter.He was born in Kew, Victoria, the son of George Bell, a public servant, and educated at Kew High School. He studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1895-1903...
in Melbourne.
In his student years, Purves Smith emerged as a uniquely confident artist. He was the first modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
ist in Australia to paint historical Australian subjects, including the explorers Burke and Wills
Burke and Wills expedition
In 1860–61, Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills led an expedition of 19 men with the intention of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres...
, and was among the first Australian artists to have direct contact with the international Surrealist movement. He travelled throughout Europe in the late 1930s, painting many of his most celebrated works in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In 1941, art critic Clive Turnbull
Clive Turnbull
Stanley Clive Perry Turnbull was an Australian author and journalist.He was born in Glenorchy in Tasmania. He joined The Mercury newspaper as a reporter in 1922 and the moved to Melbourne where he worked on The Herald. He is best known for his book Black War that examined the extermination of...
identified Purves Smith, William Dobell
William Dobell
Sir William Dobell, OBE was an Australian artist .The electoral Division of Dobell is named after him.- Life :...
, and Purve Smith's close friend Russell Drysdale
Russell Drysdale
Sir George Russell Drysdale, AC was an Australian artist. He won the prestigious Wynne Prize for Sofala in 1947, and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1954...
as "the three most significant Australian artists" of the era. However, Purves Smith's artistic career was put on hold while he served in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and later by illness. He died in 1949, leaving behind a small yet influential body of work.
Early life and education
Peter Purves Smith was born on 26 March 1912 in East MelbourneEast Melbourne, Victoria
East Melbourne is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, adjacent to Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Melbourne. At the 2006 Census, East Melbourne had a population of 4,330....
, the second child and only son of Victorian-born graziers William Purves Smith and Loe Purves Smith. The family's male line in Australia extends back to Peter's grandfather Thomas Smith (1830–87), who emigrated from Darnick
Darnick
Darnick is a village near Melrose in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, in the former Roxburghshire.Places nearby include Abbotsford, Buckholm, Eildon, the Gala Water, Galashiels, Gattonside, Lindean and Newtown St. Boswells....
, Roxburghshire
Roxburghshire
Roxburghshire or the County of Roxburgh is a registration county of Scotland. It borders Dumfries to the west, Selkirk to the north-west, and Berwick to the north. To the south-east it borders Cumbria and Northumberland in England.It was named after the Royal Burgh of Roxburgh...
, in the Scottish Borders
Scottish Borders
The Scottish Borders is one of 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by Dumfries and Galloway in the west, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian in the north west, City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian to the north; and the non-metropolitan counties of Northumberland...
to the Colony of Victoria during the early days of the Victorian gold rush
Victorian gold rush
The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. In 10 years the Australian population nearly tripled.- Overview :During this era Victoria dominated the world's gold output...
in 1854. Thomas rapidly prospered, establishing various businesses and acquiring farming properties and inner Melbourne mansions. William—although distant from Thomas—took to his father's alternating lifestyle of rural farming and leisured vacations in the city. By 1905, William had married Laura (Loe) Chapman and was wool-growing at Dwarroon, outside Warrnambool. They raised their children Alison (known as Jocelyn) and Peter in various places throughout Victoria, never settling permanently in one place. Purves Smith attended a prep school in England and Geelong Grammar School
Geelong Grammar School
Geelong Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, co-educational, boarding and day school. The school's main campus is located at Corio, on the northern outskirts of Geelong, Victoria, Australia, overlooking Corio Bay and Limeburners Bay....
in Australia, alongside future artist and friend Russell Drysdale
Russell Drysdale
Sir George Russell Drysdale, AC was an Australian artist. He won the prestigious Wynne Prize for Sofala in 1947, and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1954...
. In order to please his father, Peter entered the Royal Australian Naval College in 1926, but dropped out three years later to become a jackaroo
Jackaroo (trainee)
A Jackaroo is a young man working on a sheep or cattle station, to gain practical experience in the skills needed to become an owner, overseer, manager, etc. The word originated in Queensland, Australia in the Nineteenth Century and is still in use in Australia and New Zealand in the twenty-first...
near Hay
Hay, New South Wales
Hay is a town in the western Riverina region of south western New South Wales , Australia. It is the administrative centre of Hay Shire Local Government Area and the centre of a prosperous and productive agricultural district on the wide Hay Plains....
by the Murrumbidgee River
Murrumbidgee River
The Murrumbidgee River is a major river in the state of New South Wales, Australia, and the Australian Capital Territory . A major tributary of the Murray River, the Murrumbidgee flows in a west-northwesterly direction from the foot of Peppercorn Hill in the Fiery Range of the Snowy Mountains,...
. William Purves Smith committed suicide on Christmas Eve, 1932.
Following his father's suicide, Peter travelled extensively throughout Europe. In England, 1934, Purves Smith's sister Jocelyn noticed his hobby of drawing, and suggested he attend an art school. He studied under Iain Macnab
Iain Macnab
Iain MacNab of Barachastlain was a Scottish wood-engraver and painter. As a prominent teacher he was influential in the development of the British school of wood-engraving. His pictures are noted for clarity of form and composition....
at Grosvenor School of Modern Art
Grosvenor School Of Modern Art
Situated at 33 Warwick Square in Pimlico, London,The Grosvenor School of Modern Art was a British Art School founded by the printmakers and linocut artists Claude Flight, Iain McNab, Cyril Edward Power and Sybil Andrews in 1925....
in 1935, and back in Australia under George Bell
George Bell (painter)
George Frederick Henry Bell was an Australian painter.He was born in Kew, Victoria, the son of George Bell, a public servant, and educated at Kew High School. He studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1895-1903...
at the Bourke Street Studio School. There he met again old Geelong friend Russell Drysdale, and fellow Bell student Maisie Newbold, whom he married in 1946 at Toorak
Toorak, Victoria
Toorak is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 5 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district located on a rise on the south side of a bend in the Yarra River. Its Local Government Area is the City of Stonnington...
with Drysdale as best man. Drysdale, too, had been a jackaroo, and both artists worked closely together and influenced each other's art. Apart from his teachers and Drysdale, Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
, Paul Nash
Paul Nash (artist)
Paul Nash was a British landscape painter, surrealist and war artist, as well as a book-illustrator, writer and designer of applied art. He was the older brother of the artist John Nash.-Early life:...
, Henri Rousseau
Henri Rousseau
Henri Julien Félix Rousseau was a French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier , a humorous description of his occupation as a toll collector...
, Maurice Utrillo
Maurice Utrillo
Maurice Utrillo, , born Maurice Valadon, was a French painter who specialized in cityscapes. Born in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre who were born there....
, Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood (English painter)
John Christopher Wood , often called Kit Wood, was an English painter born in Knowsley, near Liverpool.-Biography:-Early life:Christopher Wood was born in Knowsley to Doctor Lucius and Clare Wood...
and surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
impacted what would become Purves Smith's highly personal style.
Work and travel
Throughout the late 1930s, Purves Smith painted in London and Paris, which critic Bernard William SmithBernard William Smith
Bernard William Smith was an Australian art historian, art critic and academic.-Biography:Smith was born in Balmain, Sydney to Charles Smith and Rose Anne Tierney on 3 October 1916. In 1941, he married his first wife, Kate Challis, who died in 1989. Smith married his second wife, Margaret Forster,...
cites as his most important era. Not only did Purves Smith paint his new physical surroundings (1939's Early Morning in Paris) and political environment (1938's The Nazis, Nuremberg), but also recalled works of the Australian landscape, namely Kangaroo Hunt (1938), which was included in the touring exhibition Art of Australia 1788-1941, and acquired by the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York. In 1939, art critic Gino Nibbi said "Purves Smith seems one of the most qualified at the present time to give some allegorical interpretations of the virgin appearance of the Australian landscape". He painted a scene from the Burke and Wills expedition
Burke and Wills expedition
In 1860–61, Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills led an expedition of 19 men with the intention of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres...
in 1937 (several years before Sidney Nolan
Sidney Nolan
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan OM, AC was one of Australia's best-known painters and printmakers.-Early life:Nolan was born in Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, on 22 April 1917. He was the eldest of four children. His family later moved to St Kilda. Nolan attended the Brighton Road State School and...
began his Burke & Wills series), and the "pole-like trees, elongated figures, sheets of iron, and low horizons" of his early 1940 Drought landscapes anticipated "in more ways than one" the future direction of Drysdale's art. According to art historian Sasha Grishin, Purves Smith's "apocalyptic" depictions of Australia's desolate interior convey a fear of vast space, and employ a "recognizable Australian setting to express both personal, as well as broader social anxieties" in the lead up to war.
World War II
Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, and Britain, which had made an alliance with Poland in August, declared war. During this time, Purves Smith was vacationing in CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
with his mother; the outbreak of war caused him to make a detour to the Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, the 15th national park in the United States...
, about which he wrote to Maisie in a characteristically facetious tone: "If one is to die gloriously one might as well see a few things first". He returned to London in October and tried to enlist in the British army, but was told to wait. During the intervening months his state of mind became "paralytic" and he withdrew from social life. Maisie, now back in Melbourne, urged Peter to return to Australia. Despite missing Maisie and suffering from homesickness, he successfully joined up in May 1940.
Purves Smith's first role in the army was to transport petrol and military supplies across the south of England. Life in the training camps was mentally numbing, and before each academic exam Purves Smith feared being given the bum's rush. In September 1941, having volunteered for a posting abroad, he went on active service in West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
(then known by soldiers as the "white man's grave"). Purves Smith was a lieutenant stationed in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
with the West African Forces' 11th General Transport Company. Not much is known about his time there as the postal censor checked mail from the front for military information. What remains of Purves Smith's letters describes the day-to-day aspects of life in the jungle, including dashes into the African wilds and his growing revulsion at body odour and the sight of sweat. Detailed histories of the West Africa Campaign
West Africa Campaign (World War II)
The name West African campaign refers to two battles during World War II: the Battle of Dakar and the Battle of Gabon, both of which took place in late 1940...
indicate his company travelled along the Takoradi supply route, which was established in August 1940 as a means of bypassing Vichy French territories
Département d'outre-mer
An overseas department is a department of France that is outside metropolitan France. They have the same political status as metropolitan departments. As integral parts of France and the European Union, overseas departments are represented in the National Assembly, Senate, and Economic and Social...
to reach upper Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. The route lasted until September 1943, coinciding with the end of Purves Smith's service in Africa. Much later, Purves Smith painted a memory of Chad
Chad
Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
in West Africa (1948, National Gallery of Victoria).
In 1944, he was one of Major General Orde Wingate's "chindits
Chindits
The Chindits were a British India "Special Force" that served in Burma and India in 1943 and 1944 during the Burma Campaign in World War II. They were formed into long range penetration groups trained to operate deep behind Japanese lines...
" behind Japanese lines in Burma. Immediately after the war, he was hospitalised with tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
.
Return to Melbourne
In May 1946, he returned to Australia and also to painting with a far more abstract approach. Significant works from this period are The Pleading Butcher and Woman Eating Duck, both painted in 1948 and now held at the National Gallery of AustraliaNational Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
. Purves Smith's final oil painting was a landscape painted from the perspective of his home in Sassafras
Sassafras, Victoria
Sassafras is a locality and township within Greater Melbourne beyond the Melbourne metropolitan area Urban Growth Boundary, 43 km east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Yarra Ranges. At the 2006 Census, Sassafras had a population of 968...
, in the Dandenong Ranges
Dandenong Ranges
The Dandenong Ranges are a set of low mountain ranges, rising to 633 metres at Mount Dandenong, approximately 35 km east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...
. It was an attempt to "paint like the old boys", a reference to early Australian colonial artists such as John Glover
John Glover (artist)
John Glover was an English/Australian artist in what is known as the early colonial period of Australian art. In Australia he has been dubbed the father of Australian landscape painting.-Life in Europe:...
.
Death and recognition
Peter Purves Smith was hospitalised in 1948, and later drafted to the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital for major lung surgery. He died of post-operative shock the next day, 23 July 1949, and was cremated. Despite his small oeuvre of less than 100 paintings and posthumous descent into relative obscurity, Purves Smith emerged as a celebrated artist—influencing many of his contemporaries—and has been recognised as "the first of the young modern artists to look inquiringly at the Australianness of country life". His use of surreal elements, colloquial themes and at times biting satire set precedent for the work of the MelbourneMelbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
-based Angry Penguins
Angry Penguins
Angry Penguins was an Australian literary and artistic avant-garde movement of the 1940s. The movement was stimulated by a modernist magazine of the same name published by the surrealist poet Max Harris, who founded the magazine in 1940, at the age of 18....
in the mid to late 1940s. Two retrospective exhibitions were held in Melbourne: one at the Stanley Coe Gallery in 1950, and the other at the Joseph Brown Gallery
Joseph Brown (artist)
Joseph Brown, AO, OBE was an Australian artist and art collector.Brown was born in Poland in 1918 and migrated to Australia in 1933 at the age of fifteen, settling in Melbourne. He trained initially as an artist but after returning from war service in 1945 became increasingly involved in the...
in 1976. A touring exhibition of his work commenced in 2001 following the publication of Mary Eagle's biography Peter Purves Smith: A Painter in Peace and War.
George Bell wrote an obituary for him in The Sun
The Sun News-Pictorial
The Sun News-Pictorial, commonly known as The Sun, was a morning daily tabloid newspaper in Melbourne, Australia established in 1922 and closed in 1990.It was part of The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd stable of Melbourne newspapers...
, saying Purves Smith
Following the death of Russell Drysdale's wife in 1963, Drysdale married Maisie Purves Smith in 1964. In March 2000, burglars stole two paintings by Peter Purves Smith from Maisie's home in Woy Woy
Woy Woy, New South Wales
Woy Woy is a coastal town and a southern suburb of the Central Coast region of New South Wales, Australia, located on the southern reaches of Brisbane Water north of Sydney...
on the Central Coast, as well as a Drysdale painting which was given to Maisie as a gift soon after Peter's death. The works were valued at $350,000.
Peter Purves Smith's 1938 painting The Pond was the subject of an ekphrastic poem by scholar Peter Steele in the 2006 book The Whispering Gallery: Art Into Poetry. In 2008, several of Purves Smith's works were included in the exhibition Australian Surrealism: the Agapitos/Wilson Collection, held at the National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
, and his major student work New York was shown in the 2008 Powerhouse Museum
Powerhouse Museum
The Powerhouse Museum is the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney, the other being the historic Sydney Observatory...
exhibition Modern Times. Purves Smith is also represented in the National Gallery of Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
's Joseph Brown Collection
Joseph Brown Collection
The Joseph Brown Collection comprises works of art donated to the National Gallery of Victoria in 2004 by the collector and art dealer Joseph Brown. The collection is displayed in the Ian Potter Centre, part of the NGV...
, a survey of Australian art from its colonial beginnings to contemporary times. Of the collection, former Christie's
Christie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
director of art sales Jon Dwyer said "There are many iconic pictures, including von Guerards
Eugene von Guerard
Johann Joseph Eugene von GuérardHis first name is variously spelled "Eugen", "Eugene", "Eugène", one source mentions "Jean" ; his surname is spelled "Guerard" or "Guérard". The most frequent combination is that used by the National Gallery of Australia: "Eugene von Guérard"...
, some great Streetons
Arthur Streeton
Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton was an Australian landscape painter.-Early life:Streeton was born in Mount Duneed, near Geelong, and his family moved to Richmond in 1874. In 1882, Streeton commenced art studies with G. F. Folingsby at the National Gallery School.Streeton was influenced by French...
and McCubbins
Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin was an Australian painter who was prominent in the Heidelberg School, one of the more important periods in Australia's visual arts history....
- and arguably the best work Peter Purves Smith ever painted, which is my favourite." Lucile, Purves Smith's 1937 portrait of Melbourne socialite Lucile Stephens (daughter of Henry Douglas Stephens
Henry Douglas Stephens
Henry Douglas Stephens was an Australian paediatric surgeon.He was born in Williamstown, Melbourne to John Charles Stephens, a newspaper owner, and his wife Kate. He was dux of Camberwell Grammar School and graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1900...
), was acquired in 2011 by the Queensland Art Gallery
Queensland Art Gallery
The Queensland Art Gallery is part of the Queensland Cultural Centre, and is located nearest to Brisbane River at South Bank...
through its Foundation Appeal, and is deemed by the gallery to be a collection highlight.
External links
- Peter Purves Smith - Australian Dictionary of Biography Online
- Peter Purves Smith - Mother and Child (1939) at Christie'sChristie'sChristie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
- Portrait of Peter Purves Smith by Archibald Douglas Colquhoun at the State Library of VictoriaState Library of VictoriaThe State Library of Victoria is the central library of the state of Victoria, Australia, located in Melbourne. It is on the block bounded by Swanston, La Trobe, Russell, and Little Lonsdale streets, in the northern centre of the central business district...
- Papers on the career of Peter Purves Smith at the National Library of AustraliaNational Library of AustraliaThe National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...