Archibald a portrait of corruption, says Leak
BILL Leak has grown to despise the Art Gallery of NSW's annual Archibald Prize portraiture jamboree.
BILL Leak has grown to despise the Art Gallery of NSW's annual Archibald Prize portraiture jamboree.
About six years ago Leak decided he'd never enter again, despite 12 of his portraits having been selected to hang in the exhibition over the years.
"The process behind it is truly despicable, it's corrupted and horrible," said The Australian's veteran cartoonist. The Art Gallery of NSW chairman and trustees have the final say on who wins this year's $75,000 prize.
Leak's disillusion partly stems from hearing, second-hand, some years ago that his work was not being taken seriously on account of him being "a cartoonist".
Despite the arbiters of talent at NSW's premier art institution never decreeing a Leak portrait worthy of winning the Archibald, Manly's Art Gallery and Museum is planning to celebrate his career this summer with a survey exhibition.
For two months from December 10 the Manly gallery will display a selection of Leak portraits, many of which were finalists in the Archibald Prize.
Leak is helping the gallery's curators locate pictures for the show and the process is proving tricky because, by his own admission, record-keeping has not been his forte.
This week a missing portrait of Olivia Newton-John's father, the late celebrated academic Brin Newton-John was located at Ormond College, Melbourne. Leak by chance located his Gough Whitlam portrait hanging in a Brisbane law firm.
Portraits of Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull have been easily found because the couple commissioned Leak to paint them and still own them.
Likewise Leak's portrait of Mrs Turnbull's uncle, the late art critic Robert Hughes, was acquired by Canberra's National Portrait Gallery.
Among the other faces to be found in Leak's show will be Dame Edna Everage, Sir Les Patterson, Leak's sons Jasper and Johannes aged 11 and 14, Don Bradman and music evangelist Richard Gill.
Then there's the portrait of Tex Perkins Leak is desperate to locate.
Leak said: "There's no point asking Tex. It hung in the Archibald Prize and then someone bought it and I think he was from Melbourne."
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