By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Ralph Heimans is one of the world’s best-known portrait painters. He is adored by the royal family, having painted official portraits of King Charles, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Then there’s the imprimatur of PM 26 Kevin Rudd, who tapped him to fashion his official prime ministerial portrait that now hangs in Parliament House.
Heimans categorises his work as “royal portraits” and “cultural icons”, but his previous output was no doubt handy practice for his latest work, unveiled on Wednesday: a joint portrait of CBD favourite, Visy chairman Anthony Pratt and his late father, Richard.
Anthony Pratt (left) and artist Ralph Heimans unveil a portrait of Pratt and his late father, Richard, at Visy headquarters in Melbourne.Credit: Michael Evans
The two-for-one portrait – creatively titled The Chairmen – pays tribute to the two men who have collectively run cardboard packing conglomerate Visy for more than half a century.
So, it was smiles all round at Visy’s Southbank headquarters in Melbourne when Heimans and Pratt dramatically peeled away the rich red curtain to reveal the grand-scale painting of father and son strolling along the verandah of their fabled Kew mansion, Raheen, dressed in royal blue penguin suits.
Paul Keating introduced Heimans to Pratt, who quickly commissioned him to paint Charles when he was prince of Wales, and later Pratt’s two children, Leon and Lilly.
Pratt doesn’t usually say much to the media, but was moved to comment on the biographical nature of Heimans’ paintings.
“I recalled the painting hanging in every Marriott Hotel lobby of J.W. Marriott and his son, Bill, so I thought, why not take the same idea to Ralph?” Pratt said. “The result is magnificent.”
Finer details of the rendering will keep Prattologists busy. We were half expecting US warbler Katy Perry, who staged a lucrative and well-publicised gig at Raheen for select invitees back in February. But the painting has a solitary mien.
Through the window of Raheen, the Leon and Lilly portrait is seen, as well as a painting of Richard as a boy with his parents, Leon and Paula Pratt.
“We wanted to say something about the passing down of wisdom through the generations, and I hope this portrait is a fitting testament to Richard’s legacy,” Heimans said.
Which in no way explains the elaborate harp standing in the centre of the room. Go figure. We are certainly trying to.
CARRY ON CAMPBELL
We had heard that Network Ten’s youthful nightly panel show, The Project, filmed in South Yarra, had made a surprising move in its hour of need.
The show, fronted in the main by Sarah Harris, Hamish Macdonald and Waleed Aly, a columnist for The Age, is just scraping into the top 30 TV shows each night and now barely troubles the cultural zeitgeist of an audience more enamoured of TikTok.
So, it’s surprising that the show seems to have welcomed back its founder, Craig Campbell, who went on leave in January 2021 with rheumatoid arthritis and chronic pain before quitting in April that year.
Given his reputation as one of the most amiable executives ever to grace network television, we bet staff are thrilled.
We asked Ten about the situation and the network said: “Chris Bendall remains the executive producer of The Project and oversees all day-to-day operations along with senior supervising producer Krystal Keller. As the co-owner of Roving Enterprises, Craig Campbell has always taken an active interest in the program.”
Roving Enterprises is the production company co-owned by Rove McManus and Campbell, who is now playing a significant role in the voice of youth program while actually qualifying for a Seniors Card.
BACK ON THE JOB
The Daily Mail, with its salacious headlines, dizzying user experience and penchant for ripping off our stories, has always been a guilty pleasure of this column.
So, of course, we couldn’t help but notice when the local digital offshoot of the Fleet Street tabloid published a story about the standard of the accommodation provided to some staff of Nine, the Olympic broadcast rights holder and owner of this masthead.
However, what stood out most was the byline: Steve Jackson. Breaking news: Jacko is back on the tools. The journalist has gone from regularly gracing the pages of the Daily Mail to writing for it.
Regular readers will recall that Jacko, a veteran master of the tabloid dark arts, was drafted as a spin doctor by the NSW Police after a series of wobbly media appearances by Commissioner Karen Webb.
Within two weeks, Jackson’s contract was torn up amid allegations other police were blindsided by the appointment, and the growing scandal around Jackson’s former employer, Seven’s Spotlight, and the program’s attempts to land infamous former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann to hear his response to Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations, which a judge later found were true, on the balance of probabilities.
All the allegations about Seven paying Lehrmann, the scale of which emerged after Jacko’s dumping by the cops, were pure Daily Mail bait and given ample attention by the outlet.
Now, Jackson is on the other side, and has been beavering away since last week. He declined to comment when CBD came calling.
Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.