Basil Philip Bressler, who died in 2000, was a surveyor with an amateur interest in art and music. Raised by two aunts, he travelled to Europe in the 1950s and held several exhibitions of his abstract paintings in London. Although he sold many of his works, he turned to music as his primary creative outlet, becoming a keen violinist and performing for several years with the Hong Kong Philharmonic while working as a surveyor. He returned to Sydney in the 1980s and worked as a part-time sales assistant at David Jones while continuing his involvement with chamber music groups. Quite unexpectedly, Bressler bequeathed more than a quarter of a million dollars to the National Portrait Gallery, stipulating that the money should be used for the purchase of works by living Australian artists. This fund, the first of its kind, was known as the Basil Bressler Bequest.
