Donald Cameron (1927-2018), Melbourne-born painter and teacher, attended Scotch College before beginning work as an engraver for the Commonwealth Bank in 1943. During his fifteen years on the job, he was sent to study portraiture under William Dargie; he won student prizes at the NGV for a landscape in 1951 and a portrait head in 1952. He engraved, designed sixteen Australian stamps, including the first-ever Christmas stamp. He first entered the Archibald in 1952; he was a finalist thirteen times, his subjects including Harold Blair, Rosalie Kunoth, The Reverend Lavender and other clergymen, artists and military men. He also painted various Miss Victorias.
Through the 1960s he taught at CIT, becoming head of the art department in 1969. Meanwhile, he studied etching at the Slade School in 1966, obtained a French government scholarship for four months' technical study in France in 1967, and received his Diploma of Art from the Caulfield Institute in 1969. From 1972 to 1977 he was head of the art department at Scotch College. His publications include the self-published Art is Adventure (1985) and Black White and Grey with colour added: The adventures of an Australian Artist Engraver in Paris (1986). Through the 1980s he won many small art awards in Melbourne; his works are held by several Victorian regional galleries.
