Dr Joan Croll AO (1928–2022), radiologist and physician, studied medicine at the University of Sydney and commenced practising in 1975. A pioneer in the field of breast cancer treatment, she promoted the introduction of mammography and helped establish the National Breast Cancer Screening Program. Also a conservationist, Croll was one of a group of thirteen women – the Battlers for Kelly's Bush – whose campaign to protect bushland in Sydney's Hunters Hill in the early 1970s led to the world's first green ban.
Melbourne-born John Brack emerged as one of Australia's foremost figurative artists in the 1950s with paintings such as Collins Street, 5p.m. (1955). Brack didn't consider himself a portraitist, yet he created a number of portraits that, like his images of ordinary people and urban scenes, are finely observed, sometimes austere examinations of everyday life. On being told that Brack had been commissioned to paint her, Croll wondered: 'Oh, what am I going to look like?' Brack made a number of sketches of her in Sydney and completed the painting – the first of his few private portrait commissions – in Melbourne. 'When I look at my portrait, I see somebody who likes fashion', Croll later said. 'And I see me ... I'm a bossy lady, and I look like a bossy lady.'
Gift of Frank Croll and Dr Joan Croll AO 2001. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Helen Brack
This 1976 portrait of Joan Croll is by John Brack. It measures 165 centimetres by 119 centimetres.
Joan Croll, formerly a breast physician and radiologist, is a conservation activist and vigorous writer of letters-to-the-editor. This oil on canvas portrait depicts her sitting upright on a French Provincial dining chair, legs crossed, with her hand on hip, looking straight at us, her expression stern. She is in the corner of a sparse mauve room, a large Persian carpet occupying much of the foreground. The floor appears to tilt, as if tipping toward us. The painting style is very exact with strong, straight outlines around flat colours with minimal shading.
The bare mauve walls fill the top third of the background. They meet in the exact middle of the picture and spread diagonally down to the left and right with huge umber skirting boards running along the base. The mauve floor fills the lower two thirds with the large intricately patterned Persian carpet lying on a diagonal angle to the right. The carpet is umber with yellow oxide complex patterns and white linear details. It is cropped at the bottom right corner of the painting.
Joan’s seated figure is positioned in the centre top half of the picture. She is sitting on an ornate French Provincial dining chair with an umber cushioned backrest, cushioned seat and cushioned arm rests. The wooden frame is light brown with umber decorative details.
Her short, cropped hair, neat gradations of combed grey, frames her oval face. Tiny unadorned earlobes poke out from beneath it. She has fair skin, short straight eyebrows, hooded eyelids and large dark almond shaped eyes. She gazes at us, front on. Beneath her eyes are shadows and at their corners, creases. She has a long nose and thin closed lips. Her cheeks and chin are flat.
Joan has a long neck creased below the jawline, narrow shoulders and lean arms. Her elbows flare out each side of her body, her right hand on her hip, her left elbow resting lightly on the arm of the dining chair. Her left wrist bent downward, her hand and fingers hanging loosely. There’s a silver metallic bracelet wrapped around her left wrist, a thin band on her ring finger.
She is wearing a simple black sleeveless dress with a high neckline, knee length, sheer black stockings and black t-strap heels. Around her neck hangs a long string of white pearls. Her left leg crosses over her right resting in the air at a diagonal angle. Her right foot is firmly on the floor pointing toward us.
Audio description written by Marina Neilson and ready by Carolyn Eccles
Croll, Dr Joan AO (Wife), Croll, Frank (Husband) (1 portrait)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Australian Galleries Director Stuart Purves tells the story of two portraits by John Brack.
1 July 2015
Eminent doctors and scientists have for more than a century consistently caused our nation to punch far above her weight.
