George Duncan (1904-1974), artist, was the second husband of modern artist Alison Rehfisch. They married in 1942, having met in the late 1920s as painting students at the Royal Art Society of New South Wales. Duncan recalled in 1965 ‘we seemed to belong to each other on that first day’. Born in Auckland, Duncan traveled in the UK and Europe in the late 1930s and worked as a camouflage artist during World War II. In the 1940s Duncan and Rehfisch exhibited their work together at Sydney’s Macquarie Galleries, and were active in Sydney’s Bohemian contemporary art community. In 1947 they moved to Berrima, painting the landscapes around Goulburn and the Southern Highlands before returning to Sydney in 1951 where Duncan became director of the influential David Jones Art Gallery. Their relationship was based on equality, and Duncan is credited with instigating infamous fancy-dress ‘loin-cloth’ parties held in their painting studio. One such party was painted by Norman Lindsay.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Margaret Adams 1999
© Estate of Alison Rehfisch
Margaret Adams (1 portrait)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
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Drawn from the National Portrait Gallery collection, this salon-style hang references the lavish 18th- and 19th-century European salons where paintings were hung floor-to-ceiling.
Eye to Eye is a summer Portrait Gallery Collection remix arranged by degree of eye contact – from turned away with eyes closed all the way through to right-back-at-you – as we explore artists’ and subjects’ choices around the direction of the gaze.
