Brian Dunlop (1938-2009) won the Art Gallery of New South Wales's Le Gay Brereton Prize for Drawing as a student at East Sydney Technical College. In the 1960s he travelled and painted in Europe and London before returning to teach part-time at East Sydney. His first three solo exhibitions were mounted in Sydney between 1963 and 1966, after which he began to exhibit in Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne. Through the 1970s and early 1980s he exhibited often at the Macquarie Galleries. He won Canberra's Civic Permanent Art Award in 1976 and 1977, and the Sulman Prize in 1981. In the early 1980s, after a period as artist-in- residence at the University of Melbourne, he lived in Tuscany, developing a meticulous style bearing affinities with those of Balthus and Piero della Francesca. From the mid-1980s he was based in Melbourne, Port Fairy and finally Beechworth, while travelling often overseas. Though well-known for views of silent, sparse rooms, their sheer curtains wafting, Dunlop frequently painted portraits on commission, notably the sesquicentenary portrait of HM Queen Elizabeth II for the state of Victoria in 1984.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE 2006
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
© Bryan Westwood/Copyright Agency, 2024
Joseph Brown AO OBE (4 portraits)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
As Bryan Westwood’s portrait of Brian Dunlop hangs adjacent to Brian Dunlop’s portrait of the philanthropist Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, we see the artist of one work as the subject of the other.
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