Monday, February 2, 2009

'...an ugly old bastard like me'

These are the words that Tom Keneally used to describe himself as he sat for Paul Ryan's entry in this year's Archibald Prize for portraiture.

"Named after J.F.Archibald, co-founder of The Bulletin magazine, it is Australia's oldest and best-known prize for portraiture.
The paintings are supposed to depict a person distinguished in the arts, science, letters or politics. "


Portrait of the artist as man-mountain Jared Owens, The Australian

"The NSW-based artist has depicted Keneally in the form of a mountain in his bid to win Australia's most famous art prize.
"He basically said: 'I don't know why you'd want to paint an ugly old bastard like me', and I said it's because you've got all that character that I want to paint," Ryan said.


Well...it is you have said it, Tom, as someone famous was reputed to have said once upon a time.

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