Clifton Pugh

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Clifton Ernest Pugh AO, (December 17, 1924 – October 14, 1990) was an Australian artist, who won the Archibald Prize three times, and an Order of Australia medal in 1985. A pioneering environmental activist, he was known for his landscapes, and also for portraiture. He was a member of the Antipodeans Group, who protested against Abstract Expressionism.

He was born in Melbourne, and served with the AIF in New Guinea and Japan 1943-1947. He was married three times: to June Byford, Marlene Harvey and Judith Ley.

In 1951 he started buying up former farming land at Cottles Bridge near the town of Hurstbridge, north of Melbourne, and built a small shack out of natural materials scavenged from the area. After a time he moved his family into the rudimentary dwelling and decided to attempt to live in harmony with nature. Pugh became committed to seeing the Australian bush rejuvenate in the surrounding land, buying up further paddocks, pulling down fences, uprooting exotic plants and weeds, and starting a wild animal shelter. The close observation of the nature and its cyclical rhythms became a key theme in Pugh's paintings from this time, leading to his later being recognised as a pioneer in environmental art.

Several artist friends decided to join him, purchasing adjacent waste land and building their own mud-brick dwellings. In 1953 they founded an artists' co-operative, the Dunmoochin Artists Society (based on Pugh's joke that they had 'done with moochin around'). Pugh and his friends also started local conservation and environmental groups, and became renouned as green activists in the Hurstbridge region. In 1989 Pugh set up the Dunmoochin Foundation which provided residences for artists at the property.

In 1966 he had a one man show at the Artists' Guild Gallery in St Louis in the United States. He later had other one man shows in London (1975 and 1976) and Tel Aviv (1979), as well as many in Australian cities, including Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

In 1990 he was named the Australian War Memorial's official artist at the 75th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing.

After Gough Whitlam was dismissed, he refused to sit for an official portrait and said that Clifton Pugh's 1972 portrait should be used instead. It is now the official portrait hanging at New Parliament House in Canberra.

Pugh's Archibald Prize winning work was:

One of his best known paintings was The Death of a Wombat (1972) which was related to the radio feature of Ivan Smiths.

He had a close association with Labor Party figures .

The following films were made about him:

  • Painting People (Commonwealth Film Unit)
  • Bird and Animal (Eltham Films)
  • Four Painters (ATV Channel 0, Melbourne)
  • See It My Way (ABC Channel 2, Sydney)
  • The Diamantina ( De Montignie Media Productions)
  • A Fragile Country

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Awards
Preceded by
Not awarded
(J. Carrington Smith, 1963)		 Archibald Prize
1965
for R. A. Henderson		 Succeeded by
Jon Molvig
Preceded by
Eric Smith		 Archibald Prize
1971
for Sir John McEwan
1972
for The Hon. E. G. Whitlam		 Succeeded by
Janet Dawson