Clifton Pugh

Clifton Ernest Pugh AO, (17 December 1924 – 14 October 1990) was an Australian artist and three-time winner of Australia's Archibald Prize.

One of Australia's most renowned and successful painters, Pugh was strongly influenced by German Expressionism, and was known for his landscapes and portraiture.

Important early group exhibitions include The Antipodeans, the exhibition for which Bernard Smith drafted a manifesto in support of Australian figurative painting, an exhibition in which Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Charles Blackman showed; a joint exhibition with Barry Humphries, in which the two responded to Dadaism; and Group of Four at the Victorian Artists Society Gallery with Pugh, John Howley, Don Laycock and Lawrence Daws.

Pugh was born in Richmond, Victoria, one of three to an English-born Thomas Owen Pugh, an assistant mechanical engineer and Adelaide born wife Violet Odgen ( Cook) Both Pugh's parents were amateur painters, and as a young man during the 1940s Pugh attended evening classes at the Swinburne Technical College to study cartoon drawing.

Two years later whilst living in Adelaide he took evening classes in life drawing at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts.

Pugh served with the AIF in New Guinea during World War II and with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan after the war.

A group of Japanese soldiers surrendered to the unit with which Pugh was fighting during a lull in fighting.

On receiving orders to proceed, Pugh (and possibly others) tortured, shot and killed them.

This incident and the guilt he felt affected his attitude to war (he became a pacifist) and his painting.

After serving in World War II, with the financial support of the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Training Scheme, Pugh returned to Melbourne and enrolled in the National Gallery of Victoria Art School.

Pugh was heavily influenced by German Expressionism.

He read Sheldon Cheney's The Story of Modern Art (1941) while recuperating in hospital in New Guinea during World War II.

Pugh's primary influence was Wassily Kandinsky: "I can see Kandinsky in everything I do."

His training at the National Gallery School gave him a strong foundation in drawing and he learned the tonal painting technique, but when he took his teacher William (Bill) Dargie to see the first of Sidney Nolan's Kelly and Dargie's attitude was dismissive, Pugh left the school to develop his own ideas.

In 1951 Pugh bought 15 acre of bushland near Cottles Bridge, 50 km northeast of Melbourne, which he named Dunmoochin.

Pugh at first camped on the site, then built a wattle-and-daub shack.

Artists, potters and others also settled at the site.

In order to protect and jointly control the area they formed the Dunmoochin Artists Co-operative with a constitution of 13 articles.

It was not a commune in any sense of the word except that the titles were communally held.

When the co-operative eventually disbanded each member took a section of the land.

Artists who worked or resided at Dunmoochin have included

Rick Amor,

Frank Hodgkinson,

John Howley,

Helen Laycock,

Peter Laycock,

Mirka Mora,

Kevin Nolan,

John Olsen,

John Perceval,

Alma Shanahan,

Albert Tucker,

Frank Werther,

Fred Williams

and Peter and Chris Wiseman.

Pugh travelled across the Nullarbor Plain to Perth in 1954 then the Kimberley in 1956.

These journeys led to radical changes in his style.

Pugh encountered indigenous Australian art for the first time and began utilizing incision, cross-hatching and collage.

Pugh was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1985 for service to Australian Art.

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