© National Portrait Gallery 2024
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
oil on canvas
76.4 x 61.3; in original frame
inscribed in pencil on card attached to frame: Bobby King / Born at Coranderrk 1909
No. 28 in 1934 exhibition
Gift of Mrs Everard Baillieu, 1986
La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria
Robert (Bobby) King was born at Coranderrk Station, near Healesville, Victoria, in May 1906.
This portrait was painted at Pentridge Prison while Bobby King was serving a sentence of eighteen months for breaking into the Lake Tyers Store with Sydney McRae in July 1933. Emily Shaw, daughter of the Coranderrk Administrator, Joseph Shaw, criticised the severity of the sentence. However the Lake Tyers Station Administrator, Major Ronald Glen, was quoted in the Argus as saying: ‘they would thoroughly enjoy themselves in prison. It would be a glorious holiday to them’.
The portrait is strongly modelled by light, conveying a sense of strength and pride with the upward tilt of the head.
Originally conceived as an anthropological record, Percy Leason’s powerful 1934 portraits of Victorian Aboriginal people are today considered to be a highlight of 20th century Australian portraiture
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