Artist, writer and teacher Herbert Badham specialised in figurative paintings of urban life. Having studied for many years at the Julian Ashton School during the 1920s and 1930s, he produced a body of work that typified the gentle, realist aspect of Sydney modernism of the prewar years. Head of the intermediate art department at East Sydney Technical College from 1938 to 1961, he published Study of Australian Art in 1949 and A Gallery of Australian Art in 1954. In this small-scale self portrait set in a domestic interior, Badham sits facing the viewer with a pipe held between his lips while he pulls on a brown leather glove. A mirror hanging on the wall behind him introduces his companion, possibly his wife Enid, who appeared in another self portrait from 1937.
Purchased 1999
© Estate of Herbert Badham
Herbert Badham (age 40 in 1939)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Angus Trumble treats the gallery’s collection with a dab hand.
Former NPG Director, Andrew Sayers describes the 1922 Self-portrait with Gladioli by George Lambert.
