Victor Smorgon AO (b.1913), industrialist and philanthropist, is the former chairman of Smorgon Consolidated Industries. Smorgon emigrated to Australia from the Ukraine in 1927, and ran a kosher butchery with his two brothers in Lygon St, Carlton. Over the ensuing decades they built a vast family business empire encompassing steel, meat, paper, plastics, forestry and commercial property. Smorgons enormous contributions to a wide range of medical and arts institutions in Australia include the Smorgon outpatients' wing at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital; the Loti and Victor Smorgon Gift of Contemporary Australian Art, Sydney; and the Loti and Victor Smorgon Gallery of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Gift of the artist 2002
© Peter Wegner
Peter Wegner (5 portraits)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Peter Wegner's approach to portraiture could be considered a visual record of the rapport, the dynamic space between artist and subject.
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