24 Facts About Clifton Pugh

Clifton Ernest Pugh 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.

Clifton Pugh was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 1985 Australia Day Honours List for service to Australian art.

Clifton Pugh was born in Richmond, Victoria, one of three, to English-born Thomas Owen Clifton Pugh, an assistant mechanical engineer, and Adelaide born wife Violet Odgen.

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

On receiving orders to proceed, Clifton Pugh tortured, shot and killed them.

Clifton Pugh read Sheldon Cheney's The Story of Modern Art while recuperating in hospital in New Guinea during World War II.

In 1951 Clifton Pugh bought 15 acres of bushland near Cottles Bridge, 50 kilometres northeast of Melbourne, which he named Dunmoochin.

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

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

Clifton Pugh held his first solo show in 1957 at the Victorian Artists Society Gallery, where he displayed landscapes and portraits.

Clifton Pugh joined the stable of the Sydney art dealer Rudy Komon.

Clifton Pugh had consistent official support in the crucial early stages of his career.

Clifton Pugh was represented in London by Andre Kalman, who showed him in 1975,1976,1977 and 1979, and with the Athol Gallery on the Isle of Man.

Clifton Pugh worked with the printmaker Stanley Hayter for three months in Paris in 1970.

Clifton Pugh brought Hayter's oil viscosity printing technique back to Australia the same year.

Clifton Pugh chaired the Victorian ALP Arts Policy Committee from 1971, and Gough Whitlam appointed Clifton Pugh to the Australia Council for the Arts in 1973.

Clifton Pugh made public his disagreements with Council chairman H C "Nugget" Coombes who refused to implement the policy Clifton Pugh and his fellow committee members had crafted and then taken through the processes of the Victorian and Federal ALP conferences to become official ALP arts policy.

Clifton Pugh became a pacifist during World War II, while on active service, and retained this position during the Vietnam War.

Clifton Pugh joined the Labor Party to campaign for the end of Australia's involvement in that War.

Clifton Pugh became very well known, as he and Judith used his status as a painter to improve that of the ALP.

Clifton Pugh lived for some years with Adriane Strampp, who trained as a painter.

Clifton Pugh established the Dunmoochin Foundation which now forms part of his legacy, and provides residences for artists in his bush property.

Clifton Pugh donated Dunmoochin land to the Victorian Conservation Trust in 1989.