Untitled (portrait of a waterside worker holding a crowbar)
Maker
Clem Millward
(Australian, born 1929)
Date1958
Object number00018806
NameDrawing
MediumPen, Ink on paper
DimensionsMount / Matt size: 560 × 407 mm
Sheet: 330 × 205 mm
Display dimensions: 590 × 435 × 45 mm
Sheet: 330 × 205 mm
Display dimensions: 590 × 435 × 45 mm
ClassificationsArt
Credit LineANMM Collection
DescriptionUntitled (waterside worker carrying a sack of grain across his shoulders) drawing by Clem Millward.
Image depicts a waterside worker standing, legs apart, holding a long crowbar with two hands.
Clem recalled that he worked the drawings up in the studio at the union rooms after having watched men he was working with on the previous day.HistoryThis work by Clem Millward reflects his experience working on the waterfront. Millward had studied painting in Australia and overseas, and worked casual shifts as a wharfie, enabling him time to pursue his art. Millward sketched wharfies in the union canteen during meal breaks and slack periods at work, producing paintings from those sketches afterwards. These men, often anonymous, represent the character and culture of the wharf workers environment at the time.
Millward was also active in the Waterside Workers Federation Art Group, and together with Nan Hortin and Vi Collins, presented art classes for waterside workers' children on Saturday mornings from 1956.
Maritime unions in the mid-twentieth century fostered cultural and educational groups within their ranks. The Waterside Worker's Federation - with a communist-based philosophy - saw a broad role for trade unions in society. Waterside workers lived as well as worked together and were also receptive to the union filling some of the roles of a local social club.