Image Not Available

Portrait of a Wharf Labourer

Artist Roderick Shaw (1915-1992)

Date1947

Object number00018261

NamePainting

MediumOil paint on board

DimensionsOverall: 927 x 745 mm, 3.8 kg
Sight: 777 x 595 mm
Display Dimensions: 782 x 563 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionAn oil painting titled 'Portrait of a Wharf Labourer' by Australian artist Roderick Shaw. The image depicts a seated man with folded arms, a cigarette in one hand. Shaw later identified the sitter as Fred Haimes who at the time was a communist who resided in Kings Cross and worked on the wharves. 'Portrait of a Wharf Labourer' by Shaw is also listed as a finalist for 1947 Archibald prize, although it has not been confirmed that this is the the same painting.HistoryRod Shaw was born at Drummoyne in 1915, was apprenticed to a commercial artist during the Depression years, and in the late 1930s studied painting and drawing at East Sydney Techical College. He spent part of WWII as a camouflage artist with the Royal Australian Air Force. After the war Shaw was active among a group of social realist artists in Sydney. He was partner in a printing and publishing company, Edwards and Shaw, which produced art and poetry books and he taught art at TAFE colleges and the Tin Sheds, Sydney University and at East Sydney Technical College. In the mid 1970s he was active in organizing Artists Action Exhibitions. In particular, Shaw was closely connected to the Waterside Workers' Federation (WWF) in Sydney in the 1940s, both through his Communist Party membership and through the Studio of Realist Art (SORA), which was accommodated near the wharfies' Sussex Street premises and at one period actually within them. Shaw had been one of the founders of SORA in 1945, along with James and Dora Cant, Hal Missingham, Ray Dalgarno, Nan Hortin, Bernard Smith and Herbert McClintock.They were dissatisfied with the Contemporary Art Society (to which Shaw also belonged 1940 - 1948) and wanted to produce art which had meaning to the general community. Shaw in particular worked closely with the Communist - allied unions, devising public programs to bring art into the community, contributing to annual shows and bulletins. He also gave art classes for wharfies, was President of the Wharfies Art Group, and was an Honorary Life Member of the WWF. Around 1953 Shaw started the huge mural depicting the story of the Australian labour movement intertwined with the storyof the wharfies, which was painted at the WWF Sussex street offices. Many other artists and wharfies continuedthe work. It was moved to the Sydney office of the Maritime Union of Australia when the Sussex street WWF offices were disbanded, and has now acquired some celebrity. SignificanceShaw's portrait of a wharf labourer has strong significance both as a representation of a maritime worker of the time, and more subtly as an example of the way such a character was seen through the eyes of the committed labour sympathiser, the way the wharfies saw themselves.