Clem Millward

Australian, born 1929

BiographyClem was born in 1929 in Melbourne but spent his childhood in Western Australia. He was an evening student at East Sydney Technical School, a waterside worker (with Arnold Butcher a member of Gang 364, a “Brains Trust” who played chess during smokoes), and studied full-time at Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney where fellow students included John Olsen and Mary Heuston. Clem won a scholarship to the School of Art in Bucharest and was a delegate to the Third World Festival of Youth and Students (organised by the World Federation of Democratic Youth) held in East Berlin in 1951.

After returning to Australia Clem joined the Waterside Workers Federation in 1956 looking for shift work that would allow him to work nights and free up daylight hours to paint. He was able to use the union rooms to paint in and he picked up additional work there painting May Day banners. It as during this time that that Clem started work on the mural designed by Rod Shaw in the Waterside Worker's canteen. Unpaid for their contribution, different artists added to the mural and Clem remembered adding colour to sections but working in "fits and starts" as there were always rumours that the building would be demolished.

In 1961, Clem left the waterfront to teach at TAFE in Sydney. His last day on the job was on a Saturday; "I was unloading maggoty hides from North Queensland. It was around here in Darling Harbour in one of the little tiny wharves in the section under Pyrmont Bridge where the Darling Harbour complex is now. I was up to my knees in maggoty hides. When I finished up on the Saturday on that job and I gave my hook to a mate and said: "There you take that, I'm not going to use that again."

Clem became renowned for his evocative landscapes of the Australian bush, was a finalist in the 1958 Archibald and 1966 Sulman competitions and won the 1973 Wynne Award.

Person TypeIndividual