Clifton Pugh The Hon EG Whitlam

This Archibald Prize-winning portrait by Clifton Pugh of politician Edward Gough Whitlam (1916-2014) is now in the Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House, Canberra, with the title The Hon Edward Gough Whitlam AC QC.

Whitlam was opposition leader when he sat for the portrait; he became prime minister when the Labor Party won the 2 December 1972 federal election, shortly before the Archibald exhibition.

This was the third time that Pugh had won the Archibald and the second time he had won with a portrait of a political figure (his painting of John McEwen took the honours the previous year).

The portrait of Whitlam had proven elusive. Pugh tried 12 times to capture him on canvas and gave up. Then, watching a pre-election television broadcast, he was inspired to give it one last try. 'Gough was very difficult,’ said Pugh. 'Each time I tried he was different. He had different things on his mind and they changed him.’ What finally emerged was very different to his largely black-and-white portrait of McEwen. Pugh quipped that, if his Whitlam portrait ever made it to Parliament, 'it’s going to look very bright among all that Mulligatawny soup’.

The painting was Whitlam’s choice for his official portrait at Parliament House. The politician wrote to the artist: ‘My place in the history of art and yours in the history of politics are now secure’.