Mathew Lynn Dr John Yu

Named Australian of the Year in 1996, John Yu was chief executive of the Camperdown Children’s Hospital in Sydney from 1978 to 1995. He was instrumental in the planning of the new Children’s Hospital at Westmead, promoting his love of gardens and art and helping to produce a unique environment for children and their families.

Yu retired as Westmead’s chief executive in 1998 but remains busy with many other appointments and responsibilities. Recently retired as the deputy chancellor of the University of Western Sydney, he is now the chancellor of the University of New South Wales. He is a great lover of music and is known for his deep and longstanding interest in art.

In this portrait, Mathew Lynn has moved away from placing his figures in a characteristically dark background as humid light gently pours into the scene. Amongst other things, he wanted to partially camouflage the subject to suggest a certain shyness. At the same time he wanted the figure to stand out over time and have the viewer inevitably drawn to the face so that the rather metaphorical garden/landscape becomes of secondary importance, emanating from the figure. He tried to combine two rather contradictory expressions in the face, so that the viewer could gently rock back and forth between the two sides, moving around the face. In his handling of the scene, he was inspired by his great love of late Titian where objects and things are suggested through a poetic texture, rather than being purely illustrational.

Lynn lives in Sydney and works mainly on portraits. He has been exhibited in the Archibald Prize for the last four years. In 1997 he was a runner-up and his portrait of Jeanne Ryckmans was voted the People’s Choice. His portrait of Guan Wei was also highly commended in 1998. He was first hung in the Archibald Prize in 1989.

His portrait of Yu appeared in the exhibition courtesy of the Children’s Hospital, Westmead, in whose collection the work remains.