Brent Harris Leo Schofield

Brent Harris had never painted a portrait when he was commissioned last year by Andrew Sayers, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, to paint former festival director/arts impressario Leo Schofield.

“I was quite astounded,” admits Harris, “but he also commissioned Howard Arkley to paint Nick Cave so he has a program of approaching people whose work he admires and who he thinks should paint a portrait. It’s a pretty brave thing to do. I didn’t think I had a portrait in me but now I might do more.”

Harris painted two portraits of Schofield. The National Portrait Gallery chose one, the other Harris entered in the Archibald Prize.

Harris had met Schofield a couple of times at the opera (one of Schofield’s great passions). He then visited him at home at Bronte House. “It’s very Victorian so the first portrait I did was set inside an oval. This one has drops of wisteria – which is Leo’s favourite flower.” Schofield’s love of gardening is well-known and he has done a great deal of work on the garden at Bronte House. In fact, if you look closely at the flowers in the portrait you will see little skulls in some of them. “In painting the wisteria these skulls started to pop up. I decided to let them remain and add another layer to the painting. So out of the beauty of the bloom, mortality is hinted at.”

Harris’s work is generally quite abstract. As with this portrait, he works with flat areas of colour, an aesthetic inspired by Japanese prints. “I went to Japan for three months in 1999 to study Japanese print-making, which was wonderful,” he says. “I think there is a Japanese sensibility in both of the portraits, the way Japanese prints can describe beauty with just a couple of simple lines. With this portrait, through many drawings, I reduced and reduced it to the barest lines that described Leo.”

Born in New Zealand in 1956, Harris came to Australia in 1981 and did his art training at the Victorian College of the Arts. His Archibald portrait of Leo Schofield is now in the Arts Centre Melbourne.