Greg Warburton Jim Conway

Jim Conway is an accomplished harmonica player whose distinctive style is known to blues, jazz and country music enthusiasts.

“I have known of Jim through his music since the 1970s when he was playing with The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band and later as the virtuoso blues harmonica player in The Backsliders,” says Greg Warburton. “I met Jim at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2003, when he was the subject of the winning Photographic Portrait Prize and we had an immediate rapport. He agreed to me doing his portrait and I produced a major work in three panels, which I entered into last year’s Archibald Prize. Unfortunately it wasn’t selected but Jim and I had become good friends and I suggested we give it another go this year.

“Jim has multiple sclerosis and he was weary and feeling the heat when I did the initial drawings. He had trouble keeping his eyes open so I went with the flow and this picture was the result. A friend of mine says it’s an affectionate portrayal and I think that’s right. Certainly the better one knows the sitter, the more aspects of the personality are revealed.”

Born in Sydney in 1952, Warburton graduated with an Art Diploma from Hornsby Technical College in 1975 and a Diploma in Painting from the Alexander Mackie College in 1978. This is his fifth time in the Archibald Prize. His portrait of Conway is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.