Robert Lyall "Alfie" Hannaford AM , (born 9 November 1944) is an Australian realist artist notable for his drawings, paintings, portraits and sculptures. He is a great-great-great-grandson of Susannah Hannaford. [1] [2]
Robert Lyall "Alfie" Hannaford AM , (born 9 November 1944) is an Australian realist artist notable for his drawings, paintings, portraits and sculptures. He is a great-great-great-grandson of Susannah Hannaford. [1] [2]
Hannaford was born and grew up on his family's farm in the Gilbert Valley near Riverton, South Australia, attending Riverton Primary and High Schools. Born to Claude and Vera (née Hoare), he has two elder brothers (Ian and Donald) and a younger sister (Kay). [1] [3] [4]
In 1960, aged 16, he moved to Adelaide to complete his schooling at Prince Alfred College. He met Kate Gilfillan in 1964. In 1967–68 he studied in Ballarat, marrying Kate in 1968. They moved to Melbourne in 1969 living there for four years, where their two children Tom and Georgina were born. [3] They divorced in 1976.
He returned to South Australia in 1974 living in Riverton, Adelaide, Kangaroo Island, and from 1981–87, West Hindmarsh. In 1984 his daughter Aisha was born and in 1987 his daughter Tsering was born.
Hannaford bought a disused farmhouse and outbuildings at Peters Hill near Riverton and commenced converting them into a dwelling and studio, where he now lives with his wife, artist Alison Mitchell. They were married in 2007 and own and operate Riverton Light Gallery. and have exhibited in collaborative exhibitions.
In 2006 Hannaford was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer.
On 1 January 2001 Hannaford (of West Hindmarsh) was awarded the Centenary Medal "For service to the community through art". [5] On 9 June 2014 Hannaford (of Riverton) was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) "For significant service to the visual arts as a painter and sculptor". [6] Also in 2014 he received the Premier's Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Ruby Awards. [3] [7]
Hannaford's youngest daughter, Tsering, [8] is also a notable South Australian artist. Like her father, she specializes in portraiture, landscapes and still life, and has been a finalist for the Archibald prize. She became a full-time artist in 2013. [9]
Although self-taught, Hannaford has benefited from the mentoring of South Australian artists Hans Heysen and Ivor Hele. [3] He worked as political cartoonist for the Adelaide Advertiser from 1964 to 1967 (between Pat Oliphant and Michael Atchison), before becoming a full-time artist in 1970. [4]
Primarily known as a portrait artist, depicting the likes of Dame Joan Sutherland, Donald Bradman, Paul Keating, and Bob Hawke, he is also known for his landscapes, still lifes, nudes, and sculptures. He has commented on his portraiture that: "Portraiture is an exploration of character that goes beyond photography. It is an ongoing thing over a long period of time. You get elements of various emotions that can be sensed in the painting."
Hannaford first entered the Archibald Prize in 1991 with a portrait of Hugh Stretton. The portrait was shortlisted, and won the 1991/1992 People's Choice Award. To 2018, 26 of his entries have been finalists in 21 of the competitions, and he has been a three-time winner of the People's Choice Award – in 1992, 1996 and 1998. [3]
"Black Chicks Talking" was a project conceived by the actor Leah Purcell and her partner Bain Stewart, and developed by their production company Bungabura Productions. At the invitation of Stewart, in the period 1999 to 2002 Hannaford painted 10 portraits of noted Australian indigenous women to support the project which had been presented to Hannaford as an initiative to raise funds for a mentoring scheme for young Indigenous people. [2] In order to keep the portraits together as a group, they were donated to the Tweed River Gallery. [10]
The ten subjects of the portraits are: [10]
Hannaford's work has been selected as an Archibald Prize finalist many times:
The Archibald Salon des Refusés is an exhibition which shows Archibald Prize entries that have been selected to hang in the prize exhibition.
The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, the editor of The Bulletin who died in 1919. It is administered by the trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and awarded for "the best portrait, preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics, painted by an artist resident in Australia during the twelve months preceding the date fixed by the trustees for sending in the pictures". The Archibald Prize has been awarded annually since 1921 and since July 2015 the prize has been AU$100,000.
Salon des Refusés is a popular Australian art exhibition which shows some of the rejected submissions to the Archibald Prize, Australia's most prestigious art prize for portraiture, and also the Wynne Prize entries for landscape & figure sculpture. The Salon des Refusés exhibition was initiated in 1992 by the S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney, in response to the large number of works entered into the Archibald Prize not selected for hanging in the official exhibition. Its name comes from a similar event that started in Paris in 1863, also called Salon des Refusés. S.H. Ervin Gallery is still the venue for Salon des Refusés.
Paul Newton is an Australian artist. He has won the Archibald Prize Packing Room Prize twice: in 1996 with a portrait of radio announcer John Laws CBE; and, again in 2001 with a portrait of characters Roy Slaven and HG Nelson.
Jenny Sages is an Archibald Prize People's Choice Award winning Australian artist born 1933 in Shanghai, China. She is known for her abstract landscape paintings and portraits. She arrived in Australia in 1948. After being expelled from East Sydney Tech, Jenny moved to New York to study at Franklin School of Art. She was a freelance writer and illustrator for Vogue Australia until the 1980s before starting full-time painting in 1985 at the age of 52. Her career transformation was greatly influenced by a trip to Kimberley, Western Australia, where she felt enchanted by the local indigenous culture. Her unique style is created using wax and pigments and the minimal use of brushes.
Tsering Hannaford is a South Australian artist. In 2012 Tsering and her father Robert Hannaford were the "first father and daughter to show concurrently in Salon des Refusés, an exhibition of Archibald entries", and in 2015 they were the first father and daughter selected as finalists for the Archibald Prize. Tsering is a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Susannah Hannaford.
Alex Seton is an Australian artist, known for his contemporary use of marble carving. He also works in sculpture, photography, video and installation.
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