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Overview
This portrait of prime minister Keith Holyoake was commissioned from the Australian artist William Dargie, by the Kelliher Trust. Keith Holyoake was a National party politician, who served as prime minister from 1960 to 1972. The commission for the portrait came about after Sir Henry Kelliher visited Canberra in 1966. Impressed by the large number of portraits of Australian politicians that were on display in federal buildings, Kelliher decided to commission a similar group of portraits of prominent New Zealanders (The Press, 8 June 1967, p.3).
The painting arrived in Wellington in June 1967, when its acquisition was reported in newspapers around the country. A photograph of Holyoake standing next to the painting, from the Evening Post archive, can be seen on DigitalNZ: Prime Minister Keith Holyoake and his portrait | Record | DigitalNZ
About the artist
William Dargie (1912-2003) was born in Footscray, Melbourne on June 4 1912. After starting life as a teacher, he studied in Melbourne at the studio of artist AD Colquhoun between 1931 and 1934. Dargie became a fulltime painter in 1936. From 1941-46 he was an official Australian war artist, serving in the Middle East, New Guinea, India, Greece and Burma. After the war he returned to Melbourne, where he became Director of the National Gallery of Victoria’s School of Art. Alongside his practice as a painter, Dargie held numerous other positions in art schools and galleries over the course of his life.
Although he painted many different subjects, William Dargie is best known as a portraitist. He won the prestigious Archibald Prize for portrait painting a record eight times – winning for the first time in 1942. Dargie painted The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, as well as leading Australian and New Zealand figures in fields including the arts, military, industry, sport, education and science.