Les Murray 1995
by David Naseby (b. 1937)
oil on canvas
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Leslie Allan (Les) Murray AO (b. 1938) has been
described as one of the greatest living poets writing in English.
A poet of the natural world and (like Wordsworth) of the 'egotistical
sublime', he has won many literary awards, including the prestigious
Petrarch Prize in Germany, the TS Eliot Award in Britain, and
the Queen's Medal for Poetry. He has published some thirty books,
dedicated to 'the glory of God' and linked by their engagement
with the values of what he calls the 'real Australia' - the rural
heartland and the bush. In 1998 the Federal Government commissioned
Murray to write a new preamble to the Constitution, but the government
rejected much of the draft and he later dissociated himself from
the project.
David Naseby worked for a time in advertising, and one of his
first portrait commissions was of Belinda Green for John Singleton.
He was a finalist in the Archibald Prizes of 1995, 1998 and 1999
for his portraits of Les Murray (twice) and Bob Ellis. Segments
of the documentary film Bastards From the Bush, featuring Murray
and Ellis, were filmed in Naseby's studio while he painted the
second portrait of Murray. To make this portrait David Naseby
and his wife travelled to Murray's home property in Bunyah and
stayed there for the weekend. The artist was struck by Murray's
air of strange simplicity. He has shown the poet indulging in
his habit of sucking on a finger, and with his coffee cup tilting
- 'like my life', Murray observed.
The Meaning of Existence
Everything except language
knows the meaning of existence.
Trees, planets, rivers, time
know nothing else. They express it
moment by moment as the universe.
Even this fool of a body
lives it in part, and would
have full dignity within it
but for the ignorant freedom
of my talking mind.
Les Murray
from Poems the Size of Photographs, 2002
Published by Duffy
and Snellgrove
