Artist Louis Kahan AO was born in Vienna to Jewish parents. In 1947 he came to Australia, joining his family in Perth before settling in Melbourne in 1950. Soon after he arrived the editor of Meanjin, Clem Christesen, asked him to make a series of pen and ink portraits of writers for the journal. Critic Robert Nelson wrote that these portraits ‘stand tall in the great tradition of intellectual homage: direct, well observed, economical, even brusque’. Over the next 50 years such portraits were hung in many Melbourne homes. Kahan’s immediate gestural approach can be seen in this portrait of former prime minister Sir Robert Menzies KT AK CH PC QC (1894–1978), an example of the drawings Kahan made while watching television news and current affairs programs.
Gift of Mrs Lily Kahan 2017. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Louis Kahan/Copyright Agency, 2023
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