Artist, writer and teacher Herbert Badham specialised in figurative
paintings of urban life. Having studied for many years at the Julian
Ashton School during the 1920s and 1930s, he produced a body of work
that typified the gentle, realist aspect of Sydney modernism of the
prewar years. Head of the intermediate art department at East Sydney
Technical College from 1938 to 1961, he published Study of Australian Art in 1949 and A Gallery of Australian Art
in 1954. In this small-scale self portrait set in a domestic interior,
Badham sits facing the viewer with a pipe held between his lips while he
pulls on a brown leather glove. A mirror hanging on the wall behind him
introduces his companion, possibly his wife Enid, who appeared in
another self portrait from 1937.
Purchased 1999
© Estate of Herbert Badham
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