James Oswald Fairfax AC (1933–2017), philanthropist and company director, was the great-great grandson of John Fairfax, who founded the newspaper company John Fairfax and Sons in 1841. James Fairfax joined the company in the 1950s, serving as director from 1957 to 1987 and as its chairman from 1977 to 1987. Also a major philanthropist and collector, he was a generous donor to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia and the National Trust, to which he bequeathed his historic home, Retford Park. He also served on the board of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children for many years.
Painter and printmaker Bryan Westwood is known for his landscapes, interiors, figurative studies and still life works, but he also created many portraits in his highly realistic but painterly style. This work was among a group of portraits depicting members of several generations of the Fairfax family gifted to the Gallery by John Fairfax Holdings Ltd in 2002. Westwood's portrait shows James Fairfax at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, standing between two seventeenth-century paintings he donated to the institution. On the left is Sir Peter Paul Rubens' Constantius appoints Constantine as his successor (1622) and on the right, Jacob van Ruisdael's Wooded hillside with a view of Bentheim Castle (1655–1660).
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Bryan Westwood/Copyright Agency, 2023
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