Victor Smorgon AO (1913-2009), industrialist and philanthropist, is the former chairman of Smorgon Consolidated Industries. Smorgon emigrated to Australia from the Ukraine in 1927, and ran a kosher butchery with his two brothers in Lygon St, Carlton. Over the ensuing decades they built a family business empire encompassing steel, meat, paper, plastics, forestry and commercial property. The Smorgons have previously been listed as Australia's richest family. Their enormous contributions to a wide range of medical and arts institutions in Australia include the Smorgon outpatients' wing at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital; the Loti and Victor Smorgon Gift of Contemporary Australian Art, Sydney; and the Loti and Victor Smorgon Gallery of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2001
© Estate of Joe Greenberg
Joe Greenberg (37 portraits)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
A collection of thirty-seven caricatures by the artist Joe Greenberg capture the heroes and villians of Australian business in the 1980s.
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