Peter Porter OAM (1929–2010), poet and critic, moved from Brisbane to London in 1951 at age 22. His work as an advertising copywriter influenced his early poetry, lucidly evoking the culture of the late 1950s and early 1960s. British poet Stephen Spender described Porter's mind as 'immensely fertile, lively, informed, honest and penetrating'. Porter's first collection of poems, Once Bitten, Twice Bitten, was published in Britain in 1961. The death of his wife in 1974 gave rise to the poetry collection The Cost of Seriousness (1978). Porter's straddling of Australian and English culture remained central to his work, evoking urban and natural worlds. In 1990 Porter was awarded the Gold Medal of Australian Literature, and in 2002, the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.
Best known for his landscapes, Tony Clark's work features conceptual, punk and pop qualities, as evidenced by the reduced palette of blue and pink in this portrait of Porter. The blue of Porter's floating head references Clark's preoccupation with the classicism of Josiah Wedgwood's Jasperware.
Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2004
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