Nick Cave AO (b. 1957) formed his first band, The Boys Next Door, while at school. In 1980 the band changed its name to The Birthday Party and moved to London, where it significantly influenced other punk bands. After The Birthday Party disbanded, he formed Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, whose first album was released in 1984. Cave has been involved in films as an actor, screenwriter and composer, and co-wrote and starred in a wry documentary drama about himself, 20,000 Days on Earth (2014). A long-term resident of the UK, Cave has written novels and poetry while performing and issuing albums regularly. His 2013 release with The Bad Seeds, Push the Sky Away, was the band’s first Australian number-one album. Cave released his latest album Carnage in 2021, as a duo with long-term member of The Bad Seeds, Warren Ellis.
Howard Arkley and Nick Cave moved in overlapping circles in Melbourne in the late 1970s. One of the first two works commissioned by the Portrait Gallery, Arkley’s painting of Cave was one of the last the artist completed before his death at the peak of his career. The portrait captures the punk mentality and attitude of both artist and sitter in Arkley’s immaculately-finished, psychedelic and incandescent airbrush style.
Gift of Michael Desmond 2012
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