Portrait of an artist

While in the prisoner of war camp at Torun (Thorn) in Poland the Australian artist Justin O'Brien was supplied, through the Red Cross and the YMCA, with paints and brushes, painting on whatever support he was able to obtain, including hardboard and cardboard. This portrait is of a fellow British artist at the POW camp. While at the camp, he was able to construct boldly conceived, coloured and fashioned portraits, including this work. In 1944 O'Brien was amongst a group of prisoners sent to Barcelona, Spain in exchange for German prisoners, and he returned to Australia soon afterwards for demobilisation. Freed from the prisoner-of-war camp, O'Brien returned to Sydney, where he saw out his service in the surgical wards at Concord hospital in Sydney. He was able to bring back 23 paintings to Australia with him, which were exhibited at Macquarie Galleries in 1944. In reviewing the exhibition of these works, Paul Haefliger wrote that O'Brien's paintings 'deal with neither war nor prison camp life, rather [the] work[s] reflect purely intellectual struggles such as any artist might encounter, principally paintings of heads. In temperment these works are remarkably alike [but] there is a maturity...even in his earlier works he emphasises a sombre marionette-like quality, but these puppets have life - through sheer emotional force' [Haefliger, P., 'Repatriated War Prisoners Art', Sydney Morning Herald, 1 March 1944, p. 16]. This work represents a significant example of the range of portraits O'Brien painted while in captivity in Poland during the Second World War.