Benjamin Edward Minns Portrait

It is possible that the 1921 Archibald Prize entry by Benjamin Edwards Minns was a watercolour portrait of John Le Gay Brereton (1871-1933) which is now in the collection of the State Library of New South Wales.

Newspaper reviews note that there were two professors and a poet among the Archibald subjects. Brereton fits both categories: in 1921, he was appointed professor of English literature at the University of Sydney, where he had been librarian. He had published the first of several books of verse in 1896. Minns also entered a portrait of Brereton in the 1933 Archibald, shortly after his subject’s death.

The other professor appearing as a sitter in the 1921 Archibald is in JS Watkin’s portrait of William Henry Watson, professor of engineering at the University of Sydney.