Jon Molvig Paul Beadle

This portrait by Jon Molvig of artist Paul Beadle (1917-1992) is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.

Born in Britain, Beadle settled in Australia in 1946, following his discharge from the Royal Navy at the end of World War II. Having studied sculpture at London’s Central School of Arts and Crafts, in 1947 he became an instructor at the East Sydney Technical College (ESTC) Strathfield campus. An influential educator, he also taught at Newcastle Art School, north of Sydney, and his public art can be seen across Newcastle. In 1961, Beadle moved to Aotearoa New Zealand, where he became known for his figurative, lost-wax cast sculptures.

Novocastrian Jon Molvig was a soldier in New Guinea and the Philippines during World War II and was a student under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme at ESTC, where he met Beadle. After graduation, Molvig left Sydney in 1951 for Europe, where he studied the work of the modern masters such as Pierre Bonnard and Edvard Munch. His highly individual works encompass the genres of portraiture, landscape and, in his final years, abstraction.

Molvig painted Beadle the year after the sculptor completed his most celebrated commission – the 11-metre-high eagle and sphere surmounting the Australian–American Memorial in Canberra. It was the first of 11 Archibald portraits by Molvig (he won in 1966 with his portrayal of artist Charles Blackman) and was painted the year Molvig left Sydney for Brisbane, where he remained until his death, aged just 46.