Keith Looby David Combe and the portrait

This portrait by Keith Looby of David Combe (1943–2019) is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.

Combe was national secretary of the Australian Labor Party from 1973 until 1981, before establishing his own business as a political consultant and lobbyist. At the time this portrait was painted, he was a central figure in a controversy known as the ‘Combe–Ivanov affair’, in which he was accused of comprising Australian national security through his involvement with a Soviet diplomat, Valery Ivanov. The scandal led to a royal commission and was seen as an embarrassment for the Labor government of prime minister Bob Hawke.

It was reported that Looby’s portrait of Coombe was one of two works the Art Gallery of NSW trustees deliberated over before awarding the Archibald Prize to Nigel Thomson for a portrait of gallery owner Chandler Coventry. Looby went on to win the 1984 prize for a portrait of satirist Max Gillies, who was famous for his TV send-ups of Hawke.