Mary Wheeler Arthur Ebdon (veteran of the Somme)

Mary Wheeler (1938–2022) met Arthur Cyril Ebdon (1896–1992) in France in 1982, when the artist was living in Paris and the former soldier was attending Anzac Day commemorations at Villers-Bretonneux. Ebdon had enlisted in the Australian Army in 1915 and served in Fromelles and the Somme region during the First World War.

In 1984 Wheeler completed a life-size head study of Ebdon, which is now in the College Victoria school museum in Villers-Bretonneux.

After her return to Australia, she again made contact with Ebdon, then aged 90, to sit for this Archibald portrait, which was largely completed while he stayed at her Canberra home.

Wheeler studied art at East Sydney Technical College (later the National Art School) from the late 1950s, during which time she worked in the display department of Mark Foy’s store.