Bill Leak Sinclair Hill

Bill Leak was commissioned to paint grazier Sinclair Hill by a friend of Hill’s who wanted to give the portrait to him. As well as being a terrific polo player, Hill owns cattle properties in Queensland and near the northern NSW town of Moree. Leak went to the station in Moree and painted Hill there.

“This is very different to most of my portraits,” says Leak, who does a large number each year. “I’m trying to loosen them up. This one got tighter and tighter but it seemed to say a lot about Sinclair. That conforms to my idea of allowing the personality of the sitter to dictate the technique. There is perhaps a touch of caricature about it in response to the person. There is also a traditional look about it, which is what I think he’s like. It would have been inappropriate to paint him in any other way.”

Born in Adelaide in 1956, Leak studied at the Julian Ashton School before embarking on a career as an artist, illustrator and cartoonist, for which he has won numerous awards. He has been a finalist in the Archibald eight times previously and won the People’s Choice Prize in 1994 for his portrait of Malcolm Turnbull.