Barbara Licha Smile

‘Bruce James was in my mind because I’m an artist and he’s an art critic,’ says Barbara Licha. ‘I knew him from ABC television and I follow his writing so for me he was familiar and I wanted to be a little bit closer – not personally – but to try to understand him better. And when you paint someone there is something around the sitter and the painter, some fluid in the atmosphere.’

James was so busy that he agreed to sit for Licha as long as she came to him. Thus she painted him while he wrote, relaxed in his own environment. ‘He was concentrating on his work and from time to time he would smile to himself,’ says Licha. ‘When he looks at you he’s got quite a mysterious smile and that’s what I tried to capture. It wasn’t important how he was sitting, it was the smile that I wanted.’

Born in Poland in 1957, Licha came to Australia in 1982. She studied painting, graphics and sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland. After a period of study and work in Italy, she finished her art degree at the City Art Institute in Sydney.