Ian Smith Ray Hughes getting his desserts

This is one of eight portraits of art dealer gallerist Ray Hughes (1946–2017) that Ian Smith exhibited in the Archibald Prize between 1977 and 2003.

When other portraits failed to be selected, Smith said to Hughes, ‘Well, I’ll just paint you! It’s my way of not getting too anxious about who I paint.’ And so began a ‘painting odyssey’.

This portrait, Ray Hughes getting his desserts, is literally that – Hughes being served ice cream by a woman draped on his lap. ‘I only paint what I’ve been forced to see!’ says Smith. ‘Ray loves the good things in life so I’ve expressed him as a man of appetites, which only a close friend could do, and since Ray believes in giving artists free rein he never tries to censor anything. He’s travelled the world to keep finding new experiences but this is based on Australian restaurants where for a few bucks more you get your dessert served by a young woman.’

The obvious Toulouse Lautrec reference, plus the dancing girl reminiscent of Degas, are there, says Smith, ‘to remind people who feel uncomfortable that such places exist, that the art of the 1890s that they feel warm and fuzzy about was inspired by similar places – nothing to do with political correctness.’

A figurative artist, Smith was born in Cairns in 1950. He studied architecture for a year at the University of Queensland then did a Diploma in Art and Design at Prahran College in Melbourne. He has worked as a full-time artist since 1979.