William Beckwith McInnes

William Beckwith McInnes
Born	(1889-05-18)18 May 1889 St Kilda, Melbourne
Died	9 November 1939(1939-11-09) (aged 50)
Nationality	Australian
Known for	portraits
Spouse	Violet Murial Musgrave (1915–39)
Awards	Archibald Prize, 7 times between 1921–1939; Wynne Prize (1921)

William Beckwith McInnes (18 May 1889 – 9 November 1939) was an Australian portrait painter, winner of the Archibald Prize seven times for his traditional style paintings. He was acting-director at the National Gallery of Victoria and an instructor in its art school.

Early life

McInnes was born in St Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne, to Malcolm McInnes and his wife Alice Agnes, née Beckwith. Despite lack of family artistic tradition, he was keen to draw from the time he could hold a pencil. In 1903, at 14 years of age, he enrolled in the drawing school of the National Gallery of Victoria under Frederick McCubbin. Later he moved up to the painting school under Lindsay Bernard Hall.^{[citation needed]}

Artistic career

He won his first prizes for drawing the figure from life, and for painting a head from life, and shared the prize for a landscape in 1908.

Soon afterwards McInnes held a successful show of his paintings at the Melbourne Athenaeum Gallery in conjunction with F. R. Crozier, which was followed in 1911 by a journey to Europe where he did much landscape painting and made acquaintance with the masterpieces of Rembrandt, Velasquez and Raeburn.

McInnes was represented in London at the exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in oils in 1913.^[1]

He returned to Melbourne in the same year, where a one-man show was held at the Athenaeum gallery and nearly everything was sold. In 1916 he acted as locum tenens for Frederick McCubbin, master of the school of drawing at the National Gallery of Victoria, during McCubbin's six months' leave of absence. McInnes was temporarily appointed to the position in 1918 after McCubbin's death, and in 1920 he was permanently appointed.

In 1921, he won the first Archibald Prizes for portraiture. He went on to win the award a total of seven times.^[2]

McInnes revisited Europe in 1925 and found he was in great demand as a portrait painter. For many years he was unable to spare time to do landscape work. In 1927 he was commissioned by the Federal government to depict the opening of the first parliament in Canberra by the Duke of York.

).

In the following year when Bernard Hall left for England as adviser for the Felton bequest, McInnes was appointed acting-director of the National Gallery of Victoria, and on Hall's death, was appointed head of the painting school.^[4] In 1937 McInnes became an invited foundation member of, and exhibited with, Robert Menzies' anti-modernist organisation, the Australian Academy of Art.^[5]

Amongst the many portraits by McInnes were those of the surgeons

.

McInnes' artwork is featured at the

. In addition, McInnes has painted a variety of important people in Australian history including officials and aristocratic families.

Late life

McInnes suffered from an imperfect heart all his life. On 30 November 1937 around midnight the car he was driving struck and killed a pedestrian, James Lowrey, on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy. At the inquest evidence was brought forward that a drug (Luminal) he was taking for the condition could have affected his driving and been responsible for his staggering and not remembering details of the accident.^[6] He was not convicted of any offence.

His general health became affected and in July 1939 he resigned his position as master of the National Gallery art school.^[7] He died on 9 November 1939.^[8] He married Violet Muriel Musgrave in 1915, a capable flower painter, who survived him with four sons and two daughters.^{[citation needed]}

McInnes' Archibald Prize winners

• 1921 - Desbrowe Annear^[9]
• 1922 -
  Professor Harrison Moore^[10]
• 1923 - Portrait of a Lady[11]
• 1924 - Miss Collins^[12]
• 1926 - Silk and Lace (Miss Esther Paterson)^[13]
• 1930 - Drum-Major Harry McClelland^[14]
• 1936 - Dr. Julian Smith^[15]

• 
  1921
• 
  1922
• 
  1923
• 
  1924
• 
  1926
• 
  1930
• 
  1936

McInnes also won the Wynne Prize in 1918 with The Grey Road.

References

Sources

• Haese, Richard. "McInnes, William Beckwith (Billy) (1889–1939)". McInnes, William Beckwith (1889 - 1939).
  MUP. Retrieved 15 July 2007. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
  )
• Serle, Percival (1949). "McInnes, William Beckwith". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to William Beckwith McInnes.

• Example of his work

Awards and achievements
Preceded by new award	Archibald Prize 1921   for   Desbrowe Annear 1922 for Professor Harrison Moore 1923   for   Portrait of a Lady 1924 for Portrait of Miss Collins	Succeeded by John Longstaff
Preceded by John Longstaff	Archibald Prize 1926 for Silk and Lace	Succeeded by George Washington Lambert
Preceded by John Longstaff	Archibald Prize 1930 for Drum-Major Harry McClelland	Succeeded by John Longstaff
Preceded by John Longstaff	Archibald Prize 1936 for Dr. Julian Smith	Succeeded by Normand Baker