This week, with the weekend forecast promising beautiful days and mild weather, Roy decided it was time to head for the coast. I pointed out to him that it isn't quite swimming weather yet though, and told him he needed to find something else for people to do. He looked around for a historic place to visit and hit upon a place he had already been to earlier this year, the home of the famous painter Sir William Dobell. Roy decided that this would be the perfect place to visit.
If you would like to visit Dobells House it is located on Dobell Drive in Wangi Wangi (NSW) on the shores of Lake Macquarie. To get to Wangi Wangi, follow the F3 from Sydney towards Newcastle, take the Morisset exit and then follow Wangi Road. Turn off Wangi Road onto Summerhill Drive and then take Dobell Drive. The house is well signposted. Just beside Dobells House is Lake Macquarie, and there is room to paddle if the weather is warm, wander along or have a picnic. The house itself is open from 1pm until 4pm on weekends and public holidays and commemorates the life of Dobell. His studio is preserved upstairs, as well as other parts of his life and time in this house, including the door he painted for his sister Alice (you can see the door in the photo above) To visit the Dobell House website, click here.
Sir William Dobell is one of Australia's most famous and important artists, and it is him after whom the Dobell Prize, the highest award for Australian drawing, is named. He was born in 1899 in Cooks Hill, a suburb of Newcastle and he was the youngest of 6 children. Even as a child he was artistic, and at Cooks Hill Commerical Public School his teacher, John Walker encouraged him in his drawing. In fact, some say he thought he was a poor student as he was always up the back of the class drawing and painting the entries for the entire class in a local school childrens art award!
By 1924, Dobell had moved to Sydney and enrolled in Julian Ashton's art school and in 1929 he won a scholarship which allowed him to travel. He set sail for London the same year and spent some years overseas before finally deciding to return to Australia in 1939 to see his dying father. It was a few years later that one of the most famous, or infamous events of his life occurred. Dobell won the Archibald Prize with a portrait of John Smith, but unsuccessful artists filed a lawsuit against him saying the painting was not a portrait but a caricature. The lawsuit was unsuccessful, but it had a major impact on Dobell. He refused to paint or leave his house, developed terrible skin conditions and eventually retreated to Wangi Wangi to live with his sister Alice in the holiday home his father had built, the home we now know as Dobells House. He returned to painting in Wangi Wangi, establishing a studio upstairs which you can see if you visit the house. He won the Archibald Prize again in 1949 for his portrait of Margaret Ollie, another artist who recently died. If you would like to learn more about Dobell, click here.
