Rocky McCormack

Russell Drysdale's 1962/63 portrait of farmer "Rocky McCormack" sold for an artist auction record of A$1.89 million (US$1.62 million) in Melbourne last night.

The oil-on-canvas painting in red and blue hues, one of the most popular of Drysdale's bush portraits, shows the smiling farmer seated with arms folded. The work was among A$5.8 million of art sold by New York-based Sotheby's, including Charles Conder's 1888 "The Fatal Colors" for A$702,000 and Brett Whiteley's 1974 "Glimpse of Eden" for A$456,000.

Addition:

Drysdale began painting Rocky McCormack in February 1962. Initially he made the figure over-lifesize but was unhappy with the result. Rather than commence another work, which he felt would not be as successful, Drysdale decided to scale him down. This proved extremely difficult and the portrait was not completed until the following year.1

The sitter, Patrick Joseph McCormack (1906-79), was born to a farming family at Albury and worked for some time on the railway at The Rock, about thirty-five kilometres from Wagga Wagga. Rocky, as he became affectionately known, returned to farming after the Second World War. In 1962, while working as foreman at the Tocumwal aerodrome, he met Drysdale who immediately responded to his character as a subject for painting