PORTIA GEACH MEMORIAL AWARD, FINALIST 2019

Bruce McWilliam at home, still working

A polarizing personality who has worked at the pointy end of the Australian and global media industries for over three decades, Bruce McWilliam is a lawyer who is feared and revered.

Formerly in legal practice with Malcom Turnbull, adviser to the late Kerry Packer, adviser and confidant to Rupert Murdoch, McWilliam is currently commercial director and right hand man to Kerry Stokes; it took me about a year to pluck up the courage to ask Bruce if he’d sit for me.

Whatever trepidation I had felt was unfounded, Bruce was brilliant to paint (though he did not stop working, hence the phone) and it has been fantastic getting to know him and his family, who are all great supporters of the arts.

I don’t often paint interiors, but this portrait if full of information specific to Bruce. I felt I wanted to create a work which told a brief yet broad story of the man, and to that end I am happy, and so is Bruce.