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Clifton was born in Richmond, Victoria. Both Clifton\u2019s parents were amateur painters, and as a young man during the 1940s, Clifton attended evening classes at the Swinburne Technical College to study cartoon drawing.
Two years later, whilst living in Adelaide, he took evening classes in life drawing at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts. Clifton served with the AIF in New Guinea during World War II and with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan after the war. During that time a group of Japanese soldiers surrendered to the unit with which Clifton was fighting during a lull in fighting. On receiving orders to proceed, Clifton and others shot and killed them. This incident and the guilt he felt affected his attitude to war (he became a pacifist) and his painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After serving in World War II, with the financial support of the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Training Scheme, Clifton returned to Melbourne and enrolled in the National Gallery of Victoria Art School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clifton was heavily influenced by German Expressionism. He read Sheldon Cheney\u2019s The Story of Modern Art (1941) while recuperating in a hospital in New Guinea during World War II. Clifton\u2019s primary influence was Wassily Kandinsky: \u201cI can see Kandinsky in everything I do.\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His training at the National Gallery School gave him a strong foundation in drawing. The dark hue of Clifton\u2019s oeuvre can be traced to the palette of his teacher, the Meldrum School portraitist (Sir) William Dargie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1951 Clifton bought 15 acres of bushland near Cottles Bridge, 50 kilometres northeast of Melbourne, which he named Dunmoochin. Pugh at first camped on the site, then built a wattle-and-daub shack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Artists, potters and others also settled at the site. To protect and jointly control the area, they formed the Dunmoochin Artists Co-operative with a constitution of 13 articles. It was not a commune in any sense of the word except that the titles were communally held.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the co-operative eventually disbanded, each member took a section of the land. Artists who worked or resided at Dunmoochin have included Rick Amor, Frank Hodgkinson, John Howley, Helen Laycock, Peter Laycock, Mirka Mora, Kevin Nolan, John Olsen, John Perceval, Alma Shanahan, Albert Tucker, Frank Werther, Fred Williams and Peter and Chris Wiseman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clifton travelled across the Nullarbor Plain to Perth in 1954, then the Kimberley in 1956. These journeys led to radical changes in his style. Clifton encountered indigenous Australian Art for the first time and began utilizing incision, cross-hatching and collage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The work inspired by these journeys was part of the Group of Four Exhibits in 1955 and 1956. In 1959
Clifton wrote to Bernard Smith:
Art must be indigenous\u2026arising out of the environment and background of a particular place and time. This could be nationalistic, but I prefer to call it geographical art. For instance, Chinese and Mexican Art reflect the background and the \u2018soul\u2019 of the country but are also universal. I, therefore, believe very much in the development of Australian Art. It is the only truth for us to express to the rest of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Close observation of nature and its cyclical and savage rhythms became a constant theme in Clifton\u2019s painting The Hon E G Whitlam (1972). Clifton held his first solo show in 1957 at the Victorian Artists Society Gallery, where he displayed landscapes and portraits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The show was well-received by critics. Col. Aubrey Gibson, chairman of the National Gallery, was an early patron, as were a group of businessmen led by David Yencken and the businessman Andrew Grimwade.
Clifton joined the stable of the Sydney art dealer Rudy Komon \u2013 Komon paid his artists a stipend balanced against sales of their work. This generosity made them very loyal, as it gave them stability and freedom from daily money worries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clifton had consistent official support in the crucial early stages of his career. His inclusion in the 1961 Whitechapel and 1963 Tate exhibitions of Australian art gave him international exposure. In 1966 Komon arranged a one-person show for Clifton at the Artists\u2019 Guild Gallery in St Louis in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Commonwealth Institute staged a retrospective of his work in 1970. Andre Kalman represented him in London, who showed him in 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1979, and with the Athol Gallery on the Isle of Man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Historic Memorials Committee bought his 1964 portrait of the Governor-General Lord De L\u2019Isle and his 1972 portrait of Gough Whitlam. Clifton\u2019s fame as an artist grew in the 1970s following the print publication of two radio plays by Ivan Smith: Death of a Wombat and Dingo King, which featured Clifton\u2019s drawings and paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clifton worked with the printmaker Stanley Hayter for three months in Paris in 1970. He brought Hayter\u2019s oil viscosity printing technique back to Australia the same year. Clifton and John Olsen purchased an etching press and operated it at Dunmoochin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1971 Clifton invited Frank Hodgkinson to move to Dunmoochin, and Clifton\u2019s \u201centhusiasm proved to be a significant stimulus for Hodgkinson\u2019s printmaking. Clifton chaired the Victorian ALP Arts Policy Committee from 1971, and Gough Whitlam appointed Clifton to the Australia Council for the Arts in 1973.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clifton made public his disagreements with Council chairman H C \u201cNugget\u201d Coombes, who refused to implement the policy Clifton and his fellow committee members had crafted and then taken through the processes of the Victorian and Federal ALP conferences to become official ALP arts policy. As a result, Clifton resigned from the Council in 1974.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pugh returned to painting full-time after resigining from the Australia Council, and despite suffering three heart attacks and minor ischaemic episodes, continued to paint and make prints until his fatal heart attack in 1990. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clifton\u2019s works are represented in all State galleries, Regional Galleries, and the National Collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Further Reading<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/trove.nla.gov.au\/newspaper\/article\/122316949\/12997535<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Clifton_Pugh<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/adb.anu.edu.au\/biography\/pugh-clifton-ernest-15045<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n