Australian painter and teacher Henry Aloysius Hanke (14 June 1901-1989), was born in Sydney. He won the Archibald Prize in 1934 with a self-portrait (see above), and the inaugural Sulman Prize, in 1936, with his painting ‘La Gitana‘.
- Hanke served in the Australian Army during World War II (WWII) from November 1942, initially as a Signaller and later commissioned as an Officer and war artist from December 1943, during which he completed many paintings in New Guinea.
- He was the first war artist into Milne Bay after the Australians inflicted the first defeat on Japanese troops during WWII.
- Hanke was later made a director of the Royal Art Society art school in New South Wales.
Hanke was a friend of Sydney artists Graeme Inson and Ivy Shore, and often visited them. He was one of the five artists Ivy Shore (winner of the Portia Geach Memorial Art Award in 1979) called her “Inspirations“. Her “Inspirations” painting, now hangs in the heritage-listed Dundee Arms Hotel (built 1860) in Sussex Street, Sydney, which was once Graeme Inson and Ivy Shore’s studio in the 1970s and 1980s.
Thanks Hanke!
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