Self-Portrait of a Painter, a Triptych Memoirs

By Judith Monica O'Conal-Prinz FRAS

In Self-Portrait of a Painter, a Triptych Memoirs, journey through the fascinating life of a remarkable woman, born to an Irish mother and Jewish father in the vibrant, working-class neighbourhood of The Rocks in Sydney. From her roots in a Socialist household committed to social justice, she defies convention to become a celebrated portrait artist. This compelling biography traces her life’s arc, from her formative years to her education at Art School, from marriage and motherhood to the realization of her artistic ambitions.
She paints the faces of diverse subjects – some at odds with her own ideals – yet each becomes a fascinating character study etched onto canvas. As she finds love a second time, her world expands further through international travels, taking her to the esteemed art galleries of Europe.
Immerse yourself in a story rich in art, social activism, and personal growth, a tribute to a woman who never wavers in her values while capturing the essence of others. Self-Portrait of a Painter, a Triptych Memoirs is not just an interesting read; it is an exploration of a life passionately lived.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781528959285

Judith Monica O'Conal-Prinz FRAS

Judith Monica O’Conal-Prinz is a renowned artist in Sydney, her main genre being portraiture, although she also paints landscapes and still life. This is the story of her life from her early days living in the inner city through to her life as a portrait painter. It shows her early upbringing as a socialist, which she still strongly follows today. Her love of nature and fauna is deeply embedded in her. Since meeting her second husband she has extensively travelled overseas and in particular to Italy to study the Great Masters of the Renaissance. This is her story.

Book preview

About the Author

Judith Monica O’Conal-Prinz is a renowned artist in Sydney, her main genre being portraiture, although she also paints landscapes and still life. This is the story of her life from her early days living in the inner city through to her life as a portrait painter. It shows her early upbringing as a socialist, which she still strongly follows today. Her love of nature and fauna is deeply embedded in her. Since meeting her second husband she has extensively travelled overseas and in particular to Italy to study the Great Masters of the Renaissance. This is her story.

Dedication

To my Husband, Dennis and Children, Brendan and Fiona.

Copyright Information ©

Judith Monica O’Conal-Prinz FRAS 2024

The right of Judith Monica O’Conal-Prinz FRAS to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528909488 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528959285 (ePub e-book)

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First Published 2024

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Acknowledgement

To all my Sitters, who made my career such a success.

Part 1

My Unique World

Synopsis

Beginnings; Grandfather Doherty, Road Contractor; Millers Pt and the Rocks; Socialist parentage; my playmate Florrie; the Harbour Bridge adventure; glimpse an art school; Windmill St and the billy-carts.

Irish rebels; Dr Kevin Izod O’Doherty; Frank Murphy; the Prince family; Anglo-Jews; theatrical and aristocratic connections; ‘the York Makers’; the military Princes; reflections on Jewish trends.

Socialist Labor Party; the Sydney Domain; E.E. Judd, General Secretary; Blackheath holidays; Mary Hungerford McMahon; Gregan McMahon, actor; schooling in the Blue Mountains; trouble brews; a disastrous outcome.

Illness strikes; Children’s Hospital; Convalescing by the sea; Sister Olive; adventurous child; homecoming; life without father; The Rheumatic Clinic; drawing & painting discovered.

Terrace House, Woollahra; legal action begins; school experiences; the war years; the Japanese submarines; court cases; Charles Throsby, barrister; my Omega watch.

My brothers’ first jobs; meets Frank McNamara, Cedric Emanuel, Rubery Bennett; recommend the Arturo Dattilo-Rubbo Art School; Miss Ellis, my first art teacher; I enrol; the new Principal; James Gleeson, Surrealist painter, visits.

Described; Correspondence Study; the Actor; French Fruit Seller; the Scot; Anthony Horderns’ Namatjira exhibition; Henry Boote; Mary Gilmore.

A brief History of E.E. Judd’s political career, his beginnings and the First World War

More trouble; the story of another serious rift, this time with the Socialist Labor Party.

The War’s end; A famous Englishman; arrangements to meet; Wagner, favourite composer; an unwelcome visit; shock for my mother and me.

My father returns from the Northern Territory; family reunions; Sandgate and Charlestown; miners’ cottages; visiting Grandmother Doherty.

Life as an ADR student; dis-satisfaction; a surprise meeting; Jim & Joan; Mrs Coleman and Joan Sutherland; I leave my art school.

Principal of the Julian Ashton Art School; happy student years; John Passmore; the red-collared lorikeet; my father leaves Pine Creek for Sydney; meets Rex Battabee.

Other relationships form; I meet Raffi; Repins Coffee Shop; John Olsen; in love; marriage plans; Mr Gibbon’s disapproval.

Married; unliked name; reasons; my Irish neighbour; a ‘transformed’ name; satisfied with it, the name becomes associated with my future career.

The Making of Me

The Child is father of the Man.

– Wordsworth

My story is unique. This may sound somewhat egoistical, but it is nevertheless true. It may not encompass wild adventures or outlandish countries or even more outlandish human behaviour. However, for an Australian artist, and a woman, the story is unique. Seldom do strong political beliefs of the left variety combine with an intense preoccupation of all things artistic, particularly in this country, at this time. Yet, this is a description which aptly describes me. How this came about is the story of my life.

Ever since I remember, my health has been a concern. From six years of age and onwards it was obvious my physical strength was considerably less when compared to others. This only increased as I grew older and suffered periodically from bouts of illness. Judith has a weak heart, Judith has a bad heart, whispered and said openly from doctors and from my mother, until I accepted it completely. How I learnt to manage it and how I carried on despite these problems and emerged as the portrait painter I was proud to be, is a story of success in its own way.

There is always a beginning, a beginning out of which all of us have come. My beginning was Wallsend, which was a suburb of Newcastle, or Worldsend, as I sometimes jokingly call it, in New South Wales, Australia. I was born Judith Prince. ‘Jesmond’ is my earliest memory, when I was a toddler taking my first steps. It was somewhere between 1933 and 1934. Jesmond was then a semi-rural suburb of Newcastle. My parents, brothers and I lived there with my maternal Grandparents, the Dohertys’.

Although my recollection of Jesmond is limited, I remember our large wooden cottage, the dirt road in which it stood, and the open spaces opposite and beyond. It was like being in the country. Indeed, it was the country, with plenty of wide-open fields and fresh air. There was a large yard to the rear of the house and next to it a large vacant plot of land in which a cow grazed, the cow which aroused my curiosity as a toddler.

Leaping out of the mists surrounding Jesmond come the images of two incidents, recalling the times my father rescued ‘his baby girl’. I had wandered up to the top of the paddock where the cow was grazing, whether to look at it closely or to say hullo, who can say? In any case, my father saw the danger and came swiftly to my rescue, picking me up before I reached the cow and bearing me away. The next incident I recall involved a drain in the middle of the garden. I was standing next to it, peering in, when suddenly my father appeared, out of the blue, scooping me up in his arms. Thus, it was my father became nothing short of a hero in my earliest memory of a parent.

For my brothers, their memories of Jesmond were vivid, as they were much older. Jesmond held a special place in their hearts. After my mother returned home from Melbourne with them – I was not even born – it was here they spent some of their happiest times with Grandfather Doherty.

Like his father before him, Grandfather is remembered as a kind, lovable man. He took his two little grandsons ‘under his wing’, so to speak. Frank, the eldest boy, often accompanied him in his daily activities. Grandfather had a Road-Contracting business. It became a regular event for Frank to go with him in the dray, pulled by his favourite draughthorse ‘Kruger’, to where, the men he employed were gathered under the trees, waiting for their lunch. They always treated the young boy with good-humoured friendliness as he handed each of them his lunch. Grandfather, he felt, had entrusted him with a most important errand.

Kruger, the largest of the draughthorses assisting Grandfather in his work, was much loved, and figured largely in family reminiscences about that time. When suffering from colic, he would come inside the kitchen, after pushing his huge body through the kitchen door. My Grandmother loved to tell me this story. As a girl born and bred in city environs, I listened, feeling how much I had missed by this mundane circumstance of life. I was envious. My brothers had been lucky, I thought, to have spent this part of their childhood with their grandparents, on a farm, with animals, including a little pet pony called ‘Chebby’. Knowing this only increased dissatisfaction with my urban upbringing.

As a Road Contractor, Grandfather Doherty was responsible for constructing many of the roads needed to be built in those days in the Hunter-Newcastle District. There was plenty of work in this field for a long time, but gradually the bottom fell out of it and the Doherty family fell on hard times. Sometimes, hardship forced my mother to visit the estate agent to ask for an extension of time for payment of arrears in rent. It was there that the great love of her life, Frank, first saw her, discovered her address, and turned up one day on the front door step, telling her he had been unable to forget her.

I have retained only one memory of Grandfather Doherty. I was three years old at the time. My parents took me to see him in hospital, which he never left, as he later caught a fatal infection whilst there. Other grandchildren were present too, but they displayed a reluctance to kiss their Grandfather. I clambered up to kiss him. A real human baby, he said tenderly, embracing me.

In 1937, my father took his family to live in Millers Point, to be closer to the city on account of his work as a letter-sorter at the GPO. The flat where we lived was located in Lower Fort Street and owned by the Maritime Service Board. It was in one of two buildings which backed up on to the edges of the Harbour Bridge, joined and separated by landings reached in the middle by three staircases.

Our flat was on the top floor and looked across at the flat opposite from a narrow outside balcony which ran the length of the building, from the lounge room to the kitchen and bathroom at the other end. The main bedroom was at the front, attached to the lounge room, and from its large windows overlooking the street I could see the main Millers Pt road and the fruit and the greengrocer’s store which we patronised.

My parents were Marxian Socialists. They belonged to the Socialist Labor Party, a political party affiliated with the Socialist Labor Party of America. Formed from the Australian Socialist League which operated in the late 19th century, they were publishers of a newspaper called ‘The People’, the same name as the newspaper published by their American counterpart. A collection of current and back issues of this paper was stored in the bedroom of my parents.

I conceived the bright idea of taking these papers to the local greengrocer for him to use for wrapping and in return receive a little money. On discovery, my father and mother rushed out, down the three flights of stairs, into the street and over to our greengrocer, hoping to retrieve them. But, unfortunately, most had already been used. They were so distressed by their loss that the memory of my guilt lingers still.

The year before the outbreak of the 2nd World War, I crossed the Sydney Harbour Bridge to Luna Park, leading a small troop of local children. I was six years old. When I returned home from my big adventure, I found that my mother and brothers had called out all the local boys to try and find me and my little troop. Although proud to be centre-stage on first learning of this, the exhilaration soon vanished. It was an extremely guilty child that stood before her mother to receive the very first chastisement ever given. This made it one of those momentous events in childhood. She looked at me solemnly and said slowly, You must never do that again. I never did.

Observatory Hill was a familiar landmark to the local children. So too were the Argyle Steps in Observatory Hill, located close to the National Trust Building. Down in the bottom of the street reached by the Argyle Steps, there was a space filled by a kindergarten which I attended. After closing time, I went to the two-story house immediately adjacent to the kindergarten, with windows overlooking it. This was the home of two Norwegian members of the Socialist Labor Party, Mrs Dybdale and her seaman husband. I stayed there until my parents came to fetch me. They were kind people, I liked them. However, a disagreement occurred within the Party and they left, quietly, never to be seen again.

Wandering throughout Millers Point, and the nearby area known as ‘The Rocks’, was my favourite activity, accompanied by my little friends who made up the small group of which I was acknowledged leader. One morning, our wanderings took us to the Mining Museum. Riveted, I stopped to read the placard on the front of the building. It read ‘The Julian Ashton Art School’. I became serious, totally fascinated, and thought, I will go there one day. Despite this thought coming from a mere six-year-old, it was not forgotten. One day, I did go there, a young teenage girl.

Even then, I was different from most, although, as yet unaware of it, as everything about my family and I seemed natural and right. Never sensitive with other children or their parents about our difference, I accepted it as an essential part of our identity, as essential for us as the air one breathes. The fact that our differences were not shared by the majority around us, was of no concern to me. This unconcern remained with me all the time I was growing up. Nowadays, it seems almost incredible, when looking back, that I thought and felt this way for as long as I did, as at present, the drive for social conformity and sameness is extraordinarily compelling. People are afraid to be different in any meaningful way. They are afraid of the social ostracism that may be incurred.

Towards the end of the depression and the start of the 2nd World War, when the spirit of questioning and the ideas of the possibility of a brave new world still existed and were debated freely, it was not so very terrible to be different. Therefore, although my parents were different with their strong atheistic and socialist beliefs, we were not ostracised. Indeed, both my mother and father were treated with great respect, as being ‘a cut above them, but good people’ by the humble working-class families among whom we lived.

The history of Millers Pt and the Rocks dates back to the early white settlement of Sydney Cove. As a child, I knew little of all this. It scarcely mattered, though. Its atmosphere clung to me, exercising a kind of silent fascination, gentle but persistent, making these childish wanderings a joy. Located on the southern shore of Sydney Harbour, the area was notorious for cut-throats and sailors. The name ‘The Rocks’ derives from the fact that the earliest buildings built there were of local sandstone. Later, of course, I learnt that white settlement in Sydney Cove was not a history of which to be proud, but a reminder of the use of convict labour in its construction and the displacement of the indigenous people who inhabited it.

Yet this area, and The Blue Mountains, with its huge slabs of sandstone further reminders of convict labour, was where some of the earliest features of my personality first emerged. Out of the mists of time, I can see that little girl, which was me, trailing after her brothers on the pass up to Govetts Leap.

Or else, running wild and free, among the old buildings and streets which made up the Rocks of old Sydney town. The images of characters I knew then and the children with whom I was friendly, begin to take on a reality. I still picture Florrie Ballard, pallid and thin, with long straight blonde hair, large blue wondering eyes and the unmistakeable look of a deprived child. She lived with her parents and her younger siblings, which included a little baby. Her father was a wharf-laborer, plain, somewhat rough, but honest, her mother a worn and timid woman.

The family struggled to make ends meet, a situation aggravated by Florrie’s father being a heavy drinker. In those days, he used to go down to the nearby wharves and gather with the other men asking for work. Then the ‘Gauleiter’ would pick at random from among the men waiting in a group. Those not chosen would run the length of what was called ‘the hungry mile’ to the Woolloomooloo Wharves, hoping to secure work there instead.

Poor Florrie! I felt sorry for her. But there was more to it than simply my sympathy for her circumstances. Florrie had imagination, much more than I would have found in a child from a comfortable background. I acted out many roles in my games, and Florrie fitted into them with wonderful complaisance. Later on, the family moved to the tenement houses close to the Argyle Cut. As a result, I saw less and less of Florrie, until she faded out of my life altogether.

An entirely different friend replaced Florrie. This was Ruth. Her parents conducted a grocery shop in Windmill Street. She was blind and, unlike Florrie, gave the impression that wrongdoing could never be associated with her. Pale and thin, rather tall, with straight fair hair, she had fine, delicate features and an angelic air. I adored her because she seemed the essence of goodness. Obviously, I did not see myself in the light of an angel, but with much room for improvement, of which, I suspect, Ruth convinced me. For a time, I used to accompany her to school, but our relationship was broken by the intervention of my father.

This came about in the following manner. Ruth was deeply religious. Under her influence, I attended services with her at the Garrison Church, the local Anglican Church. This church, built in 1840 and designed by Thomas Blackett, had the most beautiful stained-glass windows. I remember well sitting inside, while the minister delivered words of godly wisdom, enthralled when music filled the church interior with its sound, creating a mysterious atmosphere of serenity. My father learned about these church visits and promptly forbade me from going again. From then on, my brief excursion into the world of religion and religious feeling came to an end. With it, ended my friendship with the little blind girl.

My father had strict principles regarding the institutions of religion, believing their effect to be detrimental to a child’s development. An original Anzac, he came back from the war a sick man, disillusioned with God and human society. Of medium height, with light brown hair and large striking eyes of an unusual blue-violet colour, his expression bore the far-off dreaming look of a sensitive nature. He possessed a distinctive nose reminiscent of the shape of an eagle’s beak. This last was an attribute gratefully not inherited! But I was indeed Daddy’s little girl, unwilling to seriously displease him. I never visited the Garrison Church again.

This was not a cause of regret for me, then, or afterwards. All through my life I have felt no need for religion of any sort to guide me in matters of right and wrong. Nor have I felt the need for the solace it extends regarding death, which I have always thought to be a natural process in nature’s scheme for all livings things. I ask, why should the human race differ from the rest of the animal world? Why do we give ourselves the privilege of an after-life?

Windmill Street, originally the site of an old windmill, ran off Lower Fort Street. Many pleasant childhood associations were connected with this street. An old hotel, ‘The Hero of Waterloo’ stood on its corner. The hotel still stands there, a reminder of days long gone. Situated right where Windmill Street began, on the crest of the hill, this old hotel was a landmark in the history of the Rocks, a relic dating from the earliest days of the colony.

My brothers and I imagined the great variety of adventurous characters from across the seas that may have gathered there. Some desperados, some just ordinary men looking for an alternative to the hunger and suffering of life back in old imperialistic England. Maybe, many a scene of excessive violence, perhaps even murder, took place in its environs. Yet, despite these unpleasant associations, the aura of that historic era still lingered about it, wielding a certain magic.

Windmill Street was the scene of many of my brothers’ daring deeds in the billy cart. I was the ‘baby’ of the family and as their little sister looked up to them with fond admiring eyes. They in turn looked after me with loving care, like the devoted brothers they were. There at the top of the hill, the local boys used to gather with their billy-carts, my brothers among them. I can still see Frank and Jim as they tore down the length of Windmill Street in them and around the corner at breakneck speed. I stood on the side, watching, longing to be with them. Only once do I recall ever being given a ride. What a privilege that was!

Just as I had my own little troop of children, of which I was the leader, so too did my brothers have their own, of which they were undisputed leaders. They had a special place where they went to play. It was supposed to be kept a secret from everyone but the members of the ‘gang’. Wherever my brothers went, I endeavoured to follow. Therefore, it was virtually impossible to keep their hiding place a secret from me. It was located not far from the Garrison Church, on an area of spare land situated close up against where the outer ramifications of Sydney Harbour Bridge began and the railway line. There, my brothers built numerous cubby houses with the local boys and I felt extraordinarily favoured whenever I was allowed ‘in’ by them. Like all the others in the gang, I too was bound by the promise of secrecy.

Skirted by the beauty of Sydney Harbour, with the Harbour Bridge and Observatory Hill overlooking all, Millers Point and the Rocks were a fascinating part of old Sydney in which to live. Even later, I still lived in its surrounds, when I kept my childhood promise and enrolled as a young girl in the Julian Ashton Art School.

Where Do I Come From?

Consider your origins.

– Dante

Family links are a fascinating subject for me. Like many Australians, I grew up stripped of our European connections, ignorant. The fascination lies in uncovering the truth, from which irradiates pictures of who we are and where we came from. Some may disappoint, others will excite and intrigue us.

First, I will mention my Irish links before going on to uncover other family links. A tiny bit has already slipped through, but it is now my pleasure to elucidate more on this subject. The larger part of the earlier immigrants to Australia came from England, Scotland and Ireland. My maternal great grandparents, the Doherty family came here from County Cork in Southern Ireland in the late 1840s. They established a farm in Maitland, named then, ‘Greenhills’.

Dr Kevin Izod O’Doherty came to Tasmania as a political prisoner sentenced to transportation for having been the Editor of the Tribune and taken part in the 1848 Young Ireland Movement in Dublin. His status as a doctor caused him to be treated differently from the other prisoners. No sooner arrived, then his medical expertise was put to much needed use. Released, with a pardon, he visited his relatives at their ‘Greenhills’ farm on his way to Queensland, where he settled with his wife, Eva Kelly, a writer for ‘The Nation’, a newspaper famous as the voice for Irish Freedom. He became a member of the Legislative Assembly and one of the first presidents of the Queensland Medical Society.

My Grandfather Doherty was born at ‘Greenhills’, where the farm visited by Kevin Izod was located. His name was Mick, like his father’s. I have already drawn a picture of him, now I would like to speak more about my Nanna, his wife Judith May O’Dea, and her family. The O’Deas were a well-known family in the Morpeth-Maitland-Raymond Terrace area of NSW, although some originated from the Annandale/ Newtown areas of Sydney. Through the female line, the O’Dea’s trace their connection to Australia back to 1800, when Francis Murphy arrived from Ireland, after receiving a life sentence from the British State for being a member of the ‘Society of United Irishmen’ following the failed 1798 rebellion. This was a rebellion inspired by the French Revolution; Wolfe Tone its most famous participant, influenced by the new ideas of liberty and equality.

Nanna was a woman with ‘a remarkable intellect’. This description, given by a man who plays a sinister role in my story, puzzled me. I was only thirteen when I heard it, my memory of her almost non-existent. Three more years passed before we came together as grandmother and granddaughter. I learned to respect her singular brightness of mind, sitting many a time in her room, listening to tales of the family as Kruger the draught horse and Chebby the pony came to life.

Nanna would also describe her days before her marriage to Mick Doherty, which took place in Annandale where she lived as lady companion to a wealthy Jewess. It was a time in her life when she regularly accompanied the Jewess to operas staged in Sydney, featuring famous singers, including the legendary Australian Opera singer, Melba, and she liked talking about it.

Her mother, Eliza Ann Crane – my Great Grandmother O’Dea – lived to the grand old age of 92. Her mother, Francis Ellen Murphy, was a descendant of Frank Murphy. She married Charles Waterman Crane, from England, reputedly the black sheep of a London family of lawyers. They settled in Morpeth.

An esteemed friend of the Windeyer family, great Grandmother was a frequent visitor to their mansion situated on a hill in Raymond Terrace. There is a faded photograph of her standing next to one of the Windeyers’, Richard, on the Windeyer Estate. It must have been taken somewhere in the late 1920s, judging by the car, typical of that period, in front of which they are both standing. The town regarded her as a true lady, complete with a toque hat and high heels.

The Hunter River Valley was famous for the flocks of Irish Immigrants, arrived to settle in surrounding towns like Raymond Terrace. Many became farmers, a few, like one of the Dohertys’, became publicans. Millers Forest, adjacent to Raymond Terrace, was a thickly settled farming area with a predominately Irish Catholic population.

There is a droll story passed down to us concerning the time great Grandmother, dressed in the style of a grand lady, called on an old Irish woman to express sympathy for her husband’s accidental death, thrown off his horse while galloping over a fence, drunk. After expressing condolences to the old woman in a ladylike manner, the old woman answered her, in an inimitable Irish accent, straight from Ireland itself, Well, he did it himself, Mrs O’Dea, he did it himself!

Great Grandfather Hugh O’Dea was a kindly man, rather bookish. His closest friend was the editor of the Raymond Terrace newspaper. Unfortunately, his son Frank, Nanna’s brother, was curiously unfeeling. Often, at the family dinner table, he imitated his consumptive father’s coughing and wheezing. This unkind nature showed again in his treatment of the woman he married. She was from Millers Forest. He could not stand her voice any more, he told his family, before disappearing without a trace, leaving his wife to bring up their son.

Years later, travelling up to Newcastle from Melbourne, my mother stopped at a hotel in Cootamundra. There she learnt of an important identity of the town, Frank O’Dea, much respected in the community. He had a large family, and had been Mayor of Cootamundra. Was Uncle Frank a bigamist? That is the question!

During our weekly visit, Nanna told me Ernie O’Dea, the present Lord Mayor of Sydney, was her relation. Like her, he grew up in Annandale, an old established suburb close to the city favoured by a gentile class of people. Known as a virulent opponent of ‘Communism’, Ernie was a member of the Legislative Assembly and a right-wing member of the Labor Party. There is an official portrait of him, in mayoral robes, painted by the eminent artist, Henry Hanke. Sir Nicolas Shehadie recalled him. Ernie O’Dea, he said, was his mentor when, as a young alderman, he joined the Council of the City of Sydney in 1962.

Monica Mary Doherty, my mother, combined both softness and fire in her character. Softness came from the Doherty’s, as did the rebel’s fiery nature against injustice. It was strengthened by the long-ago presence of the United Irishman, Frank Murphy, in the female side of the O’Dea line. Meeting my father added to this part of her nature, bringing it to the fore, developing