One reviewer of Growth of a central bank wrote: ‘I found myself increasingly absorbed by Giblin at the expense of interest in the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’ (Bopp 1952). The book’s author had already been the subject of numerous newspaper profiles, but the most elaborate attempt to convey what Giblin was all about was soon to be undertaken in oil and pointed sable brushes.^[36]

It was Copland who had conceived the project of a portrait of Giblin. Copland in his devotion to Giblin was sometimes undiscerning, and always forgiving. Giblin could receive Copland’s tributes ironically: ‘I’d a very appreciative audience last-night, though my performance was very mediocre. DBC was there throwing bouquets with great fervour.’ (NLA LFG 7 December 1948). But it was this unmeditated urge of Copland to honour Giblin that manifested itself lastingly in his successful effort in 1945–46 to have Giblin’s portrait painted. A committee to achieve this end was formed in 1945, with Copland as the Chairman.

An artist was selected: William Dobell. An interesting choice! Dobell had been embroiled in 1944 in one of the boisterous controversies that punctuate Australian cultural life. He had caused a ‘sensational’ break with ‘academic tradition’ by winning the Archibald Prize for his portrait of Joshua Smith. Defenders of tradition had succeeded in taking the decision to court on the grounds that it was not a portrait but only a ‘caricature’.

How Dobell came to be asked to paint Giblin is not specifically known, except that Copland was not involved. But the controversy of 1944 had kindled a general interest in Dobell; the painter later claimed that, in its aftermath, ‘everybody was clamouring for pictures’. How Dobell came to accept the commission is also unclear, as in later years he would have it understood – falsely – that he had ceased painting portraits in the aftermath of Joshua Smith: ‘I was afraid of flooding the market and then, on the other hand, I was afraid to touch portraiture in case similar things happened and I didn’t want to go through that experience again’.

But a commission of £200 and five shillings was agreed upon. Subscribers were sought, with an upper limit of 200: Curtin, Chifley, Menzies, Ian Potter, Sir John Clapham, Keynes. It appears that Keynes accepted – three colour copies of the portrait were dispatched to him, as to all acceptors.

But some of those approached ‘were not altogether happy about our choice of artist’. Sir William Massey-Greene (Assistant Treasurer during the Lyons Government) replied to Copland:

Another Depression colleague of Giblin’s, Sir Alfred Davidson, the General Manager of the Bank of New South Wales, refused to subscribe: ‘I do not approve of the work of William Dobell. I have seen all his recent portraits, so called, but with all diffidence I suggest they would be more appropriately described as caricatures’.

Giblin appeared unperturbed. He minuted himself at the time: ‘Chief anxiety – I would offer him a subject totally obstructive to artistic endeavour’.

After Copland had departed for China, Melville took over the task of managing the artist. Copland told Melville: ‘Dobell must be a real artist because he has not answered my official letter written to him a month ago’. Melville also had to cope with the artist’s wishes. Melville informed Copland that Dobell wanted brushes of sable hair that were pointed. ‘He is prepared to do the best he can with his fingers’, Melville added. Copland replied: ‘I know nothing about sable brushes, but I have asked the Deputy Prices Commissioner in Melbourne to make some enquiries as to whether any such things exist in Melbourne’.

The completed portrait did not invoke enthusiasm among subscribers. Melville complained: ‘I do not feel it is quite so satisfactory … I feel that a few minor adjustments would probably achieve an accurate rather than an approximate likeness’ (February 1946). Copland advised Melville to discuss with Dobell ‘adjustments in the face’. But Giblin responded: ‘I should be sorry if he was pressed’.

The finished work was first displayed in the Commonwealth Bank building in Sydney, and then at ‘a little ceremony’ in Canberra before the unveiling at the University of Melbourne on 6 April 1946.

But this was not an academic portrait, in any sense. Medley, a humourist and versist, thought these lines fitting:

Vance Palmer, less facetiously but in the same vein, wrote that it ‘hinted at qualities that were earthy, impish, humorously derisive of ordinary social conventions’ (Palmer 1954, p. 221).

Giblin was not happy with the portrait. He told his sister Edith: ‘Dobell was a little perverse. His painting was quite different from his sketch. [This is correct.] It was of course his imagination of how I might look … For its personal verisimilitude, I am of all people the worst possible judge. After careful consideration I told William [Dobell] that I thought it was “fair comment”. And I leave it at that’.^[37] Eilean thought the portrait a ‘horror’. Wilson called it an ‘indignity’.

It was entered for the Archibald Prize. The judges’ final choice came down to a choice between Dobell’s Giblin, and a portrait of L. C. Robson (the headmaster of Sydney Church of England Grammar School) by William Dargie, a young artist who had won the prize three times in the previous four years. Dargie’s precise and opulent portraits represented the traditionalism enraged by Joshua Smith.^[38] Giblin, who was a trustee of the Gallery of New South Wales, absented himself from the judges’ deliberations. Dobell received five votes, Dargie seven.

The Giblin portrait made little lasting impression on art critics. It was forgotten by Dobell experts, some of whom have accepted at face value Dobell’s claim that for several years he stopped painting portraits after the court case.

The most memorable comment came when the portrait was exhibited in Sydney. ‘The first day, an elderly waitress bustled up’ and said to Giblin,