Peter Purves Smith

Peter Purves Smith
Peter Purves Smith, photographed by Russell Drysdale, 1938
Born	Charles Roderick Purves Smith (1912-03-26)26 March 1912 East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Died	23 July 1949(1949-07-23) (aged 37) Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia
Nationality	Australian
Known for	Painting
Notable work	Kangaroo Hunt The Nazis, Nuremberg The Diplomats

Peter Purves Smith (26 March 1912 – 23 July 1949), born Charles Roderick Purves Smith, was an Australian painter. Born in Melbourne, Purves Smith studied at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London and under progressive art teacher George Bell in Melbourne.

In his student years, Purves Smith emerged as a uniquely confident artist. He was the first modern artist in Australia to paint historical Australian subjects, including the explorers Burke and Wills, and was among the first Australian artists to have direct contact with the international Surrealist movement. He travelled throughout Europe in the late 1930s, painting many of his most celebrated works in Paris. In 1941, art critic Clive Turnbull identified Purves Smith, William Dobell, and Purves Smith's close friend Russell Drysdale as "the three most significant Australian artists" of the era. However, Purves Smith's artistic career was put on hold while he served in World War II, and later by illness. He died in 1949, leaving behind a small yet influential body of work.

Peter Purves Smith was born on 26 March 1912 in East Melbourne, the second child and only son of Victorian-born graziers William Purves Smith and Loe Purves Smith. The family's male line in Australia extends back to Peter's grandfather Thomas Smith (1830–87), who emigrated from Darnick, Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders to the Colony of Victoria during the early days of the Victorian gold rush in 1854. Thomas rapidly prospered, establishing various businesses and acquiring farming properties and inner Melbourne mansions. William—although distant from Thomas—took to his father's alternating lifestyle of rural farming and leisured vacations in the city. By 1905, William had married Laura (Loe) Chapman and was wool-growing at Dwarroon, outside Warrnambool. They raised their children Alison (known as Jocelyn) and Peter in various places throughout Victoria, never settling permanently in one place. Purves Smith attended a prep school in England and Geelong Grammar School in Australia, alongside future artist and friend Russell Drysdale. In order to please his father, Peter entered the Royal Australian Naval College in 1926, but dropped out three years later to become a jackaroo near Hay by the Murrumbidgee River. William Purves Smith committed suicide on Christmas Eve, 1932.