Prof Manning Clark
Portrait Anecdotes
by Heide Smith
The Sitting
Manning Clark was of course painted, sculptured, and photographed many times in his life. He was, after all, many things to many people; Australian icon, passionate cricketer and grandfather, always controversial, he had both disciples and enemies. Not that it seemed to worry Manning! I took many shots of Australia’s best known historian, both at his home in Tasmania Circle Forrest, and at the Clark family retreat at Wapengo. A shot of him fishing off a very precarious rock in the sea, at the lake entrance, with his son Axel, still makes me wince! This shot was also taken at Wapengo on the cottage veranda, overlooking the ocean. He was just sitting there in his favourite old chair, deep in thought. When I asked whether he would mind the camera, he just said “no, as long as you don’t ask me to smile”! And soon after, he was oblivious to my presence, his mind on other matters. I used only the soft natural light, and a narrow depth of field, to separate his profile from the leafy background. I like the simplicity of this portrait.
The Sitter
Born in Sydney in 1915, Manning Clark won scholarships to Melbourne Grammar School and the University of Melbourne. He later attended Balliol College Oxford, and in the early 1940s taught history in schools in England and in Australia. He was a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne, and later Professor of History at the ANU. In 1972 he became the first Professor of Australian History, and received honorary doctorates awarded by the Universities of Melbourne, Newcastle and Sydney. In 1975 Manning Clark was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, in recognition of his writing of “A History of Australia” in six volumes, and in 1980 he was named Australian of the Year.
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