Robert Lyall "Alfie" Hannaford is an Australian realist artist notable for his drawings, paintings, portraits and sculptures. He is a great-great-great-grandson of Susannah Hannaford.

Early life, education, and family

Robert Lyall Hannaford was born and grew up on his family's farm in the Gilbert Valley near Riverton, South Australia, attending Riverton Primary and High Schools. Born to Claude and Vera (née Hoare), he has two elder brothers (Ian, footballer and architect, and Donald) and a younger sister (Kay). He is a great-great-great-grandson of Susannah Hannaford. He won a number of art competitions at primary school, and painted his first landscape painting in oils at 14. In 1960, aged 16, he moved to Adelaide to complete the last two years of schooling at Prince Alfred College. In 1962, Hannaford enrolled in life drawing and sculpture classes at the South Australian School of Art, but withdrew and became employed by an advertising agency. From that year, he boarded at Lincoln College, connected to the University of Adelaide, and contributed cartoons to the college magazine as well as the student newspaper, On Dit. He attended the Ballarat Technical Art School in 1967 and 1968, which was then under the School of Mines in Ballarat. He won the AME Bale Art Scholarship from 1969 until 1973. This provided living expenses and a dwelling in Kew, Melbourne, complete with a large art library and studio. During these years he studied art theory and history informally, and also received a number of portrait commissions, while continuing to paint other types of work. The scholarship paid for travel for study, and he visited Canberra and Sydney to attend exhibitions, and also spent two months of each year in South Australia, focusing on landscape painting. He returned to South Australia in 1974, living in Riverton, Adelaide, Kangaroo Island, and from 1980–87, the Adelaide suburb of West Hindmarsh.

Career

Although largely self-taught, Hannaford benefited from the mentoring of South Australian artists Hans Heysen and Ivor Hele. He worked as political cartoonist for the Adelaide Advertiser from 1964 to 1967 (between Pat Oliphant and Michael Atchison), before becoming a full-time artist in 1970. Primarily known as a portrait artist, depicting the likes of Dame Joan Sutherland, Donald Bradman, Paul Keating, and Bob Hawke, he is also known for his landscapes, still lifes, nudes, and sculptures. He has commented on his portraiture that: "Portraiture is an exploration of character that goes beyond photography. It is an ongoing thing over a long period of time. You get elements of various emotions that can be sensed in the painting". Hannaford first entered the Archibald Prize in 1991 with a portrait of Hugh Stretton. The portrait was shortlisted, and won the 1991/1992 People's Choice Award. To 2018, 26 of his entries had been finalists in 21 of the competitions, and he had been a three-time winner of the People's Choice Award – in 1992, 1996 and 1998.

"Black Chicks Talking" Project

"Black Chicks Talking" was a project conceived by the actor Leah Purcell and her partner Bain Stewart, and developed by their production company Bungabura Productions. At the invitation of Stewart, in the period 1999 to 2002 Hannaford painted 10 portraits of noted Indigenous Australian women to support the project which had been presented to Hannaford as an initiative to raise funds for a mentoring scheme for young Indigenous people. There was later a court case about the disputed ownership of the portraits. In order to keep the portraits together as a group, they were donated to the Tweed River Gallery. The ten subjects of the portraits are:

Recognition, honours and awards

Personal life

Hannaford met Kate Gilfillan in 1964 and they married in 1968. They moved to Melbourne in 1969, living there for four years, where their two children Tom and Georgina were born. They divorced in 1976. He has two daughters born in the 1980s: Aisha and Tsering who is also a notable South Australian artist. Her mother is shoemaker Shirley Andris. Like her father, she specialises in portraiture, landscapes, and still life, and has been a finalist for the Archibald prize. In February 2006 Hannaford was diagnosed with tongue and throat cancer, but was declared in remission by the end of the year. During this time he painted Self Portrait with Tubes, showing himself naked, with a feeding tube sticking out of his stomach. Hannaford married Alison Mitchell in October 2007. Hannaford bought a disused farmhouse and outbuildings at Peters Hill, near Riverton, and commenced converting them into a dwelling and studio, where he was living with his wife, artist Alison Mitchell. They were married in 2007. They own and operate Riverton Light Gallery and have exhibited in collaborative exhibitions.

Selected works

Commissions

Other portraits on public display

Archibald Prize

Finalist

Hannaford's work has been selected as an Archibald Prize finalist many times:

Archibald Salon des Refusés

The Archibald Salon des Refusés is an exhibition which shows Archibald Prize entries that have been selected to hang in the prize exhibition.