Clifton Ernest Pugh AO, was an Australian artist and three-time winner of Australia's Archibald Prize. One of Australia's most renowned and successful painters, Pugh was strongly influenced by German Expressionism, and was known for his landscapes and portraiture. Important early group exhibitions include The Antipodeans, the exhibition for which Bernard Smith drafted a manifesto in support of Australian figurative painting, an exhibition in which Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Charles Blackman showed; a joint exhibition with Barry Humphries, in which the two responded to Dadaism; and Group of Four at the Victorian Artists Society Gallery with Pugh, John Howley, Don Laycock and Lawrence Daws.
Clifton Pugh mural in the bar of the Family Hotel, Tibooburra. The borrowed effects are found in the works of Norman Lindsay and the outstretched arms of the central figure is a recurring motif in Arthur Boyd's paintings. 1976