Artwork information

A. H. O’Keeffe’s Portrait of young man, at first flush seems a surprising subject for a work created in Dunedin in 1887. The young man’s brimless cap, shirt and face have a distinctly ‘orientalist’ appearance that one may not anticipate seeing in the Edinburgh of the South at this time. In fact, the influx of migrants drawn to the Otago goldfields from the 1860s, resulted in a province that was more ethnically diverse than much of the rest of New Zealand. Dr Ralph Body, whose MA thesis addressed O’Keeffe’s career, suggests that the subject may have been a member of Dunedin’s Lebanese community. Referred to at the time as Syrians or Assyrians, a sizeable community was established in the southern city by the end of 19th century. Further research into the subject is ongoing.

It is tempting to suggest that the sitter could have been an art school model, demonstrating an engagement with Orientalist trends in European art. However, by his own account, O’Keeffe stated during his five years at the Dunedin School of Art he wasted ‘a good deal of time in copying from oleographs [coloured prints], etc., when I should have been studying from the round... One day an old carpenter…said “My boy, you should do something original; don’t be a copiest all your life.” He offered himself as a model, and for the first time I tried my hand at painting from life.’ This advice from an unexpected quarter transformed O’Keeffe’s practice, and this portrait is likely one of the early results showing his facility as a portraitist