HIS artworks hang in state galleries, he was feted by royalty and hailed by the everyman as a celebrity, but the question remained: was Pro Hart one of Australia’s greatest artists?
Eight years after his death, the debate still continues. His family says yes; the art establishment a firm no.
While few public collections hold his works, there is no doubt among the masses about his popularity, with thousands of people having made roads for Broken Hill to buy his paintings during and after his life.
“It was almost a pilgrimage for people to get a souvenir to hang on the wall of the caravan,” arts writer Gavin Fry says.
"Thousands of people did it. Pro Hart became the icon of Broken HIll and if anyone wanted to know anything about Broken Hill, they asked Pro Hart.”
Fry, who has penned 20 books on the art world, has released a biography of the artist.
In Pro Hart: Life & Legacy, Fry looks to reconcile the man, his life and his art. Its release coincides with the sale of the artist’s most prized and valued works from his private collection at Leonard Joel on Tuesday July 22.
Fry openly admits he never sought out Hart when he was alive as “he never fitted my world view of art at that stage”.
“I had some fairly hard and fast views of what I thought about Pro Hart, but I thought if there is a different story there I will get out and chase it.
“Now having done the book my perception changed. There is this great enigma, he is the most popular most prolific and most profitable artist we have ever had and at the same time he has been ignored by the art profession, so that is the question I had to answer.”
Fry says the impetus to write the book was for it to be the first “real study” on Pro Hart’s life and legacy. “Because just about everything written up until now had been a journalist’s take on the celebrity story. This is not a story on celebrity but where does he genuinely fit in the art business and how did he get there.”
In writing the book Fry consulted with eldest son, John, and the artist’s widow Raylee. He travelled to Broken Hill five times in 12 months to tap into the essence of the man.
“He had carte blanche to write about whatever he discovered,” John Hart says. “It’s a good assessment of Dad’s life.”
Hart junior says the book is part of his ongoing drive to have Hart re-evaluated and recognised in Australia, in particular the art establishment.
“Dad made art accessible for the people, instead having a controlled output. He didn't do it out of greed. He believed it was his God-given mission to do that and his views were at odds with the rarified art world and that wasn't what Dad was about.”
Hart, 53, says it still amazes him that his father became an artist and has fond memories of watching him paint in his studio. He says he supported his own decision to paint and helped put him through art school.
But at 46 he moved into hospitality training as a chef. He is now head chef at Broken Hill’s Royal Exchange Hotel, painting when time permits.
“He was a miner stuck out in the middle of nowhere. He did not fit the mould of an artist, especially according to the art industry, but he loved art,” Hart says.
“We grew up with a massive collection of art and Dad was always reading about it and sharing it with us.”
Work commitments mean he won't attend the auction and nor will the famed artist’s wife, Raylee. A broken leg from a recent fall will makes it a logistical challenge for his mother to travel from her home in Broken Hill, he says.
But Fry’s research, he says, informed him of news he didn’t know about his famous father’s career.
“He had the chance to go in one direction and he went on another,” he says, of Hart senior’s decision to change from art dealers that had guided him carefully at the start of his career to others who saw him as a way to capitalise on fame, thereby investing his efforts and time into making Pro Hart an industry.
It led to more than 70,000 works flooding the market in his 40 year career.
“It was just ridiculous,” Fry says. “70,000 is a lot of pictures and he was terribly creative, but at one stage he had a business employing 17 people and rather than trying to back away and get people to manage that, that was his undoing. The business sucked him in and sucked him out, which is the sad part of the story.”
He says he believes it was Hart’s driven personality, outspokenness and a life lived in a remote area that saw him take painting to the extreme. He grew up on a cattle station, then left school at 15 to become a miner.
He didn’t start painting until his early 30s, Fry says. “By then he was a man fixed in his ways. He could not be moulded to your ways and he knew where he was going. And in years he effectively becomes head of a multi-million dollar business. He wasn't trained for that. He took a lot of people on trust, as you do in the country, and I think a lot of those people didn't have his best interests at heart.
“However, you can’t play both games: you cannot be enormously prolific and commercial and look for great critical success. But, when you look at Pro’s work there is work there that deserves recognition.
“I feel there was also opportunity there as he was capable of so much better, yet dissipated so much of his energy on works of lesser consequence,” Fry says.
“When you see the good things you think ‘God if he just worked on those things, slowed down and thought about his art a lot more. He was thinking ‘how many I can make’, and not ‘how good I can make them’. He would almost attack the canvas with paint.
“He knew himself he would say ‘oh, these are the works I really want to work on, but no-one wants them’, but that is because those dealers who were flogging the hell out of him didn't want them as they knew they could sell dragonflies and race meetings.”
As for those ‘unscrupulous’ dealers? “I spoke with them and I am ashamed about what they did. A fair number said he was there to make money for them and himself so they did it.
“(But) a lot of that was about his own personality and upbringing and that is always an interesting story because we all are a product of our personal and literary environments and that is very much so in this case.
“The fascinating part of this is that was initially in the hands of extremely good people… who were keen to manage him. But the problem he was out there in Broken Hill and keen to make a success and he fell prey to a lot of other dealers who had different motives. He was lured down a path to sell more for less and he took that to the extreme, and that is why his reputation suffered.”
Fry is now the proud owner of a Pro Hart. “If you told me 12 months ago that I would own a Pro Hart I would have said ‘go jump’,” he laughs.
He believes Hart would have liked the book. “I think he would say it was a pretty fair cop and a fair analysis of the situation… He was a folk hero, a cultural phenomenon and not an artistic genius and that is fine. As along as you take him for what it was that’s good.”
Adds John Hart: “He is an icon of Australian culture and he has to be recognised, (so) we are basically saying ‘Hey this is what this man has achieved’.” The auction of the largest collection of Pro Hart’s paintings from the early 1950s to 2005 will be auctioned on Tuesday July 22 at Leonard Joel auction house.