The Prize (Kim E Anderson, Pantera)

In 1943, artists William (or Bill, as he prefers) Dobell and Joshua Smith are friends and lovers, sharing intimacies at idyllic scenes on Lake Macquarie while working on their art. The Australian art scene is at a crossroads, torn between old-world traditions and new experimental styles found in London and Paris. Bill and Joshua personify these two streams: Joshua and his restrained, overbearing parents, painting in a traditional style, and Bill, freshly back from London with a more bohemian sensibility, carousing in delicatessens run and populated by immigrant communities. When both artists enter the Archibald Prize, they know only one can win, but no one expects the outrage and court battle that ensue. It is here that The Prize gets bogged down in the details of the trial and the book’s pacing flags, as the relationship between the two artists fades into the background of the broader cultural debate. The story is often disjointed as it follows the multiplying characters and motivations, but the cost to both men and the tragedy of lost love at the heart of the novel remain poignant. The Prize is an interesting portrait of Australia in the 1940s, shining a light on changing social mores and an artistic debate that has long since become moot but can be seen repeating through the ages in the cases of artists such as Bill Henson and Casey Jenkins. For fans of Emily Bitto’s The Strays.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Fay Helfenbaum is a freelance writer and editor and was a bookseller for five years. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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Category: Reviews