Portrait of Lord Mayor Winsome McCaughey AO 1989

Summary

Born Winsome Howell in Baddaginnie, north-eastern Victoria, in 1943, Winsome McCaughey became lord mayor of Melbourne in 1988, serving through 1989. She was the second woman to hold the position, after Leckie (Alexis) Ord (1987–88). A member of the feminist movement during the 1970s, she advocated for childcare services and policies concerned with children’s welfare. By the time of her election as lord mayor she had served as a councillor for six years, and since her mayorship she has headed Melbourne’s bid for the 1996 Olympic Games and been a leader in business and charitable organisations, including in land regeneration. This portrait of McCaughey was painted in 1989, in the Council Chamber, at the request of the artist, Gwen Eichler. Trained at the East Sydney Technical College in the 1940s, Eichler won the Portia Geach Memorial Award, a national annual award for women portraitists, just five years before painting this work. While the portrait is conventional in its composition and realist style, there is an intimacy to this painting that places it obliquely to the tradition of formal mayoral portraits. McCaughey may be seated on an imposing, formal, carved chair in the chamber, but her pose is natural and her gaze warm and open. The absence of mayor robes and chains removes any sense of formality and pomposity, signalling instead an approachability and perhaps even a different style of leadership. The artist donated the portrait to the City of Melbourne in 2019. On 24 November that year, Lord Mayor Sally Capp unveiled it in the Portico Room of Melbourne Town Hall, where it now hangs.