Unstill Life: Art, Politics and Living with Clifton Pugh

Memoir Biography Art History Australian Studies Gender Studies Visual Arts Feminism Political Art

Unstill Life: Art, Politics and Living with Clifton Pugh is the vivid, out-of-print 2008 memoir that art-history students, collectors and feminist scholars have been hunting for ever since it disappeared from bookshop shelves. In 368 generously illustrated pages, Judith Pugh—artist, journalist and wife of three-time Archibald Prize–winner Clifton Pugh—delivers an insider’s chronicle of Australia’s post-war bohemia, the Heide circle, and the political mural movement that shaped the nation’s visual culture. Readers looking for first-hand detail on Pugh’s painting techniques, his friendships with Nolan, Tucker and Bergner, and the founding of the Dunmoochin artists’ colony will find them here in crisp, page-turning prose.

Beyond biography, the book is a primary document for anyone studying gender politics in the arts. Judith Pugh recounts what it meant to be a female creative partner in a marriage overshadowed by a famous husband, offering candid observations on 1950s–1970s feminism, motherhood and the gendered economics of the Australian gallery scene. These personal narratives are interwoven with rare photographs, exhibition ephemera and colour reproductions of Clifton Pugh’s major works—many now held only in private collections—making the volume a scholarly resource as well as a compelling read.

Collectors prize this Allen & Unwin UK-trade paperback (ISBN 9781741754773) for its clean, unmarked pages and sturdy spine; copies in “very good” condition, free of handwriting or dog-ears, are increasingly scarce. At just 16.7 oz and a shelf-friendly 9 × 6 inches, it slips easily into a student satchel or art-lover’s library bag, yet the 1.2-inch thickness signals the depth of research inside. Secure one now while it remains available—when the next auction record for Clifton Pugh breaks, so will the price of this indispensable companion text.

Refer to our eBay listing for a full condition report and many more high-quality pictures of this item.