Portrait Of The Artist, A - Jeffrey Smart: Smart's Labyrinth

A portrait of one of Australia's most important post war painters, Jeffrey Smart, opening at Smart's enchanting villa at Urbino in Tuscany. He is embarking on a portrait of fellow painter Margaret Olley. He talks illuminatingly about his distinctive style and subject matter and the meaningbehind it. We learn that although his paintings of lonely figures set in bleak industrial landscapes under dark brooding skies suggest early 21st century decay he, on the contrary, sees the post industrial society as a thing of great beauty. He visits an ancient church in Tuscany where he reveals his fascination with Piero della Francesca, he also visits Cézannes studio in the south of France where he pays homage to the 'master'. Concluding back in his studio where he completes the Olley painting and muses "everything has already been done by great and better men in the past and 'there is only the trying'".