{"id":529520,"date":"2026-03-11T16:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T16:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/529520\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T16:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T16:58:08","slug":"harold-the-kangaroo-thornton-the-extraordinary-forgotten-life-of-the-greatest-genius-who-ever-lived-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/529520\/","title":{"rendered":"Harold \u2018the Kangaroo\u2019 Thornton: the extraordinary, forgotten life of the \u2018greatest genius who ever lived\u2019 | Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you checked out the Archibald prize<\/a> finalists back in 1983, one painting in particular might have caught your eye. Taking up seven feet of wall space, Dr Brown and Green Old Time Waltz is a psychedelic portrait of the then Greens leader, Bob Brown<\/a>, rendered in rich colours and filled with hidden details: from faces smuggled into the trees to little green men walking around Brown\u2019s feet.<\/p>\n

But just as noteworthy as the painting was the man standing next to it. Clad in hand-painted clothes, with painted false teeth in his mouth and a walking stick he didn\u2019t really need in his hand, stood Harold \u201cthe Kangaroo\u201d Thornton, the artist and self-described \u201cgreatest genius that ever lived\u201d.<\/p>\n

There was no risk of missing Thornton: he stood next to the painting every day the Archibald was open. \u201cHe became good friends with the art gallery staff,\u201d says Philip Thornton, the artist\u2019s nephew. \u201cHe really did want the recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Brown and Green Old Time Waltz, 1983, oil on canvas<\/p>\n

Recognition eluded Thornton during his lifetime. It still does. If you\u2019ve heard of Thornton at all, it\u2019s probably thanks to the portrait of Brown, even though he can count the likes of Martin Sharp<\/a> and Ken Done<\/a> among his admirers and friends \u2013 for his part, Done once helped Thornton out by paying for a crate of his paintings to be shipped around the world.<\/p>\n

Thornton\u2019s psychedelic works, marked by a mischievous sense of humour, always seemed primed to enter the mainstream. But even when surrealism became popular in Australia\u2019s art world, Thornton never got his dues \u2013 or any money. \u201cMaybe he was ahead of his time, maybe he was behind his time,\u201d Done says. \u201cMaybe he was just on Harold Thornton\u2019s time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dancing Under The Sea, 1993, acrylic on canvas<\/p>\n

These days, Thornton is better known in Amsterdam, where he spent many years living and painting, often working on the streets next to an empty cup and a sign that read: \u201cIf you like Harold\u2019s art, Harold likes beer.\u201d A mural by Thornton on the front of an Amsterdam cafe and marijuana shop, The Bulldog, remains a local tourist attraction, and his friend Pienke WH Kal published a monograph of him.<\/p>\n

Throughout his life, Thornton was both a relentless self-promoter and a prolific painter. He produced murals, comic strips, poems and a quasi-fictitious \u201cautobiography\u201d. He loved a tall tale: he would say that Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendrix had ripped off the music he sometimes wrote.<\/p>\n

But even with such embellishments aside, he lived an extraordinary life. By the time he died in 2004, Thornton had been a finalist in the Archibald prize three times. He\u2019d spent some of his early days as a professional wrestler. For a while, he\u2019d used a painted hearse as his primary mode of transport. He wasn\u2019t really an actor but he starred in one of the first short films directed by the acclaimed film-maker Peter Weir<\/a>. He had owned and operated a restaurant in Papua New Guinea, and spent some time in Moscow.<\/p>\n

On one occasion he painted a portrait of a dead body \u2013 his father\u2019s. Beginning the work while the elderly man was on his deathbed, Thornton didn\u2019t let his dad\u2019s passing stop the creative process: he locked himself in the room with the corpse to finish it while family members banged on the door.<\/p>\n

Thornton paints in a window in the Damstraat, Amsterdam, in 1980. Photograph: Alamy<\/p>\n

Thornton was a man who lived many lifetimes \u2013 at least according to his own myth-making. He would often tell people he\u2019d died on an operating table and briefly travelled the world as a ghost. (It was gallbladder surgery that had required the hospital visit but Thornton would sometimes downplay that more humdrum element of the story.)<\/p>\n

The artist in 2000. Photograph: Olivier Chouchana\/Gamma-Rapho\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Still, underneath his exuberance and story-spinning lay a deep kindness. \u201cHe was a great self-promoter but he just wanted to be friends with people,\u201d says Dale Trueman, an artist and compatriot. \u201cFrom the moment I met him, I was star-struck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Enfield, Sydney<\/a>, in 1915, Thornton\u2019s childhood was not happy. Chris Osborne, Thornton\u2019s great-nephew and one of the key protectors of his legacy, describes his upbringing as the \u201cthing that made him the way he was\u201d. His mother was hard on him and, as a dyslexic, somewhat portly child, Thornton was mercilessly bullied at school. He was insecure about his intellect for his whole life. He would sometimes describe himself as having \u201cno brains\u201d, and his comic strips are riddled with spelling errors (though some are deliberate \u2013 a comic dedicated to his genius also describes him as a \u201cvery humbel man\u201d.)<\/p>\n

In painting, Thornton found comfort. He\u2019d stay up for days to finish an artwork, before crashing into an extended period of low mood. Almost pathologically resistant to financial success, he was broke for much of his life \u2013 he described himself as \u201cliving like a rat\u201d. He would talk his way into staying in the spare rooms of family members by promising them paintings he insisted were never to be sold. His art was for the people, he said. \u201cHe worried if he sold his art it would lose its accessibility,\u201d Trueman explains.<\/p>\n

Harold up a Gum Tree, 1983, oil on board<\/p>\n

This stubbornness was a source of some frustration to those who knew him. Thornton railed against any available authority figure: once commissioned to paint a portrait of the mayor of Wagga Wagga, he accentuated the man\u2019s red nose and found himself in a fight with some locals as a result. (\u201c[One] swung a punch,\u201d Thornton later wrote. \u201cI trounced him.\u201d) After one of his paintings failed to make the Archibald cut, he mounted a small protest on the steps of the gallery, accompanied by a giant papier-mache head in a shopping trolley.<\/p>\n

Thornton\u2019s painting of Brown is the closest he came to securing a real legacy \u2013 it\u2019s now housed in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. The work was the result of a series of chance encounters that began when Thornton was living with his nephew Philip. Given that Thornton wasn\u2019t always the easiest person to share space with, Philip and his housemates scraped together an air fare so Thornton could travel to Tasmania and join the blockade of the Franklin Dam<\/a> \u2013 mostly so everyone could \u201cget a break from Harold\u201d, Phillip says.<\/p>\n

Though a lifelong Labor man, Thornton had never been outspokenly political. Tasmania changed that. While there he met Christine Milne<\/a>, a 29-year-old schoolteacher who would go on to become a senator for Tasmania and Brown\u2019s successor as Greens leader. Decades later, Milne remembers Thornton warmly. \u201cHe was probably one of the most open-minded people I\u2019d ever met,\u201d she says. He regaled her with stories from his time living in Amsterdam\u2019s red-light district, which Milne describes as \u201ceye-opening\u201d.<\/p>\n

Thornton (at front in the boat) takes part in a Tasmanian Wilderness Society protest against the Franklin Dam in February 1983Christine Milne with Thornton<\/p>\n

Brown had a similar initial impression. \u201cSix thousand people came to Strahan, and Harold was one of the more colourful ones,\u201d he says now. \u201cThe fact that he had a naked lady enamelled into one tooth was a standout.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Thornton asked to paint his portrait, Brown agreed, though it was a tremendously busy time for the politician. After the painting was finished, Brown\u2019s initial reaction was one of some embarrassment. \u201cIt had an apparent halo around the main image of myself,\u201d he says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t very relaxed about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Brown\u2019s feelings have changed over time. \u201cI see some Hieronymus Bosch in Harold\u2019s painting,\u201d Brown says. \u201cIt\u2019s not a portrait. It tells a whole story.\u201d Milne agrees: \u201cIt\u2019s an incredible painting that in my view, does tell an authentic story about the blockade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown doesn\u2019t have many photographs of himself up around the house \u2013 but he does have a giant print of Thornton\u2019s painting in his office. \u201cPlenty of artists came and went during that time,\u201d Brown says. \u201cBut it was Harold\u2019s picture that laid out such a record of that crucial period \u2013 not just of the Franklin, but of the environmental and social history of Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thornton always wanted his paintings housed together in a proper art gallery where the public could access them. That hasn\u2019t happened. \u201cHow can we set up an art gallery for Harold?\u201d Philip says now, somewhat sadly. \u201cAll we can do is look after Harold\u2019s work. I\u2019ve always hoped that an art student or someone doing a PhD might stumble across Harold. Because when the paintings are hung together, they\u2019re just spellbinding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Old Man of the Sea and his Nudes, 1993, oil on canvas<\/p>\n

Decades after Thornton\u2019s death, his friends still remember him warmly. Chris Osborne is trying to get a film about the man made \u2013 touchingly, he says what he most wants to accurately portray is his great-uncle\u2019s laugh. Trueman thinks about Thornton \u201call the time.\u201d And Done has continued to work behind the scenes to assist with the preservation of Thornton\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot everybody will understand Harold or Harold\u2019s work, but that\u2019s OK,\u201d Done says. \u201cHe was Harold, and he didn\u2019t give a fuck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fittingly then for a man who claimed to have once briefly died and walked the Earth as a ghost, Thornton has not been erased by his passing. Always one to take ownership of a good story, he even prophesied such staying power himself. \u201cI am told everybody dies,\u201d he once wrote. \u201cBut not me.\u201d<\/p>\n

A poster made by Harold, date unknown<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you checked out the Archibald prize finalists back in 1983, one painting in particular might have caught…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-529520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}