Herald Sun Australia Clipping
When Perry Fletcher suggested to friend and artist Charlotte Neumann that she needed to paint someone “mad”, little did he think he would be become the subject.
The Armadale painter will submit the portrait of Fletcher for next year’s Archibald Prize, the national award for portraiture.
“She said to me ‘why not, you’re mad’.So we went ahead,” Fletcher said.
Neumann has often painted physicians and other medical people but sought someone with more eccentricity for her Archibald entry.
The traditional oil portrait portrays Fletcher with his two loves- red wine and his four-year-old tenterfield terrier Caviar.
“I like to call her Mrs Rembrandt because she’s just marvellous,” Fletcher, 59, said.
Fletcher also dabbles in painting but he is better known for his professional engraving skill. Not for nothing is he is known as “Fletcher the Etcher”.
After returning from the Vietnam War in 1969, he spent six years creating The Last Supper, which now hangs in the Alfred hospital.