Career
Although the portrait of him was very popular, with more than 154,000 visitors, a court case relating to the portrait in 1943 damaged his career, as well as Dobell"son Garfield Barwick appeared for the plaintiff and, although the claim was dismissed, it made Barwick"s reputation as a rising star of the legal fraternity. In an interview in 1991 Smith called the portrait a curse, a phantom that haunts medical
lieutenant has torn at me every day of my life.
I"ve tried to bury it inside me in the hope it would die, but it never does. The portrait of him by Dobell had become more famous than his own work, which caused him considerable consternation.