Art critic Sasha Grishin describes the painting as "outstanding for its vibrancy, expressive characterisation and energetic brushwork."[3]
Pugh was sometimes described by contemporaries as "the court painter to the [Australian] Labor Party (ALP)."[4] Pugh started the work before Whitlam was elected the ALP Prime Minister in 1972. He told journalist Laurie Oakes that Whitlam "keeps a cover on himself and seldom relaxes. I’m having a hard job to decide just how to paint him, to decide what sort of man he really is."[5]
In the end, after a dozen false starts, [Pugh] decided Whitlam was strong and confident, though with an eye more on a place in history than on the present, and painted him that way