painter, printmaker, commercial artist and teacher, was born in Victoria. He studied at the NGV School, Melbourne 1919-23. Appointed an official war artist in 1941, he was captured in February 1942 after the fall of Singapore and spent three and a half years as a POW in Malaya, recording his experiences in a series of drawings exhibited on his return. In the Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture by Australian Official War Artists 1943-44 (JK catalogue), he was represented only by a self-portrait, lent by the Australian War Memorial (cat.23, ill. p.9), and a long catalogue note of extracts from his letters to the Australian War Memorial in 1942, plus a note stating that the self-portrait was 'the only work of Murray Griffin that can be shown. Mr. Griffin was appointed to work with the 8th Australian Dvision in Malaya and served in that theatre of war from November 1941, to February, 1942, when he was taken prisoner at the fall of Singapore. During his three months’ service in Malaya he completed a number of pictures which were packed ready for transport to Australia, but apparently did not leave the country, and their fate is unknown.’
Griffin also painted this experience, e.g. The Hungry Ones, Changi 1943, oil on board, Warrnambool AG (ill. Hanson, cat. 231 & John MacDonald, Federation NGA 2000). Although solely in Changi, where conditions were actually less harsh than many other Japanese camps, Griffin spoke to prisoners who returned from working on the Thai Railway and was inspired to make paintings and prints recording their experiences too, e.g. Hospital Ward, Thailand Railway (painting), Bridge Work, Thailand Railway 1946, pen, brush, brown ink and pencil with white, 51.4 × 35.6 cm, AWM, and Working on the Thailand railway cutting, July 1943 , brush and ink, 36 × 53.6 cm, AWM (last two illustrated in 'Special P.O.W. issue’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial 14, April 1989, cover & p.6).
Later Griffin became known for his colour prints, especially his birds and animals, e.g. The Owl , linocut, and Red Parrots , linocut and screenprint (ill Bridget McDonnell Gallery, Carlton, Early Australian Painters , catalogue of exhibition 25 May-15 June 2001, cats 42, 43).
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2007
