Jiawei Shen (b.1948), Peter John Cosgrove (detail), 2018, Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection. View full image
Governor-General, 28 March 2014 to 1 July 2019
Renowned for his outgoing nature,1 Peter Cosgrove (b.1947) remarked of his time as Governor-General that, ‘I have had a few opportunities to address the nation ... but never once did I underrate the importance of remarks to smaller groups, conversations, and the sharing of stories with my fellow Australians’.2
Peter Cosgrove was born into a military family in 1947, living in the Sydney suburb of Paddington, the son of John and Ellen. He attended St Francis of Assisi school in Paddington and Waverley College before graduating from the Royal Military College, Duntroon in 1968. He served as an Australian Army platoon commander in the Vietnam War and was awarded the MC for ‘his performance and leadership during an assault on enemy positions’.3 Cosgrove’s military career flourished to include overseas study with the United States Marine Corps, postings to the UK and India, and appointment as Commandant at Duntroon. He married Lynne Payne in 1976. They had three sons.
Cosgrove rose to public prominence in 1999 as the Commander of International Task Force East Timor, overseeing Timor-Leste’s commencement as an independent nation. His success in supporting this transition led to his appointment as an AC in the Military Division, and being selected Australian of the Year in 2001. Having been appointed Chief of Army in 2000, he went on to serve as Chief of the Defence Force from 2002 to 2005.
On retirement from the military, Cosgrove took on several further roles including as a board member for Qantas, Cardno, and Australian Rugby Union. He also chaired the Council of the Australian War Memorial from 2007 to 2012 and was Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University from 2010 to 2014. Additionally, he has led major domestic disaster relief efforts in Australia, in 2006 following Cyclone Larry’s devastation of Queensland’s Innisfail region and again in 2019–20 when bushfires ravaged large parts of the country.
During his military career, Cosgrove had served as aide-de-camp to Governor-General Paul Hasluck, providing some familiarity for his own term as Australia’s 26th Governor-General. In addition to his approachability, he was renowned for his larrikin sense of humour. On entering the official residence of Yarralumla for the first time, within earshot of the media, Cosgrove audibly declared ‘Nice digs!’4
Cosgrove visited over 200 local communities during his time as Governor-General, more than a third of which were regional and rural communities, making a particular effort to engage with young Australians. He was awarded an AK in 2014. In 2018 over 25,000 school students visited Government House asking questions of Cosgrove and Lady Cosgrove. He also regularly Skyped with classes in remote schools.
Jiawei Shen
Chinese-Australian Jiawei Shen (b.1948) became a practising artist in his early twenties. In the mid-1970s he was a member of the Shanghai Red Guard painting propaganda portraits during the Cultural Revolution. He completed postgraduate studies at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and was a professional artist at the Liaoning Art Academy throughout the 1980s. Shen exhibited as a solo artist at the Liaoning Art Gallery in Shenyang and participated in group exhibitions in China, France, Bangladesh, and Tokyo. Forced to leave China because of his painting depicting heroes of the Nationalist movement, he arrived in Sydney in 1989, subsequently drawing portraits of people at Darling Harbour to make ends meet. He has since become a regular finalist in the Archibald Prize and the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize. He also won the Sulman and Gallipoli Art Prizes in 2006 and 2016 respectively. He has painted commissioned portraits of Pope Francis and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, as well as HMC portraits of Prime Minister John Howard, and Speakers of the House of Representatives David Hawker and Bronwyn Bishop.5
Peter John Cosgrove
by Jiawei Shen
2018
Oil on canvas
136.2 x 96.2 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection
References
1. Information in this biography has been taken from: P Cosgrove, You Shouldn’t Have Joined: A Memoir, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2020; ‘Biography: General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK CVO MC (Retd)’, The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia; ‘General Peter John Cosgrove’, Australian War Memorial, 2021; M Ruffles, ‘A republic, Indigenous recognition and a gutful of Zoom. Peter Cosgrove is not shy in retirement’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 November 2020, p. 33; P Cosgrove,‘Lecture 3: Leading in Australia’, ‘The Boyer Lectures’, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 22 November 2019. Websites accessed April 2021.
2. Cosgrove, You Shouldn’t Have Joined, op. cit., p. 348.
3. The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, op. cit.
4. Cosgrove, You Shouldn’t Have Joined, op. cit., p. 222.
5. Information in this biography has been taken from: ‘Jiawei Shen’, National Portrait Gallery; S Engledow, ‘Shen Jiawei’, The Popular Pet Show, National Portrait Gallery; ‘Archibald Prize 2011: Jiawei Shen‘, Art Gallery of NSW; ‘Jiawei Shen’s Archibald Paintings‘, Australia–China Institute for Arts and Culture, Western Sydney University; ‘Shen, Jiawei’, A McCulloch, S McCulloch and E McCulloch Childs, eds, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press, 2006, p. 878. Websites accessed 25 March 2021.