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Sir Kenneth Myer DSC AC
, 1985

by Michael Meszaros

cast bronze medallion on wood plaque (support: 30.5 cm x 24.0 cm depth 4.0 cm, sight: diameter 16.5 cm)

Kenneth Baillieu Myer DSC AC (1921- 1992) was a businessman and philanthropist. And the son of Sidney Myer who founded the Myer retail stores. An astute businessman, who oversaw the expansion of the Myer chain, Kenneth Myer was also influential in civic affairs and a great benefactor to charity and the arts. In 1958 he became founding president of the Myer Foundation, a charitable trust that promotes community and social development, and during the 1960s and 1970s he headed a number of cultural and philanthropic bodies including the Victorian Arts Centre Trust. He served as Chairman of the ABC from 1983 to 1986 and is credited with leading the public broadcaster into the modern era. Myer created controversy in 1972 when he publicly supported the election of the Whitlam Labor government, although he always maintained that he was apolitical and a swinging voter. He and his second wife Yasuko Hiraoko were killed in a plane accident in Alaska in July 1992

Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
Gift of Dr Ray Marginson AM 2001
Accession number: 2001.48