Albert Tucker (1914-1999), Ninian Martin Stephen (detail), 1985, Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection. View full image

Governor-General, 29 July 1982 to 16 February 1989

Former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans said that ‘[n]o Australian I’ve ever known has commanded more universal respect, admiration and outright affection both here and around the world than Sir Ninian Stephen’.¹ Stephen (1923-2017) had a distinguished judicial and international career both before and after serving as Australia’s 20th Governor-General.²

Stephen was born 15 June 1923 at Henley, UK. He was raised by his mother Barbara and Miss Nina Mylne, the daughter of a Queensland pastoralist. Stephen, and his mother and Miss Mylne moved to Melbourne in 1940. His law studies at the University of Melbourne were interrupted by military service during World War II, where he saw active duty with the Second AIF in New Guinea, New Britain and Borneo. Completing his studies after the war, Stephen was admitted to the Victorian Bar in 1949. That same year he married Valery Sinclair, and they had five daughters.³ Stephen became a QC in 1966, a judge of the Victorian Supreme Court in 1970 and a justice of the High Court of Australia in 1972 where he served until 1982.⁴

On being appointed Governor-General, he and Lady Stephen relaxed the formality of official events at Yarralumla: women were no longer required to wear gloves, curtsy to the Governor-General, or retire after dinner while men drank port.⁵ Stephen’s speeches were known for their literary allusion, a reflection of his insatiable appetite for reading history and biography. He was the only Governor-General to have approved two double dissolution elections during his term of office (in 1983 and 1987).⁶

Stephen continued to be active in public life after his term as Governor-General, serving in many diplomatic and judicial roles. This included his 1989 appointment as Australia’s first Ambassador for the Environment and as chair of the Northern Ireland peace talks in 1992. Stephen was also elected as an International Criminal Tribunal judge for the former Yugoslavia in 1993 and the International Court of Justice in 1995, and in 1998 helped establish a tribunal for UN investigations of war crimes in Cambodia. In the words of former High Court justice Michael Kirby, ‘[s]erving Australia was not enough for Ninian Stephen. He went beyond and served a wider world’.⁷ The recipient of numerous awards and honours, in 1994 he received the rare distinction of a KG. Ninian Stephen died in 2017 and was commemorated with a state funeral.

Albert Lee Tucker 
Melbourne-born Albert Tucker (1914-1999) began his career as a freelance illustrator, painter and writer. In 1938, he became a founding member of the Contemporary Art Society of Victoria, and in the 1940s was involved in the Angry Penguins, a literary and artistic movement that sought to shake up the art establishment of Australia with modernism. In 1941, Tucker enlisted in the Australian Army Medical Corps, first making illustrations for officers at the Wangaratta base before transferring to Heidelberg Military Hospital. The sight of injured, traumatised soldiers had a profound and lasting effect on Tucker and his work. In 1947, he travelled through Japan as a war artist and later that year left Australia for England. Settling in Paris, Tucker travelled throughout Europe, where he was greatly inspired by the work of Jean Dubuffet and the German Expressionists. He held successful exhibitions in London and New York before returning to Melbourne in 1960 where he continued to exhibit regularly. In 1989-90, a major retrospective of his work was curated by the National Gallery of Victoria and toured nationally. Tucker’s work is represented in major Australian public collections and internationally.⁸ 

Ninian Martin Stephen
by Albert Lee Tucker
1985
Oil on canvas
80.5 x 65.1 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection

References
1. G Evans, ‘State Funeral of the late Rt Hon Sir Ninian Stephen’, 8 November 2017, accessed 12 October 2021.
2. Information in this biography has also been taken from: B Carroll, Australia’s Governors-General: From Hopetoun to Jeffery, Rosenberg Publishing Pty Ltd, Kenthurst, NSW, 2004; P Ayres, Fortunate Voyager: The Worlds of Ninian Stephen, The Miegunyah Press, Carlton, 2013; T McCormack, , ‘Remembering the Rt Hon Sir Ninian Stephen KG AK GCMG GCVO KBE QC 1923–2017’, MLS News, 19, May 2018; M Kirby, ‘Sir Ninian Stephen – Internationalist’, The University of Melbourne Faculty of Law dinner in honour of the Right Hon Sir Ninian Stephen, 24 July 2003. Websites accessed 30 April 2021.
3. J Dargaville, ‘Family first, then the rest’, The Australian, 19 February 1982.
4. J Sullivan, ‘Lost: a persimmon and privacy’, The Age, 14 January 1982.
5. Carroll, op. cit., p. 177.
6. ‘Chapter13: Double Dissolutions’, Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives Practice (7th edition), accessed 12 October 2021.
7. Kirby, op. cit.
8. Information in this biography has been taken from: ‘Making history: the Angry Penguins’, Heide Museum of Modern Art; C Zinn, ‘Albert Tucker’, The Guardian, 27 October 1999; ‘Featured artists: Albert Tucker’, Art Gallery of NSW; M Geissler, ‘Albert Tucker, the first of the living greats revisited’, Australian Financial Review, 23 August 1990; J Kerr, ‘Albert Tucker’, Design & Art Australia Online, 2012. Websites accessed 24 May 2021.