Former prime minister Kevin Rudd with artist Ralph Heimans after the official portrait was unveiled at Parliament House on Thursday, 10 August. Photo: Auspic, Department of Parliamentary Services.
The official portrait of Australia’s 26th prime minister Kevin Rudd, AC, the first to feature a prime ministerial pet, was unveiled at Parliament House, Canberra on Thursday 10 August.
Painted by Australian-born artist Ralph Heimans, the portrait shows a bearded Mr Rudd, sitting behind a book-strewn desk in his office. His cat, Louie, looks to be interrupting a game of chess on the edge of the desk.
Mr Heimans also painted the official portrait of the nation’s 25th Governor-General, Dame Quentin Bryce AD CVO, the first woman to serve in that role. More recently, he painted the late Queen Elizabeth in a specially commissioned portrait for her Diamond Jubilee.
Mr Rudd, now Australia’s Ambassador to the United States, attended the unveiling with his wife Therese Rein and other family members in Canberra. It was also attended by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, former Labor Party colleagues and the US Ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy.
Speaking after the unveiling, Mr Rudd, prime minister from 2007 to 2010 and again in 2013, praised Mr Albanese, who he described as a “key member” of his government at the time.
Mr Rudd, who also made history as prime minister when he delivered the National Apology in 2008 to members of the Stolen Generation, likened the fears back then to those generated today about the upcoming Voice referendum.
“When they said the apology would be a problem for the nation, it would unleash this torrent of litigation from Indigenous communities across the country, that it would, in fact, send the centre process of reconciliation backwards, not forwards, we proved them wrong,” Mr Rudd said.
Mr Albanese described the National Apology as one of the finest moments in the history of the Australian Parliament since Federation.
“It was said that it would result in division, that it would result in reparations, that it would be a moment of division; instead, what it was, was a moment of national unity,” he said.
“We have unfinished business but you made a contribution that can never be taken away.”
Portraits of all Australia’s prime ministers, and other dignitaries such as governors-general, make up the Parliament’s Historic Memorials collection with many hanging in public areas of Parliament House.
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