J.W. Power
Source: https://digital.library.sydney.edu.au/nodes/view/15211 Parent: https://digital.library.sydney.edu.au/
15211
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J.W. Power
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The Sydney-born painter John Joseph Wardell Power (1881-1943), known professionally as J.W. Power, is Australia's most accomplished artist of the inter-war years.
Power had his first career in medicine, having graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Medicine in 1905. During the First World War, he served as a surgeon with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Dublin. At the end of the war, he abandoned medicine to study art, adopting the professional name of J.W. Power.
In London and Paris in the 1920s and '30s, his unique blend of cubism, surrealism and abstraction found an audience in the heart of the avant-garde.
Following his death in 1943, his surviving works remained with his widow Edith in Jersey, who gifted them to the University in her will. Power’s significant financial wealth was also gifted; approximately worth £2 million (valued at over A$70 million today), it was the largest monetary bequest ever received by the University at the time. The bequest was specifically gifted "To make available to the people of Australia the latest ideas and theories in plastic arts, so as to bring the people of Australia in more direct touch with the latest art developments in other countries."
Since its establishment, the bequest has supported the development of the University’s Art History Discipline, the JW Power Collection of contemporary art (which led to the creation of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia), and the Power Institute’s extensive contributions to research, public programs, and award-winning publications.
The Library holds a variety of sketches, notebooks and letters from Power’s personal archives. Power’s artworks are now held in the Chau Chak Wing Museum collection.
SubjectsPower, J. J. W. (John Joseph Wardell), 1881-1943Notebooks, sketchbooks, etcArtists' preparatory studies
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[\
Photographs, painting and sketches by J.W. Power, volume 1](https://digital.library.sydney.edu.au/nodes/view/15212)
[\
Photographs, painting and sketches by J.W. Power, volume 2](https://digital.library.sydney.edu.au/nodes/view/15213)
J.W. Power. University of Sydney Library, accessed 23/03/2026, https://digital.library.sydney.edu.au/nodes/view/15211