It is true to say that memories of the departed become much more vivid when they are gone – more animated and graphic. Memories of Barry and the legendary characters he created seem so vibrant and raucous that crossing the river Styx loses its meaning.

His unique personality was already apparent – as a boy at Melbourne Grammar refusing to watch football would have taken some courage. He started collecting old books, phonographic recordings, lithographs, engravings, photographs and paintings. These habits became constant and profligate all his life and led to an encyclopedic knowledge of music, literature and the visual arts.

I will deeply miss our conversations, for it was in his dialogue that all the clues concerning his characters resided. His stage career is only one part of an extremely rich cultural life. Barry loved talking about painters, paintings, the colours, contrasts and compositions, literature, the paper and covers of books, the life and foibles of writers and music, classical and popular and dance bands. He brought it all to life, illuminating the characters with gossip and anecdotes he’d collected from God knows where.

Barry had his portrait painted many times, as Dame Edna, himself or Les Patterson, by William Dobell, Arthur Boyd, Clifton Pugh, Charles Blackman, Paul Newton, Juan Davila, Lewis Millar, Vincent Fantanzzo, Bill Leak and Paul Ryan, to name a few. Clearly an easel hound.

In 2014 Barry was rehearsing a new show on the stage at the ABC in Ultimo and I arranged to meet there and begin a portrait of Sir Les. In the late afternoon he began to ‘dress’. The dressing process for stage thespians is a little larger than life as it is designed to be seen from a distance by the audience. Barry came looming out of the backstage gloom wearing a large crocheted singlet with nipples, breasts and a huge stomach suspended from which were his stage genitalia – a very large penal appendage supported by two tennis balls in a mesh sack. Barry then put on the platform shoes, the wig and the teeth – even without makeup and stains it was a seriously twilight zone moment.

Once I took a pair of binoculars to a theatre to watch Sir Les and I was astonished to see how broad and rustic the makeup was. Great dabs of bright rouge on the cheeks, swirls of white and grey around the eyes and mouth with a purple nose, all surrounding the dreadful stained teeth. An image not unlike the graphic portrait of Roy Rene by Martin Sharpe.

With a portrait you start with an idea of how to portray the sitter. You consider composition, light, colour and the posture of the subject, the background and the scale of the painting. All practical and classical considerations. I ticked most of these boxes but painting Barry as Sir Les has the other danger of cliché – the sad clown with the happy face. Sir Les is far more unpredictable. The bizarre nature of his character is mitigated by the clear reference to the possibility of a real person.

This understanding is not of much use when you are trying to amalgamate the face of Barry and Sir Les. The stained, crooked teeth distort the jawline and the wig changes the hairline and head shape. These are just technical considerations. With a portrait you gradually arrive at what you want and proceed to craft it. With Barry you never really knew where a conversation was going. Sittings were complex and unpredictable, but had to be reasonably short as I was looking for simple visual information and Barry was always pressed for time. At one point Barry made the observation of the portrait in progress that, ‘Les doesn’t smile.’ So I changed the semi-smile to a limpid sneer with dribbles. I completed the painting and entered it in the Archibald Prize where it unfortunately won the Packing Room Prize that year. If you win the Packing Prize you never win the Archibald. Sir Les sent me the following missive:

I’m very proud to have this beautiful, hand done painting of me in this prestigious Archibald show. I think I can say without vanity, that I have been the face of Australian politics and culture for three decades. Other politicos have come and gone and sunk into oblivion, but I have achieved through my dignity, oratory and charisma a place of distinction second to none. Thanks to that clever bastard Tim Storrier and his brushwork, generations of young Australian art lovers, in particular nubile members of the opposite sex community will look up to what I have to offer and with any luck, like the eyes of the Mona Lisa, it will follow them all around the room. God Bless Australia.

Dr Sir Leslie Colin Patterson KCB AO

Barry of course had a great eye for beauty in all its guises. When the jester dies, the king laments. Goodbye, old friend. Requiescat in pace.