Savage Club coup elevates pedigreed artist

We return to Melbourne’s dense, internecine world of exclusive private members’ clubs, though to their decidedly more Bohemian end.

For 129 years, the Savage Club (named for its London counterpart, itself named for English poet Richard Savage) has sheltered the city’s (male) intellectuals, lawyers, artists and journalists. Along with the requisite cohort of business leaders and financiers.

Last month, one cohort of the club’s membership moved decisively against another, with artist David McCubbin ousting president (and senior PwC partner turned GUD Holdings chairman) Graeme Billings in a contested AGM that also elevated NAB private client banker Tom Hudson as treasurer.

McCubbin is the great-grandson of Australian impressionist artist Frederick McCubbin, a leading member of the Heidelberg School and one of the club’s earliest members.

But his election at the Bank Place institution has apparently caused all manner of tut-tutting among more respectable parts of the membership, aghast at the unusually robust tone things have taken. It’s the first successfully contested election in living memory. And promoting an artist? You’d never see it at the Melbourne Club, that’s for sure.

Billings, whose son Jack is a midfielder at AFL club St Kilda, had some high-profile support as well, being nominated by renowned historian Geoffrey Blainey. Though that wasn’t enough to continue his presidency.