MRAG Maitland Regional Art Gallery

Blums Touring Boxing Troupe, Boxing troupe canvas featuring Les Darcy - in boxing pose, c.1950. Mixed media, 175 x 233 cm. Purchased by Maitland Regional Art Gallery, 2004. (Blum’s Boxing Troupe toured Western Australian mining towns in the 1950s. This canvas decorated one of the tent walls alongside canvases featuring other famous boxers such as Dave Sands, Micky Miller and Vic Patrick).

Between 1910 and 1917, Maitland born boxer, Les Darcy, became an Australian idol. With an impressive record against boxers from around the world, he became known as the ‘Maitland Wonder’ and was hailed by many as the ‘Middleweight Boxing Champion of the World’. In 2005 MRAG began to collect the many items of memorabilia and ephemera relating Les Darcy that regularly become available – almost one hundred years after Darcy’s death. Many items in this sub-collection directly meet the collection focus of ‘works on paper’ including newspapers, photographs, boxing event cards, cigarette and chewing gum cards from the day, as well as more contemporary items including books and commemorative stamps. Other items include a tin plate portrait of Darcy, a horseshoe made by Darcy while he worked as a blacksmith and the wonderful boxing tent wall from Blum’s Boxing Troupe, who toured Western Australian mining towns in the 1950s.