WA advertising industry loses a legend with the sudden passing of Ken Painter

We were shocked and saddened to hear of the passing yesterday of Ken Painter after a very short battle with cancer.

Painter has been a stalwart of the industry in WA for three decades, as an account director at Parkes Clemenger, Ogilvy & Mather, DMB&B, JB&B and McCann Erickson. He was one of the seven founding partners of The Brand Agency when it was created from the merger of McCann Erickson and The Thompson Partnership in 1991 (LtoR: John Hynes, Ralph McManis, Ian Jepson, Peter Nelson, Painter, Ken James, Peter Gavshon).

Painter’s career actually started well before he came to WA from Sydney. He commenced as the dispatch boy at George Patterson in 1947, where he stayed for 15 years. He also worked at agencies like Ansell Blunden, Grey and Comptons before being brought to WA by Parkes Clemenger. He made his home here and won the respect of clients and colleagues and made many, many friends in the industry.

Latterly Painter became well known to a new generation of advertising practitioners through his tireless efforts coordinating AFA AdSchool in WA and the AFA Traineeship program of the past two years.

Even after more than sixty years in the industry, Painter was as interested, engaged and dedicated to it as ever. Tellingly, he was among the handful of people at the PADC AGM in April when the vast majority of members who directly benefit from the Club couldn’t be bothered attending.

As recently as last week he was busily phoning members of the AFA from his hospital bed to make sure their end-of-year luncheon meeting was organised.

The WA advertising industry has lost a true legend.