Cricketer and Australian rules football pioneer Tom Wills is the subject of a growing body of works in art and popular culture.
Painted by William Handcock in 1870, a full-length portrait of Wills in his cricket flannels is held at the National Sports Museum.
In it, Wills is cast as a tragic sporting genius,[1] and the dingo is used to symbolise his identity as an "ambiguous creature" caught between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia.
[2] In The Paddock That Grew, released that same year, Keith Dunstan imagines Wills as a ghost touring modern Melbourne.
A docudrama on Wills' life, shot in 2008, had its premier at the Arts Centre Melbourne in 2014, and was subsequently shown on Australian television.