[2] While enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy during World War II, Coburn travelled around the Pacific and Indian oceans as a radio operator.
He drew images from these places whilst aboard HMAS Nepal, including Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea and others.
He finished his four-year training dissatisfied:[2] I'd learned to paint portraits and landscapes and to draw from the human figure ... but at the end I said 'So what; what's it good for?
In 1969 he told The Canberra Times :[2] It's a flat-patterned style of painting, using brilliant colour combinations based on natural or organic images.In 1956 he joined the ABC when television came in.
Seven hang in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C. His works are also displayed in the Vatican Museum, Rome.