Jack Noel Kilgour was a Sydney based artist known for his cartoons and illustrations as well as for his modernist paintings, urban landscapes and portraits. His work is well represented in the Newcastle Region Art Gallery and other significant state and national collections. Kilgour is honoured by the biannual Kilgour Prize for excellence in figurative painting. The prize is funded by the Kilgour bequest which is administered through the Newcastle Region Art Gallery. He was married to fellow artist Nancy Kilgour (1904–54).

The portrait of Sir Adrian Knox is a copy of an earlier portrait by Florence Aline Rodway (1891–1971), a Tasmanian artist who studied under Ethel Nicholls and Benjamin Sheppard in Hobart, and Julian Ashton in Sydney, and who was influenced by the English master painters Sargent, Bacon, Solomon, Leslie and Storey during her studies in London. Two of her many commissioned portraits were of Dame Nellie Melba and JF Archibald (founder of the Archibald Prize). Florence Rodway returned to settle in Hobart in about 1932. Portraits by her of Sir Adrian Knox are held in the Mitchell Library, Sydney and the Australian Jockey Club, Sydney. The Kilgour portrait is a copy of one of these.