 He had strained relations with the Trustees, particularly the Chairman, Sir Keith Murdoch, who resented his ferocious attacks on contemporary art and the 1939 Herald exhibition of French and English painting, which MacDonald described as "exceedingly wretched paintings...putrid meat...the product of degenerates and perverts...filth".In 1940 the Trustees recommended against his reappointment and he was effectively dismissed in 1941.In 1943 he was first witness on behalf of those who brought an action against the award of the Archibald Prize to William Dobell for his portrait of Joshua Smith.