Margaret Olley moved to Brisbane when she was 12 and was a boarder at Somerville House school for girls in South Brisbane from 1937 to 1940 where they were quick to recognise Olley’s talents and recommended to her mother that she attend art school. Her friend and fellow artist Margaret Cilento also began formal art…
Continue reading » “Go back in time to Margaret Olley’s Brisbane”
George Wishart (1872-1921) was born in Brisbane and was taught painting by Isaac Walter Jenner, Brisbane’s foremost marine painter (illustrated below). Wishart also worked professionally as a photographer and was associated with local firm Thomas Mathewson Photographic Studio (see contemporary depictions of Brisbane below). Wishart’s painting A busy corner of the Brisbane River 1897, on…
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The time Charles Blackman (1928-2018 ) spent in Queensland was central to his development as one of the most important Australian artists of his generation. It was during his early visits to Brisbane first in 1948 and then regularly from 1951, that the artist experienced the sense of intense personal discovery that was to launch…
Continue reading » “Interior view encapsulates Charles Blackman’s new love and muse”
Together with drawing, watercolour was most often the medium of choice for documenting the early years of settlement in Queensland, especially to depict the landscape, chosen for its ability to record fine detail, evoking atmosphere, and most favoured for its portability and convenience. In this watercolour Farm landscape with colonial homestead 1888 Robert S (Saunder)…
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In 1928 a competition for the design of a Shrine of Remembrance (illustrated) in Brisbane was won by Sydney architects Buchanan and Cowper. Construction proceeded over the following two years with Anzac Square opening on Armistice Day in 1930. The Shrine honours the men and women of Queensland who served abroad and at home in…
Continue reading » “Go back in time to Max Dupain’s Anzac Square, Brisbane”
Few works in our Collection have enjoyed as much popularity as Under the jacaranda by R. (Richard) Godfrey Rivers. Painted in 1903, some twelve years after the British-born artist arrived in Queensland, the image depicts Rivers and his wife Selina sitting in the shade of a large jacaranda tree, at that time a landmark in Brisbane’s…
Continue reading » “Clouds of purple blooms, a quintessential image of Brisbane”