Loma Lautour: A rebellious spirit

Known for her versatility as an artist, her work ethic and her unconventional lifestyle, Loma Lautour is an eccentric and engaging personality in Australian art history. Living a bohemian existence in Sydney’s artist community during the 1920s and 30s, she established herself as a talented sculptor, jeweller, modeller, printmaker and craft-worker. Loma Lautour Loma Kyle…

Installation takes the oyster shell as its subject

Before colonisation, the coastal shellfish reefs in Brisbane’s Moreton Bay — fostered using aquaculture techniques — were a major source of food for Aboriginal people of the region. Over centuries of feasting, towering middens created from discarded shells and bones were impressive sights on the local islands and beaches of the mainland. Megan Cope’s RE…

Ian Fairweather: Life lines

The QAGOMA Research Library holds a collection of letters, photographs and other memorabilia relating to the famously reclusive artist Ian Fairweather, who spent the last two decades of his life in a hut on Bribie Island. A new book Ian Fairweather: A Life in Letters from Text Publishing compiles several hundred of Fairweather’s letters, which…

Jon Molvig: The power of expression

Jon Molvig (1923-70) was an acclaimed Australian artist and charismatic teacher, whose uncompromising commitment to painting inspired a group of young artists in Brisbane. Simon Elliott spoke with some of the artist’s former students about their mentor. Jon Molvig ‘A twilight of women’ An intensely complicated artist, and a fiercely independent individual, Jon Molvig (1923–70)…