2013 To the Islands Publication

To the Islands

To the Islands

Exploring works created by artists on Dunk, Bedarra and Timana Islands between the 1930s and 1990s

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Publication Sponsor

PUBLISHER

Gallery Services, Townsville City Council

PO Box 1268

Townsville Queensland, 4810 Australia

ptrg@townsville.qld.gov.au

+61 7 47279011

© Gallery Services, Townsville City Council and the authors 2013

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Title: To the Islands / Shane Fitzgerald, Ross Searle, Glenn R Cooke, Anneke Silver, Catherine Stocky.

ISBN: 9781925105001 (paperback)

Subjects: Islands in art.

Dunk Island (Qld.)--In art--Exhibitions

Bedarra Island (Qld.)--In art--Exhibitions

Timana Island (Qld.)--In art--Exhibitions

Other Authors/Contributors: Searle, Ross, 1958- author., Cooke, Glenn R, author. Silver, Anneke, author., Stocky, Catherine, author.

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, issuing body.

Dewey Number: 919.43

Exhibition organised by GALLERY SERVICES

Shane Fitzgerald Manager Gallery Services

Eric Nash Curator

Sarah Welch Exhibitions and Collection Coordinator

Michael Pope Education and Programs Coordinator

Rob Donaldson Digital Media and Exhibition Design Coordinator

Jo Stacey Team Leader Administration Gallery Services

Holly Grech-Fitzgerald Collections Management Officer

Carly Sheil Digital Media and Exhibition Design Officer

Leah McManus Exhibitions Officer

Nic Horton Education and Programs Officer

Tegan Ollett Education and Programs Assistant

Wendy Bainbridge Administration Officer

Gillian Ribbins Administration Officer

Breanna Capell Gallery Assistant

Michelle Littman Gallery Assistant

Danielle Berry Gallery Trainee

cover:

Noel WOOD

Australia b.1912 d.2001

Brammo Bay [Dunk Island] 1946

Oil on composition board

46 x 58cm

Acc. 1995.102

Purchased 1995

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Cnr. Denham and Flinders Streets

Townsville QLD 4810

Mon - Fri: 10am - 5pm

Sat - Sun: 10am - 2pm

Published on the occasion of the exhibition

To the Islands

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

18 October - 1 December 2013

Cairns Regional Gallery

10 January - 9 March 2014

PROJECT MANAGER

Shane Fitzgerald

EXHIBITION CURATOR

Ross Searle

CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS

Glenn R Cooke / Anneke Silver / Catherine Stocky

PUBLICATION DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

Shane Fitzgerald / Eric Nash

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Gallery Services would like to acknowledge the generous support and assistance of Ross Searle, Glenn R Cooke, Anneke Silver, Catherine Stocky, Dianne Byrne, Philip Bacon AM, Trish Pontynen, Robyn Pontynen, Lyn Williams, Peter Woollard, Artemis Georgiades, Ann Grocott, Cairns Regional Gallery, Rockhampton Art Gallery, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Gordon Darling Foundation and Townsville City Council in realising this exhibition.

Foreword

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery is one of Australia’s leading regional public art museums and has been a dynamic and active vanguard in the development and appreciation of visual arts advocacy, education and activation in north Queensland for well over 30 years. From the Gallery’s inception the City of Townsville Art Collection – formerly the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Collection – has documented the artistic oeuvre of artists working in “The Tropics”.

This thematic umbrella is interpreted not only as a representation of a specific type of geographical location, to which Townsville belongs, but also as an idea of a lifestyle. As The Tropics is used as a guiding principle for acquisitions, the City of Townsville Art Collection holds a number of works that are historically significant to the region; others that are created by artists based in, or speak of issues and events relevant to, the region; works that celebrate and depict our contemporary tropical lifestyle; and works that are direct representations of the landscape and climate.

To the Islands continues this trend and is a fine exemplar of Perc Tucker Regional Gallery’s commitment to showcasing the achievement of artists working in the far north in the mid 20th century. This period is regarded as one of the most important in Queensland’s visual arts history and it is with great pleasure that through the collaborative efforts of the exhibition’s curator, Ross Searle, we are able to highlight the significance of those artists whom worked in the remote regions of far north Queensland particularly within the Family Island Group.

Little has been celebrated of these artists over the years, yet their impact on Australian Art still resonates today. Many notable practitioners visited the idyllic and remote Dunk, Bedarra and Timana Islands over the years and were influenced heavily by the Island’s artist residents.

I would like to congratulate Ross Searle for his achievements in developing this outstanding exhibition and also to the contributing authors for their invaluable insights into the captivating lives of Noel Wood, Valerie Albiston, Yvonne Cohen and Deanna Conti – to name a few.

Sincerest gratitude is extended to the Gordon Darling Foundation for their financial support in realising the development and production of this important publication to coincide with the exhibition and my appreciation and thank you to the participating galleries and lenders whom have loaned works to the exhibition.

opposite:

Noel WOOD

Australia b.1912 d.2001

Two boats 1946

Oil on canvas

45.7 x 56.5cm

Acc. 1:0384a

Purchased 1946

Queensland Art Gallery Collection

Photograph: Natasha Harth, QAGOMA

opposite:

Valerie ALBISTON

Australia b.1911 d.2008

To the islands, Timana c.1950

Oil on canvas on board

20 x 25cm

Acc. 1999.05

Gift of the artist and Yvonne Cohen through the Cultural Gift Program, 1999 Cairns Regional Gallery Collection

To the Islands

While best known as the title of an award-winning Australian novel by Randolph Stow, the title of this exhibition takes its name from a painting created by Australian artist, Valerie Albiston titled, To the islands, Timana c.1950, an oil painting inspired by a life well lived on one of the most beautiful islands in the Great Barrier Reef. While not all of the artists associated with this exhibition are household names, they produced highly original works of art in what is a little known period of Australian art history.

This is the first exhibition to examine the history of artists who have lived and worked in the islands close to the north Queensland coastal town of Mission Beach. Dunk Island is the best known of the islands that are referred to as the Family Group. Others include Bedarra, Timana, Wheeler, Coombe, Smith, Bowden and Hudson Islands.

Robert Campbell was the first of the modern-day ‘beachcombers’ when he camped and painted on Dunk Island with his wife Jean in 1933. The image of a tranquil unspoilt tropical paradise was first conveyed in the writings of EJ Banfield who settled on Dunk Island, with his wife Bertha, in 1897 becoming the island’s first white settlers. Previously a journalist and Senior Editor with the Townsville Daily Bulletin, he spent the remaining 26 years of his life living on Dunk Island until his death in 1923.

Other artists and writers followed but did not stay. For a handful of artists including Noel Wood, Valerie Albiston, Yvonne Cohen, Bruce Arthur and Deanna Conti, the islands provided a lasting spiritual retreat from the cities and the bonus of an idyllic if somewhat

physically demanding lifestyle. All maintained a subsistence lifestyle growing as much food as was possible from the resources available.

When Noel Wood, an Adelaide born and trained artist, came to Dunk Island in 1936, before settling on a small parcel of land on Bedarra Island, the original bungalow built by Banfield in 1903 was still standing. Bedarra Island remained undeveloped until the 1970s, while Timana Island is still maintained in a relatively pristine state. However Wood’s artistic isolation on Bedarra was short-lived with the arrival of the Cohen sisters, Yvonne and Valerie Cohen (later Albiston) in 1938. They settled on Timana Island and maintained a close friendship with Wood. For the next 40 years the sisters divided their time between Melbourne and the tropics, developing their reputation as early pioneers of the Modernist Australian painting movement, inspired by the northern landscape.

Roy Dalgarno, a Melbourne born artist, visited north Queensland in 1935 then settled and worked in Brisbane for ten years. On a subsequent visit to north Queensland he began to take painting seriously, creating works of cane-cutters, fishermen and other workers. He collaborated closely with Noel Wood and in 1940 they held the first major exhibition in Brisbane entitled An Exhibition of Tropical Paintings. The Cohens were also highly active and one of their first exhibitions of tropical paintings was held in 1941 at Riddell Galleries, Melbourne.

The core artists in this group were to spend almost their entire adult lives working in what can be thought of as one of Australia’s first island-based artistic communities spread across the three main islands of Dunk, Bedarra and Timana. While separated physically, they interacted to support and sustain each other. While Fred Williams was not aligned to these artists he did collaborate with Bruce Arthur on an island-inspired weaving. Bruce Arthur was born in Melbourne in 1921 and spent a formative period with the Dunmoochin art community in Melbourne. He moved to Timana Island to establish a studio-workshop with his wife, Deanna Conti in 1968. Trained at RMIT, Deanna Conti also studied with Jock Loutitt and followed her then husband Bruce Arthur.

Conti’s own work as a weaver is highly significant in its own right and she developed ground-breaking sculptural weaving techniques.

Each of these artists produced discrete bodies of work based on their experiences living in this unique environment. At the time of Noel Wood’s most active period in the 1940s and 50s, he was the first artist in Australia to establish a national profile from a regional base. While other artists such as John Busst and Helen Wiltshire found refuge in the islands and created striking images, the creative energy of Wood, Cohen, Albiston, Arthur and Conti remains unparalleled and little appreciated in a national context.

To complete this creative jigsaw are the works by the visiting Melbourne artist, Fred Williams. While the more renowned Williams came independently and worked on Bedarra and Timana Islands he produced fully formed bodies of work in June 1973. While his contribution is small it has been argued by his

biographer, James Mollison, that the final flowering of Williams’s art was in the paintings created in northern Australia, especially around Weipa on Cape York. It was while working in Queensland that he perfected the strip painting that he used to full advantage in some of the Bedarra and Timana works.

For decades these artists produced strikingly original works of art in circumstances of relative isolation living away from the supportive environment of a major population centre. Indeed the work of Noel Wood and the Cohen sisters is quite remarkable and their reputations as pioneers of the Modernist Australian painting movement remains under appreciated. There continues to be a wholesale lack of recognition of the contribution of regional artists to the overall canon of Australian art history. Much work remains to be done to transform the reputations of these creative practioners.

Achievements in research and publishing are traditional benchmarks for any art museum. The Perc Tucker Regional Gallery has a prolonged history of fulfilling these roles. It is recognised nationally for its contribution to curating surveys of north Queensland artists whose production has became distinct historically and thematically and which constitute a unique contribution to Australian visual culture. This survey continues these traditions of research and enquiry laid down since its establishment over thirty years ago.

Ross Searle

opposite:

Roy DALGARNO

Australia b.1910 d.2001

Untitled [tropical landscape] c.1940

Oil on canvas on board

30 x 27cm

Acc. 2010.36

Purchased 2010

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

Noel WOOD

Australia b.1912 d.2001

Self portrait - the young and the old 1990

Acrylic on canvas on board

59.4 x 69.7cm

Yvonne COHEN

Australia b.1914 d.2004

Mango trees 1945

Oil on composition board

45.5 x 50.5cm

Acc. 1986.9

Purchased 1986 with the assistance of North Queensland Cement LTD.

City of Townsville Art Collection

opposite:

Noel WOOD

Australia b.1912 d.2001

Brammo Bay [Dunk Island] 1946

Oil on composition board

46 x 58cm

Acc. 1995.102

Purchased 1995

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

Consigned South: Noel Wood’s vision of the tropics

The warm tropical sun, white beaches and lush vegetation of Queensland’s tropical north attracted many visitors during the southern winter but most returned to their home after a pleasant sojourn. On the other hand, artists returned to the south with a portfolio of sketches and paintings to add a touch of colour to forthcoming exhibitions.

South Australian painter Noel Wood was an exception. He was the only artist in the first half of the 20th century who established his national profile from a regional base and remained the most prominent artist to live in North Queensland until Ray Crooke settled in Cairns some thirty years later. Noel Wood was born at Strathalbyn in South Australia in 1912 and trained at the South Australian School of Art, Adelaide under Marie Tuck and portrait painter, Leslie Wilkie. Wood was regarded as a capable portrait painter from his earliest years but his major interest was in the landscape. Noel’s father, the Reverend Wood, married Noel and Eleanor Weld Skipper at St John’s Church, Monalta, South Australia on 25 August 1933 and the young couple went to live on Kangaroo Island, South Australia which was owned by his brother Rex, a printmaker of note. Wood painted consistently and as a result held his first solo exhibition at the Clarkson Galleries, Adelaide. Here his ‘intense feeling for colour’ and ‘broad and impressionistic’1 touch were noted — aspects of his work that were to be emphasised when he settled in North Queensland.

Two other successful exhibitions followed and Wood purchased a Model T Ford and drove to North Queensland with his family (the first of two daughters)

in early 1936. The couple visited Townsville and eventually, Bedarra Island, in the Family Island Group where they purchased 15 acres of land at Doorila Cove, on the north-eastern corner of the island. It was as remote an existence as he desired, as Mission Beach on the mainland was 40 minutes away by motor boat.

Wood set up a series of gardens to emulate a life of self sufficiency. The romantic image of their tropical hideaway was reported in Adelaide: ‘a little jewel of an island, with tall timber, spring water, and a population of the most brilliant birds and butterflies. There are cocoanuts and paw paws, orchids to make a collector’s heart ache with longing, and rainbow coloured fish reflected in crystal waters’.2 Wood began a series of successful exhibitions from the late 1930s. As his images of his tropic idyll captured the public’s imagination and stories of the family’s life continued to feature in press reports.3 Wood was probably one of the most widely recognised artists in Australia at that time. ‘Brilliant paintings’ headed the description of his exhibition at David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney in 1939 and continued:

He sets luxuriant foliage down on canvas in meticulous detail, and breathes life into it. He is sensitive to the swift atmospheric changes of that tropical climate, and they too find vital expression. And, supremely important, Mr Wood rejoices in the lush colour of it all — the hard blue shadows, the pale green and the dark green, the flat grey of a bay under a rain shower. There is no monotony in the series’.4

This quotation emphasises the strong palette of related colours that Wood used to capture the intensity of colours in his tropical island hideaway.

Another young Queensland-based artist, Roy Dalgarno, stayed and painted with Wood for five months in 1940 but their attempt to hold a joint exhibition of their work in Brisbane was abandoned. However the gallerist, John Cooper (later proprietor of the Moreton Galleries) was able to organise an exhibition at Prince’s Ballroom which opened 5 December.

The art critic for The Courier-Mail, Firmon McKinnon, stated that it was the first time that paintings of north Queensland had been brought to Brisbane and continued:

‘Both artists have succeeded in a rare degree in harmonising and symphonising the rich greens of the jungle, the intense blue of the skies, the red gashes of scarred earth and the red roofs of Dunk Island. This harmonising of varied colour is splendidly illustrated in two pictures by Noel Wood, in each of which the late Mr EJ Banfield’s old home is the focal point’.5

The pathway to Banfield’s old home, from the exhibition which exemplifies McKinnon’s opinion, was acquired by the Queensland Art Gallery. The work is painted under the full glare of the tropic sun and shows the full strength blues and greens he favoured and especially the ‘flash’ of red soil which increases the overall intensity. Wood ‘found that certain colours cannot be used. A painter has to use a “tropical palette” which he discovers by trial and error’6 but it appears he made no record of

the specific colours he actually used. In her review of a 1953 exhibition at the Johnstone Gallery Dr Gertrude Langer, The Courier-Mail’s Critic commented, rather surprisingly, on his ‘somber palette’.7

Praise had been accorded Wood for his portraits. His portrait Mrs John Collins of Tamrookum, Beaudesert - a prominent figure in Queensland society - had been painted on Dunk Island and included in his exhibition at the Macquarie Galleries, Sydney.8 Although this painting hasn’t been located his portrait of fellow artist, and sometime island resident, Yvonne Cohen, in this exhibition shows his accomplishments in this field. The light is appropriately subdued for an interior study but the tropical ambience is established by the gardenias in the subject’s hair and the colourful patterning of her dress.

Much had been made of Wood’s scarcity of models:

For months Noel Wood sees no one and consequently models are scarce. One of the ‘rules’ of the island is that all visitors to Bedarra have to pose for the artist. Charlie, the Malayan gardener from Dunk Island will probably go down in posterity as Mr Wood’s famous model ‘And a perfect model he is too’ said Noel ‘Doesn’t even blink if flies crawl in his eyes.’ 9

Eleanor and their two daughters frequently made extended trips to Victoria and when they were evacuated in 1940 because of the perceived risks of World War Two, eventually settled at Woodend, Victoria and from then on maintained separate existences.

Photograph:

opposite: Noel WOOD

Australia b.1912 d.2001

The pathway to Banfield’s old home [Dunk Island] c.1940

Oil on canvas on composition board 46 x 59.8cm

Acc. 1:0283

Purchased 1940

Queensland Art Gallery Collection

Photograph: Natasha Harth, QAGOMA

opposite:

Noel WOOD

Australia b.1912 d.2001

Portrait of Yvonne, Timana Island, Nth

Queensland 1945

Oil on canvas on board

58.7 x 45cm

Acc. 1999.11

Gift of the artist and Valerie Albiston through the Cultural Gift Program, 1999

Cairns Regional Gallery Collection

Wood exhibited in Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide during the 1940s and sold well. In 1945 he shared an exhibition with artist sisters Yvonne Cohen and Valerie Albiston and Charles Martin at George’s Gallery, Melbourne where his floral study Hibiscus, ‘is perhaps the outstanding work in the show.’10 An exhibition proposed for Sydney in 1947 was terminated when the paintings were lost in transit. Despite this set-back Wood continued his planned trip to Europe in 1947 and, after painting in Ireland and France, was living in London by March 1949. Many of his works from the overseas sojourn were included in the annual exhibition of the Cairns Art Society in 1950 where he also tutored for several months.11

The tenor of Wood’s life then changed markedly. Another artist John Busst (significant for his work in setting up of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park) and his wife were living on Bedarra by 1951. They were shortly joined by the Canadian artist, Michael Hall and his Australian wife, Neura, and all contributed to the Cairns Art Society’s Annual Exhibitions.12 It seems that Wood’s output decreased markedly as a result of this more direct social interaction. Wood had one more adventure in his life. The American film director, Byron Haskin and wife visited Bedarra Island on their way back to California after shooting scenes for His Majesty O’Keefe (starring Burt Lancaster and released in 1954) in the South Pacific.13

Wood was asked to exhibit in Hollywood probably through this connection.14 We don’t know if this exhibition eventuated but Wood worked as an assistant art director for the film industry in the USA for two years before returning to Australia in about 1957.

He does not appear to have exhibited after this time except his contribution to the Gold Coast Art Prize in 1968 and 1971 — the colour and accomplishment of his late works in the collection of the State Library of Queensland make this a cause for regret. He ceased painting to devote himself to his garden.

In 1982 Sean Dixon travelled from Townsville to Thursday Island by canoe and recorded his visit to Bedarra Island:

It was here we met Noel Wood, a fascinating man of around 70 years. He had lived the life of a recluse on his island for 45 years – having travelled overseas thrice to pursue his work as an artist painter, the spell of Bedarra bound him to return. Noel built his house from driftwood and local materials, living out the fancy of a shipwrecked mariner with the island, as it was, to be the sole provider. He subsequently introduced many varieties of exotic tropical fruits and vegetables, not the least of which were the coconut palm and Taro plant, to supplement his early diet of fish and native plants. In all to create for himself the authentic ‘Tropical Island Paradise’.15

Wood, in fact, practiced permaculture decades before the concept was popularised in the 1980s but the romantic vision of his hermit-like existence, so favoured by writers when they reported on his activities, was never quite accurate.

The area was already well known as nearby Dunk Island, the former home of the author and naturalist, Edmund Banfield, became a focus for society in 1936 when the Governor-General and Lady Gowrie visited nearby Dunk Island which was then owned by Hugo Brassey, Lady Gowrie’s god-son.16 The sense of remoteness was quickly dissipating as an aerodrome was constructed in 1939.17

Timana Island, also part of the Family Island Group, became the winter residence of Melbourne sisters and painters Yvonne Cohen and Valerie Albiston from 1938. A portion of Bedarra Island was acquired by a Frank Coleman in 1938 and, shortly afterwards, paying guests began to arrive on the island. Several small resorts on various parts of the island were developed in the following years. And if you add up the time that Wood spent away from Bedarra organising his various exhibitions, overseas trips and the time spent on Dunk Island, one could assert that Wood lead a sequestered rather than reclusive existence.

The paintings which established Wood’s reputation reflect the bold colour and lush vegetation of the tropics. As Ross Searle in the catalogue of his 1991 exhibition at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville remarked on the work of Cohen and Wood:

Cohen’s painting, like that of her contemporary, Noel Wood, was more intuitive in conception and showed a far more vigorous approach and use of colour and feeling for design in its treatment of the luscious vegetation. They were after all living in the most idyllic of circumstances, and were profoundly influenced by the environment.18

The developing awareness of the importance of tourism to North Queensland and its pioneering artists, demonstrated by the exhibitions Artists in the tropics1991 and Escape artists: modernists in the tropics 1998, has established Wood’s profile. A profile, one must add, established on a small body of identified work. The ABC produced a feature on his life, The island and the painter, which went to air on 12 February 1987. Wood settled in the Montville area in 1988 but soon returned to Bedarra Island and retired to Mission Beach in 1996. He died at the Tully Hospital on 10 November 2001.

Glenn R Cooke Endnotes

1. Advertiser, Adelaide, 27 Apr. 1934.

2 ‘Tuesday topics’, Advertiser, Adelaide 1/12/36.

3. ‘The man with the open door’, The Mail, Adelaide, 13/5/1939. Other articles were penned by Eleanor.

4. ‘Brilliant Paintings’, Sydney Morning Herald, 1/3/1939.

5. Mckinnon, Firmin. ‘Far north in oil’. The Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 5/12/1940.

6. ‘The man with the open door’, The Mail Adelaide, 13/5/1939.

7. Langer, Gertrude. The Courier-Mail 29/9/1953. The exhibition was shared with Michael and Neura Hall

8 Sydney Morning Herald, 1/3/1939.

9. ‘Art in the tropics’, The Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 7/9/1940.

10. McCulloch, Alan. ‘Show of present-day Australian art’, Argus, Melbourne, 13/4/1945.

11. Cairns Post, Cairns 20/5/1950.

12. Cairns Post, 30/9/1952.

13. Sun Herald, Sydney 16/11/52.

14. Townsville Daily Bulletin, 13/10/1953.

15. Dixon, Sean. ‘Townsville to Thursday Island’, The Sea Canoeist, Sept. 1982.

16. Chronicle, Adelaide 30/7/1936.

17. The Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 13/1/1939.

18. Searle, Ross. Artist in the tropics. Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, 1991, p. 43.

opposite: Noel WOOD

Australia b.1912 d.2001

Red roof through the trees [Hugo Brassey’s bungalow, Dunk Island] c.1939

Oil on canvas on composition board

58 x 45.5cm

Private Collection, Brisbane

Photograph: Carl Warner

Noel WOOD

Australia b.1912 d.2001

Bingil Bay c.1943

Oil on card

46 x 58cm

Private Collection, Brisbane

Australia

Oil on composition board

31 x 37cm

Acc. 2009.41

Purchased 2009

City of Townsville Art Collection

Yvonne Cohen (standing at the easel) and Valerie Albiston (seated) in the studio at their family home in Elwood, 1941.

Photograph: Herald Feature Service

Melbourne, Australia 1941

The Cohen Sisters: Painters of the tropics

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears the music of a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears.1

Sisters Valerie Albiston (1911-2008) and Yvonne Cohen (1914-2004) were born in Elwood, Victoria. Their father Morris Cohen was a businessman and weekend painter who had an artistic association with the painter David Davies. The girls frequently accompanied him on his weekend expeditions where he taught them the basics of painting. Tragically their father died in a boating accident off the coast of Tasmania in 1930. In 1932 and again in 1934 Valerie and Yvonne traveled to Europe and America with their mother Viva.

As well as acquainting themselves with the work of the great and emerging painters of the day, they extended their art studies in Italy.2 Valerie also began a career as a freelance journalist, sending her travel notes back to the Australian papers. She continued her journalistic writing about all manner of people and places for over sixty years.

They both found the gallery’s academic approach to art too restrictive. Subsequently they attended art classes with Louis McCubbin, spent six months at RMIT under Murray Griffin and a short time working with John Rowell, but according to Valerie (known as Val), they learnt more from talking to close friend and fellow student Roger Kemp than the classes.

In 1938, frustrated by an unhappy love affair, Val took a train and travelled as far north as possible. Here she discovered Timana Island, 39 acres of tropical paradise owned by Dr Bernardos Homes. Its remote location, four nautical miles from the mainland made it accessible only by boat. Intending to squat on Timana, Val contacted Von (Yvonne) in Melbourne to come and join her. While they were organising for a house to be built, including a flushing toilet, the girls stayed on Dunk Island as guests of Hugo Brassey.

‘We got a plumber and a builder from up the coast and they came down and brought their families. They put up a camp and lived on the beach and had the place up (built) in three weeks’ 3

opposite:

Yvonne COHEN

Australia b.1912 d.2004

The straw hat [self portrait] 1946

Oil on canvas on board

43.6 x 39.3cm

Acc. 2002.052

Purchased 2002. Rockhampton Art Gallery Trust Art Acquisition Fund.

Rockhampton Art Gallery Collection

Photograph: Thomas Degotardi, Rockhampton Art Gallery

Because the Cohen sisters’ careers have outwardly paralleled each other they are frequently discussed together, however an examination of their paintings shows how individual their work is. When the family returned to Australia in 1935 the sisters commenced art classes with William Beckwith McInnes at the National Gallery School.

Von’s painting Jungle Garden shows their home sitting comfortably in its jungle surroundings on the sheltered side of the island out of the huge ocean winds. As there was no fresh water there were no snakes, and tanks filled by the large natural rainfall supplied their needs.

Before the building was completed war was declared and Brassey departed to enlist in the British Army leaving them in the care of Charlie, an Aboriginal Malay who lived on Dunk Island and worked as his roustabout. Val described him as ‘a marvelous old man’ who knew all the dreamtime myths and legends. He used to take the sisters into the jungle and show them the native cures.4

When their cottage was completed they invited Nugget, a beach comber from Dunk Island to live on Timana and help them. Val recalled that if he liked you he would do anything to help. ‘Books were his only link to the affluent family he had discarded in his youth’. He would not discuss his past but his head was ‘packed tight with some of the best of English literature’. He was a wizard with engines, could mend fishing nets, planted their tropical fruit and vegetable gardens and loved the sea.5

Shortly after war was declared Dunk Island became a restricted military area which meant the girls needed a permit to travel and their mail was censored. The two thousand mile train journey from Melbourne to Tully, which was the last stop before the restricted war zone, took eighty four hours. From there the girls hitched a ride sixteen miles to the coast.

Their paintings of the cane fields in and around Tully where they frequently stayed on their way to Timana indicate a strong Aboriginal presence. On occasion they were privileged to see ceremonial dancing. Von’s Aboriginal Firedancers demonstrates an awareness of Ian Fairweather, an artist they both greatly admired.

Before Fairweather set off to Indonesia in 1952 he stayed on Bedarra Island with Charlie Martin a painter and friend of the Cohen sisters. He gave his sketch books and all his paintings to Charlie saying he had no further use for them. Charlie burnt all the sketch books and wrote to Val asking if he should get rid of the paintings as well.

Val immediately wrote back asking him to send them to her and she would sell them and forward the money back to Charlie. He sent a number, she cannot remember how many. Val kept two and Von one and they took the remaining paintings to Helen Ogilvie who priced them and sold them off to their immediate circle. Val remembers the most expensive picture being about twenty pounds.6

Noel Wood, a great friend of Hugo Brassey, was living on Bedarra Island when the Cohen sisters arrived. He was an established artist renowned for his use of true northern colours. Within a short time he and Yvonne forged a strong bond which Val described as ‘a great love’. For six to nine months of the year Val and Von lived on their island only coming south to Melbourne during the summer months to escape the tropical heat and humidity. Although their painting styles were markedly different Val and Von also painted the northern colours as they saw them. The powerful colours in Von’s 1949 painting Bedarra Island are similar to Wood’s but the style is distinctly her own.

opposite: Valerie ALBISTON

Australia b.1911 d.2008

Windy morning, Bingil Bay 1950

Oil on canvas on board

45 x 53.5cm

Acc. 1999.06

Gift of the artist and Yvonne Cohen through the Cultural Gift Program, 1999 Cairns Regional Gallery Collection

opposite:

Yvonne COHEN

Australia b.1914 d.2004

Queensland Beach c.1945

Oil on canvas on board

45.5 x 57cm

Acc. 1999.08

Gift of the artist and Valerie Albiston through the Cultural Gift Program, 1999

Cairns Regional Gallery Collection

Although much of their time was spent painting, living on the island required a lot of hard, physical work as keeping the jungle at bay was relentless. Val recalled that neither of them painted every day; there were spasms where they would work hard for perhaps a week or fortnight and then ‘you’d run out of puff’. She recalled that Von kept all her sketches and paintings and took risks with the way she painted.

Unlike Von, Val didn’t keep her sketches unless she thought they were worth keeping. She recalled that on the island they didn’t work together unless there was somebody there they both wanted to draw and although she says they didn’t influence each other’s work they were certainly each other’s best critic.7

Their island paintings often had a spiritual, dreamy dimension to them and invoke the restfulness and utter beauty of their surroundings. The Spit, where the girls went fishing, was a favourite place. During the war when Dunk Island became ‘one of the most secret stations in Australia’ their little boats enabled them to go where they pleased as ‘red tape made going further north to visit friends impossible unless they went unbeknown’. Timana Island also became a welcome retreat for the soldiers stationed on Dunk Island as the mainland at Mission Beach was virtually deserted and with Nugget’s help and gardening skills they were able to supply bananas to the troops.

As there was a tiny population no market existed for their work in the north. From the early 1940s, the girls brought their paintings south with them. They were favourably reviewed in the popular daily newspapers and sold to appreciative audiences in Melbourne and Sydney. When they first showed their island work in Melbourne in the 1940s the proceeds went to the war effort. Their 1941 exhibition of Dunk Island paintings at the Riddell Galleries was opened by Gladys Moncrieff. After the war commercial galleries promoted them and they continued to exhibit their island work throughout their lives.

Shortly after the war Valerie met her future husband Norman Albiston, a well known Melbourne psychiatrist. He was touring the north when he visited Timana Island as part of a small professional group. Albiston was a friend and student of the artist George Bell and on their next journey south he introduced the girls to Bell’s classes. Although they attended Bell’s classes for a short time they continued to show with the Bell circle until his exhibitions finished in 1966. Once Valerie Cohen married Norman Albiston the sisters spent more time in Melbourne. Between their trips north, friends visiting their island and letters from their tenants and locals kept them informed.

The beautiful and remote location and friendly atmosphere of the tropics attracted a number of visitors and artists after the war including adventurers looking for a ‘Caruso’ life style away from the mainland. As Dunk and Bedarra Islands attracted increasing numbers of tourists Valerie Albiston recalled that ‘the glorious days of its isolation’ vanished.8 Of the many friends and acquaintances who stayed there, or leased their island, one couple made Timana their home.

In 1965 Bruce Arthur and Deanna Conti ‘began making tapestries ...the way the ancients did… The results were brilliant...with no light, no power, no TV, no theatres or nightclubs’, a tapestry workshop that weaved for top artists of the day was in operation.9

In 1974 Bruce Arthur re-located to Dunk Island however Deanna Conti remained as a weaver on Timana Island. Visiting her in 1978 Valerie Albiston wrote that ‘after a decline of almost two hundred years, tapestry has returned to its place in the world of art’.10 As Norman Albiston’s health deteriorated in the late 1970s trips to the tropics became fewer. In 1979 he passed away and Timana Island was sold shortly after.

The joys and challenges of the tropics remained cherished memories for theses two amazing ladies long after they left their island. They continued to paint island scenes from sketches and recollection. As age became an issue, the Cohen sisters sold their Templestowe homes and purchased a home together with two studios overlooking the Yarra River in Kew. When Yvonne Cohen became increasingly infirm she went into care and passed away in her 89th year.

Valerie Albiston remained at home until her death at ninety-six. Most of their considerable estate, in keeping with their life time of generosity of spirit, was left to the Salvation Army.

Endnotes

1. Inscription on John Banfield’s Grave, Dunk Island

2. Table Talk, January 10, 1935

3. Interview with the author 30th April 2004

4. Albiston, V. This Australia, ‘Wartime on a Tropical Island’, p.76

5. The Canberra Times, Saturday September 11, 1976, p. 11

6. Interview with the author, undated, 2001

7. Interview with Valerie Albiston, 30th April, 2004

8. War Years: The Canberra Times, September 11, 1976 p.11

9. Author: Ray Castle, 1965, undated newspaper cutting 1965 in the papers of Valerie Albiston

10. Artbook, The West Australian Arts Magazine, Vol 5, no 1, Christmas 1978

opposite: Valerie ALBISTON

Australia b.1911 d.2008

Along the track, Bingil Bay 1950

Oil on canvas on board

45 x 53.5cm

Acc. 1999.06

Gift of the artist and Yvonne Cohen through the Cultural Gift Program, 1999 Cairns Regional Gallery Collection

Yvonne COHEN

Australia b.1914 d.2004

Untitled [Bedarra Island hut] 1945

Oil on canvas

25 x 30cm

Acc. 2010.23

Purchased 2010

Cairns Regional Gallery Collection

Photograph: Michael Marzik

Valerie ALBISTON

Australia b.1911 d.2008

Bedarra Island c.1940s

Oil on board

38 x 46.5cm

Acc. 2005.25

Gift of the artist

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

Yvonne COHEN

Australia b.1914 d.2004

The blue Crayfish 1945

Oil on canvas board

46 x 56cm

Acc. 1999.09

Gift of the artist and Valerie Albiston through the Cultural Gift Program, 1999

Cairns Regional Gallery Collection

Australia b.1914 d.2004

The catch 1945

Oil on canvas board

39 x 49cm

Acc. 1999.10

Gift of the artist and Valerie Albiston through the Cultural Gift Program, 1999

Cairns Regional Gallery Collection

Valerie ALBISTON

Australia b.1911 d.2008

Untitled [view of the mainland from Timana Island] 1952

Oil on board

39.3 x 46.5cm

Acc. 2005.22

Purchased 2005

City of Townsville Art Collection

Yvonne COHEN

Australia b.1914 d.2004

Bingil Bay c.1960s

Oil on board

40.5 x 49cm

Acc. 2005.32

Gift of Valerie Albiston 2005

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

Valerie ALBISTON

Australia b.1911 d.2008

Houses in the tropics, north Queensland c.1960s

Mixed media on paper

37 x 39cm

Acc. 2005.28

Gift of Valerie Albiston 2005

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

Yvonne COHEN

Australia b.1914 d.2004

Garden on Dunk Island 1943

Oil on canvas on board

50.1 x 40.9cm

Acc. 1993.37

Purchased 1993

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

Yvonne COHEN

Australia b.1914 d.2004

Coastal Steamer c.1950s

Oil on board

40.5 x 49cm

Acc. 2005.31

Gift of Valerie Albiston 2005

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

Yvonne COHEN

Australia b.1914 d.2004

Into the blue c.1950s

Oil on board

68 x 92cm

Acc. 2005.30

Gift of Valerie Albiston 2005

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

Remembering Timana

Imagine sailing in blue tropical waters on a gentle breeze—warm air bringing you the smells of rainforest from islands sunning themselves on the sparkling sea. The white bow of your yacht slices through the liquid crystal. You sail closer to one tiny island, its beach lined with coconut palms and you notice in the maze of green a shimmering of the brightest colour imaginable. You realise they are not tropical birds or flowers. You sail closer, drop anchor in the shallow water near the beach and wade ashore over white coral pebbles to discover that the colours are on large looms strung between trees: the colours of bright tapestries in progress, abstract patterns and tropical themes...such was my first encounter with the Timana Island weavings.

Soon the weavers themselves appeared on the beach curious to see who invaded their little paradise. A woman emerged immaculately dressed in a tight fitting sarong, her dark curly hair luxuriously around her shoulders, an exotic beauty – princess of this magic world; the man beside her was bearded with tousled reddish hair and even redder arms, sarong hastily tied around his athletic torso. Steam seemed to come off him making him look wild and mythical, a perfect match to the fairy tale princess. They were Deanna Conti and Bruce Arthur, partners in the weaving set-up they had on Timana Island. We (my husband Eddy and I) were welcomed and invited into their living space, under the trees in the shade; logs and deck chairs to sit on, hammocks between trees. Colourful skeins of steaming wool hung everywhere, which explained Bruce’s earlier appearance and red arms; it was his job to dye the wool. A tiny beach hut was their ‘shelter’, matting and cushions on the floor.

Conversation quickly flowed. We discovered we had a lot in common after they realised I was an artist too. We talked about the challenge of abstraction, weather patterns, island life and artists we respected. Wine flowed as well and the afternoon turned into evening, glowing pink with the setting sun; a lovely spicy dinner was cooked on the open fire pit – also a source of light. There was no power.

To my great delight we admired similar artists: John Olsen, Fred Williams, Len French, John Coburn, and Frank Werther, Clifton Pugh—and in further conversation it became clear that some of these artists had visited the island commissioning interpretations of their paintings! In north Queensland at that time artists from the centres of artistic endeavour, Sydney and Melbourne, were almost as mythological as Deanna and Bruce’s lifestyle. Bear in mind too that in those days abstraction was new to Australia, controversial, and the source of heated debate or outright rejection.

With my art school background from Amsterdam, where abstraction was centre stage, I found it exciting and unexpected to continue a serious discussion on trends in Europe, women in art, form and colour with Deanna, a graduate of RMIT, here on an isolated island off this beautiful coast. Deanna emphasised the need ‘to push the boundaries’, entered into the arts-crafts debate with her innovative approach. Deanna was taught traditional weaving by Scottish Master weaver Jock Loutitt, to which she introduced 3D elements, copper and layers “in an interplay of dazzling colour”1.

opposite: Valerie ALBISTON

Australia b.1911 d.2008

Timana Island 1945

Oil on composition board

86.6 x 69cm

Acc. 1986.008

Purchased 1986. Perc Tucker Memorial Art Collection Appeal Fund

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

Deanna CONTI

Cycles of Life c1967

Wool hand-woven

121.9 x 182.8cm

Belgiorno-Nettis Collection

Entry in the 1968 Transfield Prize

Tapestries were the ‘latest thing’ in Australian art. In 1970 John Coburn had been commissioned to design hangings for the new Opera House: Curtain of the Sun and Curtain of the Moon, which took three years to complete in Aubusson, France. These were traditional flat woven tapestries. John Olsen had Joie de Vivre made in Portalegre, Portugal – also flat weaving. In comparison the work coming from Timana was chunky, textured and innovative, but of course on a much smaller scale. After Deanna’s tapestry in the 1968 Transfield prize caught the eye of the international judge James Fitzsimmons, she was invited to exhibit in leading galleries in Melbourne and Sydney.

Bruce, not with an art school background - on the contrary he had been an Olympic wrestler - had acquired basic weaving skills from Deanna, but his main role seemed to be in making looms, and the dyeing of wool, as mentioned earlier. The looms were made with two suitable trees as uprights, and horizontal booms in between. He made some works to sell to tourists on Dunk Island and others based on designs by John Olsen.

the umbilical cord that connected her at first with the mainstream. Deanna’s work developed further after Bruce left Timana in the mid 1970s, setting up another studio on Dunk Island with a girlfriend. Deanna stayed on Timana with her new partner Bert, coming into her own with regular exhibitions during the 1970s and 80s at Bonython and Holdsworth in Sydney, and Joseph Brown in Melbourne. She was included in international curated shows, was written about in leading art publications and won an Australia Council Grant in 1975: a major career spanning more than 25 years.

Dunk Island had a large resort. The Age of Consent with Helen Mirren was being filmed there. It was also the place, where original beachcomber and alternative lifestyler E.J. Banfield lived more than half a century before. As it happened the same evening of our first encounter Yvonne Cohen and Valerie Albiston and her husband Norman also popped in returning from nearby Bedarra Island, where they had visited reclusive artist Noel Wood. In due course we met many of the artists. My head was spinning with excitement.

opposite:

Deanna CONTI and Joseph BROWN

Timana tapestry 1988

Wool hand-woven

122 x 159cm

Acc. 1993.01

Gift of Dr Joseph Brown through the Cultural Gifts Program, 1993

Cairns Regional Gallery Collection

Photograph: Michael Marzik

After that first encounter a firm friendship developed. Timana is a few days sailing away from Townsville and we became a bit of a pied a terre for Timana. We picked up some of the artists from the airport or took them sailing. It was a whirl of excitement and artistic intensity.

Deanna and Bruce had come north in search of an alternative lifestyle with their young baby. They secured residence on Timana in 1965. Deanna’s long standing friendship with Frank Werther, one of the founders of the artist community of Dunmoochin in Victoria, was

A magic web seemed to connect the islands through time and space; to do with art, a search for truth and living with nature—including what seemed a ‘hotline’ to the artistic centres of Australia. Having just had a show in Sydney myself I found it hugely exciting to be in touch with this immensely stimulating community, so close to home. As mentioned earlier north Queensland was very isolated from the main stream, though typically was developing an art community all of its own.

But there was as yet no Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, no Umbrella Studio, only a small pioneering private gallery - the Martin Gallery - which showed the works of artists from ‘down South’ as well as leading Townsville artists. It was only in the seventies and eighties that a flourishing art school developed, first at Townsville TAFE and later at JCU, until the early 2000s when studio subjects almost entirely disappeared.

But as often happens—circumstances change; our second son was born; my own art practice and teaching at the art school took up time. We did not sail as much, not long trips anyway. In short we lost touch until a few years ago when I learned that Deanna lived on the mainland in Mission Beach, where I went to see her. Deanna is still immaculate in her appearance, beautiful and did not seem to be a lot older or different. I had found a letter written to my parents in the Netherlands at the time that we first sailed to Timana. Reading it out to her triggered memories of those heady days. Conversation flowed again as though we’d left off yesterday, this time reminiscing about the ‘hippie era’, how Australia had changed since those days and the role artists may have played in that transformation.

We caught up on what had happened since—she had changed from weaving to working with kiln formed glass now doing public art, curated group shows and private commissions.

I wondered if she had stayed long on Timana. Yes, she had lived and worked on Timana with Bert until massive cyclone Larry hit the Islands in March 2006:

‘everything was wiped out: the resort on Dunk and on Bedarra and our little place on Timana too…they won’t be rebuilt’.

Deanna and Bert fled to the main land, their place almost as exotic as Timana was at the time: curved adobe walls, huge cast glass clerestory window and sculptures; models with clothes she designs and makes—still pushing the boundaries as she would say.

‘It was the end of an era, everything is gone’, she said ‘just like in Banfield’s day’:

Being in perfect sympathy with each other’s fury, wind, rain and sea, in a common tongue, poke threats of ruin and devastation, and fulfilled them ... The shrub-embroidered strand is now forlorn, its vegetation, uprooted…2

Endnotes

opposite:

Deanna CONTI

Spangled emperor c.1981

Wool hand-woven and metal rings

123 x 176cm

Acc. 1982.2

Purchased 1982

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

Fred Williams in Queensland

Fred Williams (1927-1982) is revered for his abstracted landscape paintings, in which he noted, in the words of one critic, a ‘way of making the monotony of the Australian bush seem visually stimulating’.1 Williams recognised that a paradoxically defining aspect of the Australian landscape was the random scatter of elements with no focal point. He was able to conceptualise this landscape from an aerial perspective, the visual elements translated into sensuous touches of paint.

His work from the 1960s until his death is marked by the release from a hard fought creative struggle. The pressures from which he had emerged were replaced by a sense of security about his practice and place in the creative canon. Freed from obligations to work at other jobs, Williams found the opportunity to consolidate his art, to work more deliberately to a program and to ‘find a new sense of imaginative security and tenure in his art’.2 Travel and seeking out new subject matter ensured that his creative imagination was constantly being refreshed and stimulated.

Fred Williams was an already renowned Australian artist when he ventured to the tropical north in 1973. He had visited Queensland in mid-1971 to paint around the Gold Coast hinterland. Much of the first visit was spent at Springbrook, on a property owned by Albert Tucker, with his work there revealing the exotic character and colour of the verdant scrub.

On Tucker’s advice, Williams ventured to the Glass House Mountains, a series of volcanic plugs that he painted in various formats including as panoramic strips painted to reveal a transparency that enabled an extensive, ‘almost atmospheric view’. The two visits in 1973 were spent on the tropical islands of Bedarra and Timana. What is surprising about these Bedarra and Timana paintings - coming as they do immediately after the muted, austere works of the late 1960s - is the careful attention to the tropical environment. The works appear as naturalistic studies of flora and fauna that he encountered on the islands. Williams employed vivid, tropical colour and thick paint, vigorously and expressively applied, to describe recognisable subjects like the dark, tangled rainforest on the islands.3

His biographer, James Mollison notes that:

‘the ochres that had become a Williams trademark gave way in the 1970s to experiments with primary and secondary colours, forced upon him by the introduction of colour television, which raised new colour expectations. It took him four years to master the use of his new palette of bright complementary colours, during which time a strong sense of design emerged; landscape often being reduced to a few geometric planes. He has become recognised as one of the great colourists in Australian art, the integrity of his combinations unalterable as much as they are surprising’.4

opposite:

Deanna CONTI

Violet-lined Parrot Fish 1980

Wool hand-woven

102 x 98cm

Acc. 2008.4

Gift of Vivien Evans, 2008

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

opposite:

Fred WILLIAMS

Australia b.1927 d.1982

Bedarra Rainforest 1974

Oil on canvas

97.2 x 71.2cm

Private Collection

Courtesy of Philip Bacon Galleries

Not surprisingly many of the Bedarra and Timana works were painted directly using gouache. Williams often painted outdoors with gouache, subsequently working on his oil and acrylic paintings back in the studio. Going to Queensland offered the ideal opportunity to make an abrupt change; and he was excited by the challenges of switching his palette to new rich colours, of working in acrylic, and of leaving his studio to work out of doors on new themes such as the Barrier Reef islands.5

He also painted the islands as panoramas floating in the warm Coral Sea. The north Queensland marine gouaches from this period show a remarkable observation of calm atmosphere, restrained colour and minimalist subject in contrast to the richly decorated and colourful works from the earlier 1971 visit to Springbrook. Williams was now committed to the strip format for his gouaches and the long thin panels were particularly suited to depicting shoreline, headland and beachscape. His last visit to Queensland was in 1977 when he visited Cape York Peninsula. Comalco Mining Corporation sponsored his exhibition in Brisbane in 1977 and as a result, Fred Williams travelled to the mining town of Weipa to see the countryside and mine works. Although only in Weipa for three days, Williams was inspired to paint a series of gouaches based on the unique landscape.

‘It was an interesting journey to Weipa and I will do a small series on it - somehow I have never seen country like it before.’6

Flying above Weipa, Williams was taken by the imagery of Bauxite Cliffs, the play of light on the water over which they flew and a bushfire that burnt below sending waves of smoke into the sky. Williams’ indelible impression of the Weipa landscape was manifested in a series of over 50 gouache works produced in his studio in November 1977. Remarkably, this was the first time he had the opportunity to fly in a light aircraft low over the landscape. It was something he had always dreamed.

While Fred Williams was not aligned to the artists associated with the Dunk Island group, he did meet Bruce Arthur in his Timana Island studio and a plan was hatched to collaborate on an island-inspired weaving. Arthur had originally established his studio workshop together with his then wife Deanna Conti.

Their aim was to establish an ‘atelier’ for artists interested in tapestry design, in the hope this medium would develop with the creative input of other artists. During their time on Timana, visiting artists worked alongside Arthur and Conti. Joseph Brown, John Coburn, Leonard French, John Olsen, Clifton Pugh and Frank Werther collaborated in designing these weavings, however by 1974 Bruce Arthur departed Timana and re-established his workshop on Dunk Island.

The work designed by Fred Williams was monumental in scale and was influenced by the verdant garden-like environment of Bedarra Island. Given the time frame required to complete a full size work, Bruce Arthur worked from a cartoon developed by Williams. For Arthur, these collaborations often lead to technical and aesthetic problems, which forced him to design and construct upright looms for specific designs.

The sheer scale of the Williams tapestry required him to use water pipes of various lengths, which he attached to the ceiling and floor, dividing the work area into cells of coloured warps. This system allowed him to work on often very large works in what was a modest workshop. The finished tapestry was completed in 1974 but Williams did make a further trip in November 1973 to inspect the colours.8

It is noted that of his four visits to Queensland the works painted in north Queensland including his Bedarra and Timana paintings indicate he was engaged with creating rich new bodies of work. His gouaches from the Weipa shoreline and of bushfires are among his most inventive compositions. No doubt that the environment of the islands was to shape and influence him in ways that no other location in his long artistic career had before.

Lyn Williams, widow of the artist, commented in an interview in 1989 at the time of an exhibition of Fred Williams’ Queensland paintings at Philip Bacon Galleries:

‘Fred felt that (by the late 60s) he had reduced the landscape to such degree that he needed to get back to a more direct contact with it... He wanted to work outside, and that really was why he wanted to do the Queensland trip’. 9

Endnotes

1. The Courier-Mail, July 18, 1998

2. McCaughey, Patrick. Fred Williams - 1927-1982. Kensington, N.S.W. : 1987, pp 234-6.

3. The Courier-Mail, July 18, 1989

4. Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 18, (MUP), 2012

5. The Courier-Mail, July 18, 1998

6. Biographical note, Cairns Regional Gallery website, accessed 21 August 2013 http://collection.cairnsregionalgallery.com.au/ browserecord.php?-action=browse&-recid=246

7. Bottrell, Fay; Stacey, Wesley. The artist craftsman in Australia. Ultimo, N.S.W. : 1977, p 63.

8. Lyn Williams, personal comment to author, 1 September 2013

9. The Courier-Mail, July 18, 1998

Bruce Arthur at work, Dunk Island, 1970s

Photographer: Helen Dyer

NQID 2805

Collection: North Queensland Photographic Collection

James Cook University Library Special Collections

opposite: Fred WILLIAMS

Australia b.1927 d.1982

Pitcher Plant, Weipa 111

Gouache on paper

55.9 x 76.2cm

Acc. 2000.55

Gift of Mrs Lyn Williams 2000

City of Townsville Art Collection

Photograph: Shane Fitzgerald, Gallery Services

Fred WILLIAMS

Australia b.1927 d.1982

Rainforest, Bedarra Island IV 1973

Gouache on paper

35.5 x 77cm

Acc. 2012.01

Gift of Rosemary Goodsall through the Cultural Gift Program, 2012

Cairns Regional Gallery Collection

Photograph: Michael Marzik

Wool hand-woven

About the Authors

Ross Searle

Ross Searle has an extensive history as an exhibition curator, curatorial advisor and exhibition manager and his major exhibition credits in the Southern Hemisphere include exhibitions curated for Queensland Art Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane City Gallery, Centre culturel Tjibaou and many significant regional galleries. His major publication ‘Artist in the Tropics: 200 Years in North Queensland’, published by Perc Tucker Gallery, 1991, remains one of the few art historical texts on an Australian region.

Glenn R Cooke

Glenn R Cooke retired from the Queensland Art Gallery after 32 years service: first as Curator of Decorative Arts and then as Research Curator, Queensland Heritage. He has published extensively on aspects of the fine and decorative arts especially that of Queensland.

Catherine Stocky

Catherine Stocky has been involved in the arts industry for over thirty years. Her speciality is Australian art from 1930 to 1970. She has masters qualifications in museum studies and fine art research. She is currently the director of Cotham Gallery 101. She enjoyed a close business and personal relationship with Valerie Albiston and Yvonne Cohen from the time they moved to Kew in the 1980s.

Dr. Anneke Silver

Dr. Anneke Silver trained in Amsterdam, Brisbane and gained her PhD at JCU where she was Associate Professor in Creative Arts; now tutors for Flying Arts. She has had over 30 solo shows including exhibitions in America, Europe and Fiji; countless group and touring shows; Australian and overseas residencies. Silver is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, Art Bank, Public Art and regional galleries throughout Australia.