THEARTREGOING WHEN YOUNG - PART 8 of 8

42.    Katherine Dunham and Her Company

 

Katharine Dunham was a world famous “modern” dancer, and with her large company she entertained us at the Princess’s Theatre in May 1956.  But the programme notes do get a bit carried away – first the strange proposition: “Katharine Dunham a Dancing Scientist”; then the even stranger exposition: “Is Katharine Dunham’s reputation only the figment of a press agent’s mind?  Is she a ‘cool analytical scientist’, or is she a ‘torrid, sultry performer of hot rhythms?’  Is it authentic?  Is it theatrical?  Scientist or artist, why this tempest raging around Katharine Dunham?”  

 

Indeed, why this strange hype, sounding like a large dose of bullshit?  Anyone reading the programme note would have already bought a ticket, and didn’t need to be gulled.  Alternatively, anyone reading this stuff before buying a ticket would likely have been propelled into second thoughts.

 

Elsewhere, the programme notes detail Dunham’s determination and work ethic: from birth in Chicago, and public school (“where her life was uneventful save for the significant fact that she was elected to the Terpsichorean Club where her natural love of music was encouraged” – ugh!), to university - where her interest in ethnology was fostered.

 

Wikipedia gives us a much more appropriate view of Dunham’s life and career.  “Dunham was an American dancer, choreographer, creator of the Dunham Technique, author, educator, anthropologist, and social activist.  Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers in African-American and European theatre of the 20^thCentury, and directed her own dance company for many years.  She has been called ‘the matriarch and queen mother of black dance’.”  And there’s much more in Dunham’s extensive bio.  

 

Melbourne was privileged to have its visit from Katharine Dunham and her troupe; although not all of her lifetime of achievement had occurred by the time Dunham performed in Melbourne in 1956.  She died in 2006, at age 96, perhaps epitomising the Latin motto, mens sana in corpore sano.

 

43.   The Pleasure of His Company

 

Cornelia Otis Skinner (1899 to 1979), legendary – really legendary - American actress and writer, author of numerous pieces for The New Yorker collected into half-a-dozen or more volumes, and author of the delightful memoir of her post-Sorbonne days travelling Europe, Our Hearts Were Young and Gay - Cornelia Otis Skinner was coming to Melbourne.   Coming to perform in the play in whose authorship she’d collaborated with Samuel Taylor.   Taylor (1912 to 2000), in a long but sparse career wrote screenplays for Sabrina, The Eddie Duchin Story and Vertigo, and wrote stage plays Sabrina Fair and Nina; and also, the comedy The Pleasure of His Company.   Inconsequential stuff, concerning the long-estranged, disinterested, and reprobate father returning for the wedding of his daughter – and causing havoc.  Later, for Hollywood, the parents’ parts were played by Lilli Palmer and Fred Astaire; but in Melbourne, opening July 1960 - and, indeed, for the 474-performance Broadway premiere production in 1959 - the principals were Skinner and Cyril Richard.  Richard had won the Tony for his performance that year.  

 

Born in Sydney, Richard had an illustrious international career – ranging from a London stage debut in 1918 to Mary Martin’s 1954 Broadway production of Peter Pan.  He starred in Hitchcock’s Blackmail in 1929, and in the film version of Terrence Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy in 1948.

 

So, for once, Australia was not having to overpraise a cast of imported second-raters.  

 

From the theatre programme we learn of two prominent night-time venues of the day:  The Bamboo Room at the Chevron Hotel (cnr. Commercial and St Kilda Roads) “Australia’s Leading Hotel”; and The Embers night club in South Yarra, “the most exciting music and food in Melbourne – 5 course dinner 25 shillings ($2.50)”.  [The Embers had recently been re-built after having been “burned to the ground” just after the announcement of the next song, Fire Down Below.  Truth is stranger…..]  And Harry Belafonte is coming to the Palais Theatre on 10 August, 1960.  Pant.       

 

44.    For Amusement Only

 

For Amusement Only was an “intimate review” staged by J.C. Williamson’s at the Comedy Theatre from 28 November, 1958.  The cast of around a dozen included four of Melbourne’s light entertainment luminaries, as it happens two wife and husband teams – Toni Lamond and Frank Sheldon, and Tikki Taylor and John Newman. 

 

Born in 1932 (and with us still), Toni Lamond’s introduction to theatre and entertainment was both genetic and environmental – mother, actress Stella Lamond; step-father, comedian Max Reddy; half-sister Helen Reddy. Her extensive career in music included stints in New York and London, numerous stage shows in Australia, and years of television variety.  Lamond had starred in The Pajama Game before For Amusement Only, and starred in many musicals thereafter.

 

Frank Sheldon’s career was less notable, doubtless foreshortened – after twelve years of marriage - through his death by suicide in 1966.  Tony Sheldon, son of Toni Lamond and Frank Sheldon, has had a formidable career in music theatre.

 

Tikki Taylor and John Newman, too, were a notable Australian theatrical couple, and founded an entertainment dynasty.  Off stage they were married for 57 years, until Taylor’s death in 2011 at age 83.  On stage they performed together not only in The Pajama Game, but also Can-Can and Grab Me a Gondola.  Taylor performed in numerous other musicals, importantly the landmark musicals of the 1950s – South Pacific, Oklahoma, Brigadoon, Song of Norway, and later, Hello Dolly.  And they established Australia’s first theatre restaurant, Tikki and John’s; and subsequently, with the involvement of their sons, Squizzie’s, Crazy Horse, Dracula’s, and others.

 

I remember John Newman as the Master of Ceremonies at the Footlighters’ luncheons which ran for some 25 years – razor-sharp wit, not entirely choir-boy innocent, sartorially elegant; his microphone performance worth the price of the meal!

 

For once, the ever-knowing Wikipedia has let me down – I can find no reference to Newman’s death, and am hopeful that it has not yet occurred.  As recently as March 2020 he self-published his autobiography, Tikki and John: An Entertaining Life.  I am daunted from further enquiry by the fact that “John Newman” brings up 165,000,000 Wikipedia strikes.  

 

45.    The Sophie Tucker Show

 

In later years I have thought of Sophie Tucker as something of a triumph of perseverance over talent.  There seemed (in memory) to be little of “big name” aura – no glamorous good looks, and an unremarkable voice.  But reference to the numerous internet clips evokes something of the star quality that she undoubtedly enjoyed.  Partly, I guess, this was due to her longevity as a performer – she lived to age 80, with her final television appearance a few months prior to her death.   Partly, I think, it was due to the universality of her appeal.  What’s not to love in an aging trouper, still glamming up, and trotting out her hits of sixty years ago?  Well, a lot, really!  But, like an old familiar tune, Sophie Tucker stayed with us in reality as well as in memory.

 

Sophie Tucker’s family migrated to the USA from what is today Ukraine, in 1887.  They settled in Boston for some years, before moving to Hartford in 1893 and establishing a restaurant.  Sophie was born in 1886, and from age nine she was singing to the Hartford customers.  There’s an unattributed quote in Wikipedia that what with the onions and Sophie’s singing there wasn’t a dry eye in the house!  Elopement at age 17 [1903], and the short-lived marriage, led Sophie to New York, and to the adoption of the professional name Tucker.  There was a sparse professional career for a number of years – first theatrical appearance 1907, Ziegfeld Follies in 1909.  In 1910 Tucker recorded Some of These Days on an Edison cylinder.  [When she re-recorded the song on 78 rpm disc in 1926 it became a million seller.]  In 1921 she teamed with pianist Ted Shapiro for a cabaret act, and they performed together for the next 40-plus years.

 

And so it was in Melbourne in June 1962.  There were six supporting acts, including one after interval, hence Sophie Tucker wasn’t on stage for all that long.  But the admiring public were content with her famous songs, and that’s what they got.  Think I’m Living Alone and I Like It, Life Begins at Forty, and My Yiddishe Momme. These three together sum up the Tucker late life schtick – the first two, slightly risqué, suggesting that in maturity she’d shed the shackles of permanent male company, while at the same time welcoming the advances of virile younger lovers.  The third, My Yiddishe Momme, is a sentimental hark back to Tucker’s Jewish background.

 

46.    Maurice Chevalier

 

I conclude this series of reminiscences from my youth with the French singer, Maurice Chevalier.  Sadly, although Chevalier was brought to Melbourne by J.C Williamson’s as a star of the international stage, even in 1960 when he was a mere 71 or 72 I thought he was a has-been.  There were no accompanying acts, and he did the whole show supported by Fred Stammer at the piano.

 

The programme notes swooned that Chevalier would entertain us from a selection of twenty songs, and that although an intermission was “inevitable”, it’s length would be “indeterminate”.  Just what the heck were they trying to say?  That Chevalier was irascible. That he was unreliable?    That he was tired?  That he couldn’t count?

 

Maurice Chevalier was born in Paris in 1888, and from early age made a career as singer and dancer. He won fame performing at the Folies Bergere. Like so many others, his career and life were interrupted by the World War [the First, as it was later to become!] – perhaps providentially interrupted by being captured, spending two years as a German prisoner-of-war, and learning to speak English during his incarceration. Later, when performing in English, he adopted a strong “French” accent, although beyond the spotlight he was apparently accent free, albeit with a hint of American.

 

Chevalier had made a number of films in France during the teens and the twenties of the twentieth century, and made his first Hollywood talkie in 1928.  Romantic lead: can sing, can dance, good looks, has sexy French accent!  In the early ‘30s he was said to be the highest-paid actor in Hollywood.  Urban myth?  I don’t know, but clearly Maurice Chevalier was a big deal back in the day.  Then he returned to his homeland - to cabaret, and to a steady career in film; and it was some 25 years before his resurgent movie career in the USA. That career included two films prior to his visit to Melbourne [Love in the Afternoon (1957) and Gigi (1958)] and one that was likely made, but not yet released before his arrival here [Can-Can (1960)]. 

 

I must say that I have rarely seen such an extensive biography in a theatre programme as the one provided for Maurice Chevalier – hundreds of words detailing a lifetime parade of engagements in cabaret, theatre and film.  There is a quote from the London Observer: “Maurice Chevalier, by filling a theatre continuously with a solo act, has proved himself one of the greatest music-hall artists of the age.  With his superb timing of every word and gesture, his wit, his rhythm, and most engaging personality, he enchants as completely as in his youth.”

 

All this makes my take on Chevalier in Melbourne 1960 sound churlish.  So be it.  The sad truth is that I remember the evening at the Comedy Theatre as the performance of an old man [let me interject that I have nothing against old men per se]: an old man with ill-fitting teeth; a weary old man in a dinner suit, wearing a straw boater, doing a halting soft-shoe shuffle; a sad old man trapped in the time warp of his once-familiar tunes.

 

Gary Andrews

 

 

 

 

MILDURA ARTS CENTRE

 

The Mildura Arts Centre is a diverse cultural precinct near to the Murray River.  It embraces the historic Rio Vista homestead and the attached – literally attached - art gallery and performing arts centre, including a 400-seat theatre.  Plus a sculpture park. 

 

The back story to the Mildura Arts Centre is one of convergence – the juxtaposition of a grand mansion with a significant privately-owned art collection. Then its evolution, with the modern section of the complex focussed on its art collection (and the theatre and the amenities) and the saved and restored mansion able to be viewed virtually intact - a stunning example of synergy.

 

A little bit of pre-history.  A newspaper has been published in Mildura since 1888 – first The Mildura Irrigationist, later The Mildura Cultivator, both weeklies.  In 1920 the Australian Dried Fruits Association conducted a nation-wide competition to select a brand name for Mildura-region dried fruits – the result: Sun-raysed, modified to Sunraysia.  This initiative coincided with a change of newspaper ownership; and the new proprietor changed the paper’s name to The Sunraysia Daily, published thereafter four times a week.  It remains thus today.  There were financial problems, however, and in 1924 the business was bought by three investors, one of them being R.D. Elliott (later a Senator).  [The Lanyon family acquired the Sunraysia Daily business in 1950, and operate it still.]

 

R.D. Elliott died in 1944, and bequeathed his art collection to Mildura City Council on condition that the Council find a suitable place to house it.  That happened in 1950, and that suitable place was the Rio Vista (River View) homestead.

 

The story of Rio Vista’s origins is, in essence, the story of Mildura’s origins.

 

Alfred Deakin was one of the leading statesmen at the time of the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901.  After that federation he served as Australia’s second Prime Minister, from 1903 to 1913.  Prior to his term in Federal Parliament, Deakin had been a long-time member of the Victorian State legislature. 

 In 1884 Deakin had chaired a Royal Commission on water supply; and the next year he led a party to California to investigate irrigation and conservation schemes.  He met the Chaffey brothers, George and William.  Deakin was impressed by the Chaffeys’ achievements; and in 1886 George Chaffey (uninvited) came to what became Mildura to demonstrate the Chaffey methods.  In June of that year Deakin introduced into the Victorian Parliament a bill to promote irrigation.

 

The Chaffey story is colourful beyond the rainbow. George Chaffey (1848 to 1932), described as irrigation pioneer, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur, and William Benjamin Chaffey (1856 to 1926), described as agriculturist and irrigation planner, had been instrumental in successful irrigation projects first in California, later in Canada.  These projects included planned communities, concrete-piped water systems, and electric lighting.  The Chaffey entrepreneurial skills had so impressed Deakin that subsequent to George’s arrival in Victoria, Deakin arranged for 101172 hectares (250000 acres) of crown land to be made available on favourable terms.  William Chaffey sold their Californian interests, and joined brother George.  The Mallee country selected by George Chaffey in 1886 as the Chaffeys’ first irrigation venture comprised a derelict sheep station named Mildura.  [The settlement known today as Mildura was established and surveyed in 1887, with a Post Office in 1888.]

 

The drama and tribulations of subsequent years are detailed in the Chaffey entries in the Australian Dictionary of Biography; suffice to say that George Chaffey returned to the United States in 1897 financially broken – although later reviving his fortunes, and building an engineering career of great moment.  William Chaffey remained in Mildura until his death in 1926, dying a most respected and honoured citizen.

The principal Australian legacies of the Chaffeys are the Sunraysia area, and the city of Mildura……..and William Chaffey’s home, Rio Vista.

 

The term “half-measures” never seems to have entered a Chaffey mindset, and Rio Vista is grand beyond the likely imagination of strangers in a hostile land, or the likely caution of strangers embarking on a costly and high-risk pioneering engineering project.  But nothing ventured…..and the construction of Rio Vista began in 1889.  It remained the family home until the death of William Chaffey’s widow in 1950.  [Chaffey’s first wife, Harriet (Hattie), died in 1889 after the birth of their sixth child; and with his second wife, Heather (also Hattie, married 1891), Chaffey had a further six children.] 

I have extracted descriptions of the house from the pamphlet provided, and these, together with my accompanying photographs, might give a sense of its opulence.  Given that opulence, it is no surprise that construction extended over four years.  What mystifies is that a Mildura architectural firm was in existence when Rio Vista was conceived in 1889 while Mildura itself was barely so. The red gum and Murray pine timbers were sourced from a sawmill at nearby Merbein.  Other timbers:  karri panelling in the upper hallway, jarrah floorboards, cedar doors in the entrance hallway; and the grand staircase of blackwood.

 

 The floor of the entrance hallway is of Italian tessellated tiles.

 

 

The stained-glass windows were made and imported from England.

And pause to admire the following remarkable spaces:

Rio Vista was pretty run down when it was secured by the Mildura City Council for 18000 pounds ($36000) soon after Hattie Chaffey’s death in 1950.  The bequest of the Elliott art collection could be secured at last, and Mildura would have a public art gallery.  Display and viewing conditions were not ideal, however, and it wasn’t until the purpose-built gallery annexe was completed in 1956 that Mildura had a “proper” gallery.  Restoration of Rio Vista has been effected over the years – new ceiling and wallpapers in the adjacent drawing and breakfast rooms in 2006; major conservation of the hallway ceiling and cornices in 2015; reconstruction of the ground floor hallway in 2017.  There is much of the original Rio Vista house and outbuildings that has been re-purposed, built-over or demolished – or not restored.  But what we have is extraordinary - time has proved it to be not a folly, not a vanity, but a treasure for the nation.

For the curious: the fountain in the front lawn is a replica, installed in 1991.   The original fountain was the scene of the drowning of one of the Chaffey children in 1897, and it was then turned off.  In 1936 it was gifted to the people of Mildura to commemorate the 25^th anniversary of the ascension of King George V.  It stands in Deakin Avenue; and the replica is flowing happily, surrounded by the Rio Vista sculpture park.

 

By its own website admission, the Mildura Arts Centre collection is “one of Victoria’s best kept secrets.  The foundation bequest of Senator R.D. Elliott and Mrs. Hilda Elliott includes the largest single collection of paintings by Anglo-Irish artist Sir William Orpen [surely not in the world!]. Visitors are astonished to find a pastel by Edgar Degas, as well as works by Sir Frank Brangwyn and a number of important Australian artists”.  

Despite the gallery's boast there didn’t, to me, seem to be many Orpen paintings on show.  It seems the Orpen paintings are not presently being portrayed as the jewel in the gallery’s crown.  This is not surprising, perhaps, when a bit of research indicates that Orpen’s work has been in and out of favour over the years [he was born 1878, he died 1931].  However, as recently as 2019 a previously unknown portrait by Orpen was valued, on The Antiques Roadshow, at 250000 pounds.   Clearly, no gallery curator would want to vaunt the monetary value of a painting over its artistic merits, but equally clearly an enhanced dollar appraisal can do no harm to the public perception.  One wonders whether the gallery at the Mildura Arts Centre is playing to its strengths!

 

The principal gallery space was showing an assortment of items, including the (few) aforementioned Orpen paintings.  There were a couple of delightful pen and wash on paper works by Daryl Lindsay (one-time Director of the National Gallery of Victoria),

 and a fine portrait of “Billy” Hughes, long-time Federal parliamentarian, including Prime Minister from 1915 to 1923, and general burr under the saddle of Australian politics.  The painting is by Augustus John.  

 

The most interesting exhibition, in the upstairs gallery space, was a group of contemporary works by Valerie Robinson, this exhibition titled Camaldulensis (eucalyptus camaldulensis is the river red gum).   There is a heartfelt description of the riverine environment and vegetation, and the dominant red gum.  “Infinite varieties of marks and textures made by insects, splits, rubbings, hollows, bumps, burrs, seasonal and environmental changes, the bark of this species has provided stimuli and inspiration.”  These were the catalyst for Robinson’s inspiration. “Extracting colour (eco dyeing) from bark, wood, and leaves of Eucalyptus camaldulensis and applying it to paper, cotton and silk fabric” was the outworking of that inspiration. 

 

Valerie Robinson’s works were truly admirable, but there was an unnecessary sour note.  We were forbidden to take photographs, not on the long ago injunction that the artworks would be damaged by flash – what gallery bans digital photography these days? – but because the artist had requested it!

 

Gary Andrews

 

 

KYABRAM TOWN HALL GALLERY

 

In 1992 the Kennett Government came to power in Victoria with significant electoral success: 66% of the seats in the Legislative Assembly [the “lower” House], and 77% of the seats in the Legislative Council [the House of review].  One of Kennett’s electoral planks had been the reform of the State’s system of municipal government – to place emphasis on microeconomic matters such as “reductions in operating expenditures” and “the efficiency, effectiveness and competitiveness of service delivery”. The implementation of policy had initially been voluntary restructuring, but soon became coercive and compulsory.

 

One outcome of Kennett’s reform was the creation, in 1994, of the local government area, the Shire of Campaspe - established by the forced amalgamation of the city of Echuca, the town of Kyabram, and the shires of Rochester, Waranga and Deakin.  Echuca became the hub, and the former municipal functions of the other four areas were centralised or abolished.

 

Thus, the one-time Kyabram Town Hall [originally the Mechanics’ Institute, until 1954], lost its principal function, and for a while was a lost soul, although functioning for some years as the Kyabram public library (now relocated).  This until 2012, when a brave committee secured ownership of the (by now) dilapidated premises from the Shire of Campaspe, and proceeded to renovate the Hall to its present functionality as a public art gallery

As part of the 2014 renovation the original “hall” area of the Town Hall was divided into two: one half retaining the original ceiling, with its series of wooden arches; the other half with a lowered ceiling, modernised and with much improved lighting.  So: two discrete and significant display areas.  

 

At the time of our visit the modernised part of the Gallery had an exhibition: Portraits and Caricatures by Victorian painter, Pete Conroy.  Conroy’s caricatures are a little more distinctive than his “straight” portraits but, in reality, every picture has an element of caricature.  The painting technique is consistent throughout, as is Conroy’s palette.  The tonings are invariably bright, and even the caricatures have a happy feel about them.  Dare I say that this is admirable, given that Conroy was incapacitated in a surfing accident.  The programme note describes him as “a high functioning quadriplegic” who, post tragedy, pursues his full-time painting career from “a hot shed in rural Victoria”. That rural Victoria is nearby Echuca.  Pete Conroy can be found on the internet, with images of some hundred paintings for sale, including a number of those that were on show at Kyabram.

The “older” part of the Gallery was occupied by Linda Steele – in Conjunction with Waverley Patchworkers.  Linda Steele is a professional patchworker, and her work is extraordinary – not conventional bedspreads with “traditional” patterns, but break-out shapes and designs and colours.  “Fabric, colour, thread, embroidery and quilting has been her life since 1997 when she first discovered the joy of making a quilt.  It was not long before Linda realised that she was more interested in making quilts as art for the wall rather than a bed cover.  Over the years she has designed and made many Applique and Crazy Quilts……a natural progression towards designing and making Art Quilts.”  Linda Steele has exhibited widely, including in the USA, France, and China.  She has won numerous prizes and awards.

 

The Linda Steele display was mounted in conjunction with a selection of quilts made by members of Waverley Patchworkers.  Waverley Patchworkers is a very active Melbourne group, with over 250 members.  My wife, Annie, is a long-time member, a frequent exhibitor at Waverley’s annual shows, and an occasional winner at their judged competitions.  A number of her miniature quilts were on display at Kyabram to accompany the Linda Steele display.  These were “Art Quilts”, made by each member of a small group to freely reflect a common theme. The themes drawn on for display at Kyabram included Helen Maudsley, Maps, Virginia Cuppaidge, Windows, Gustav Klimt.  I have to say, without any prompting, that the Art Quilts of the Waverley Patchworkers were imaginative and superb.

1. 

 

There is a third exhibition space in the former Town Hall, named the Isobel Harvie Room.  I’m guessing that this space was the former administrative headquarters of the municipality, now a generous open space with no echo of former offices.  This room currently houses a collection of locally-sourced household artefacts enhancing The George Rathbone Collection of naïve art. 

 George Rathbone (1900 to 1980) lived in the Echuca region, and was a schoolteacher for nearly half a century. He took up painting in retirement, and made numerous paintings of the district in earlier times.  The naïve style is not perhaps to today’s tastes, but Rathbone’s works are an unique representation of the river port in times past, and the diversity of nineteenth century pursuits.

 

The 72 paintings of the Rathbone collection were given to the Shire of Campaspe, and are kept permanently at the Kyabram Town Hall Gallery – although examples are frequently on loan to other institutions.  A small sample of Rathbone’s works is currently displayed in the Isobel Harvie Room, and helpfully positioned next to each painting is a full description of the subject matter.  The paintings adorn the walls; the rest of the exhibition space - as you can see - is brimming with memorabilia of domestic life in the late 1800s/early 1900s.  I accepted with incredulity the fact that this material is not the property of the Gallery or of the Shire, and that it has been sourced by the Gallery manager from local contacts.  And has then been expertly displayed!  When the current exhibition ends shortly the Rathbone paintings will return to storage, and the domestic memorabilia will be returned to its owners. 

Having heard this story I picked up a couple of dinner plates, and saw that there was no label underneath – so I taxed the ladies at the desk: How will the manager know where to return each of the hundreds of items?

 

Surprised looks:  “Oh, she will know.”

 

This Isobel Harvie Room has a curious recent history, a history not told to me.  The ladies at reception during the two days of our visit were unaware of events prior to their involvement (and weren’t asking), and the lady who chairs the committee, and runs the venue, was aware but unwilling to be specific.  

 

In short, this is what I have pieced together.  Isobel Harvie was a prime mover in the 2014 resurrection of the Town Hall as a Gallery; and she made available to it her massive and extraordinary collection of historical costumes and accompanying paraphenalia.  I am quoting from published sources: “Kyabram Town Hall (re)opened on 7^th November 2014 as a Community and Tourist Information Centre; Gallery space for community or visiting artists; and, especially, to provide a permanent home to The Isobel Harvie Collection of Victorian and Edwardian historic clothing.  A generous donation of A Stitch Back in Time to the Town of Kyabram, by Isobel and Keith Harvie in March 2013, on the condition that a permanent home could be found for the collection, inspired an enthusiastic group to approach the Shire of Campaspe with the suggestion that the vacant Kyabram Town Hall would be an ideal location to house the collection.”

 

This duly happened, and there was a subsequent series of Isobel Harvie exhibitions:  A Stitch Back in Time [WW1 and ANZAC clothing and memorabilia]; An Edwardian Tea Party [experience the elegance of the Edwardian era]; The Boudoir Collection [a selection of Victorian underwear and sleepwear]; Forever Bridal Collection [more than 100 wedding dresses from the late 1800s to today]; Cherished Memories [all about children’s wear 1900s to present day]; Fabulous Fifties [stepping out of the war years…..]; Masquerade Ball [exhibiting exquisite masks and gowns]; Wonders of Winter [experience the furs, coats, capes, hats from all eras]………this last exhibition held July through November 2018.

 

Some while after this there was an estrangement.  The Isobel Harvie collection was no longer available to the Gallery either by way of gift or by way of loan, and I was told that the collection has likely been sold.  Except that the Gallery was able to acquire around 50 display dummies, these for use should the Gallery some day mount an exhibition of clothing – albeit not sourced from Isobel Harvie!  One hopes that the new owner of the extraordinary Isobel Harvie collection is attuned to its uniqueness, and that the collection is not broken up.

 

A sorry story, perhaps, but Gallery management is philosophical.  It is all right to move on from the Harvie connection, and the Committee has been able to embrace a busy future programme.  And there is a final gracious note: there has not, I am told, been any suggestion that the Isobel Harvie Room should be re-named.

 

Gary Andrews

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SWAN HILL REGIONAL ART GALLERY

 

You wonder whether the public art gallery in Swan Hill could do better.  And then you wonder whether it matters anyway.  But it does matter: there must always be room for “improvement” in man, beast, machine, building or institution.  However, such improvement needs must occur in the real-world context where there are diverse issues – where, for instance, aspiration collides with lack of resources, or where aspiration collides with the agendas of others.

 

The Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery did “do better” when it moved into its present building in 1987.  Its origins had been unique, but modest. The paddle steamer Gem, which had plied the Murray River since 1876, was wet docked in a coffer dam within the precincts of the Swan Hill Pioneer Settlement, a splendid tourist village on the banks of the Murray.  The Pioneer Settlement was established in 1963, and is Australia’s first open air museum.  In 1966, after a variety of landlocked uses, Gem became the foundational home of the Gallery.  

 

Gem these days serves as the entry point to the Pioneer Settlement.  

Across the way, is the present single storey 1987 Gallery building, designed by architect Ian Douglas.  As conceived with locally-sourced mud bricks and red gum beams, it has an affable farm building feel about it.   This has been enhanced by the 1990 extension. 

But it remains a small gallery.  The brochure helpfully includes a floor plan, and by my estimate about half the total area of the building is taken by the foyer and shop, offices, storage, and amenities.  The other “half” comprises the main gallery and a small studio gallery.  

So, back to my point.  Twenty-one years was a long time to wait for the new post-Gem premises, and although today’s building is perfectly functional (to the eyes of this unpractised observer, at least), it was and is simply too small.  It could do better – if it were larger.  This point was made manifestly obvious on the day of our visit: the whole gallery was devoted to an exhibition of works by Aboriginal artists of the nearby river country, and the entire permanent collection was in storage for the duration!  Although the Swan Hill permanent collection is modest in size, surely generous examples should always be on show.  

The attendant on duty on the day of our visit was most engaging, and she advised that they are always happy to retrieve works from storage for private viewings - but would appreciate a couple of days’ notice!  She was the only staff member present, one other being on leave, and another being “away”.  [Apart from the difficulties of being the sole front of house, there are the obvious safety issues consequent upon being alone in a venue open to the public.]  We were the only visitors for the half hour of our time at the gallery, and the attendant was happy to be monopolised, and to augment for us the information publicly available on the internet and available from the “short guide” leaflet.

 

The Gallery’s web page indicates that it has 400 artworks and, helpfully, has a full alphabetical listing of the collection, although with no images.  However, that listing is seriously out of date, and we were told that it should contain 503 works.  Blame lack of resources for the out-of-date public information – but ask, and receive, friendly help and an updating.  Part of this help, in our case, was a peek at the screen at the front desk, where they have photo images of the collection, sadly not yet on line.  Clearly, the spirit of the Gallery team is willing, but the funding is weak.  [While the Gallery’s own website has fallen behind, the Swan Hill Gallery’s page on the victoriancollections.net.au website lists and describes 503 “featured items”.]. 

 

In the meantime, those artworks that are listed on the Gallery’s website are described with full provenance, so much so that the listing runs to 135 pages.  And from a slow trawl through that listing I see that the permanent collection holds two Ray Crooke screen prints; one Russell Drysdale pen and ink wash; two Pro Hart oils on hardboard; two Robert Ingpen works, one a pen and ink wash on paper, the other a watercolour on paper; five Kenneth Jacks – two lithographs, two oils on hardboard and one ink on paper; two Louis Kahan works on paper, one pencil and one lithograph; a Henry Moore lithograph on paper; one John Olsen lithograph and two Sydney Nolans – a lithograph and a silk screen print [these three on loan from the National Gallery of Victoria]; one Clifton Pugh etching and one oil on composition board; two Andrew Sibly pencil on paper; four Fred Williams works, two pencil on paper, one ink on paper, and one pen and ink wash on paper.  

 

Enough!  These may not all be important works, but they are works by important artists.  And obviously they are rendered more important by the relative modesty of the Swan Hill collection, and – it follows – that they or works of equivalence should by on permanent view regardless of the space requirements of visiting and occasional exhibitions.

 

Gallery management and trustees do not need to be told that the Swan Hill venue is inadequate for today’s needs.  Indeed, our helpful guide indicated that there has been an initiative to expand the gallery space - specifically, to relocate and rebuild within the grounds of the Pioneer Settlement.  That proposal has been rebuffed.  I sense that capital funding might not be the sticking point; and – returning to my theme - the message to present day planners is “do better”: negotiate harder, or look elsewhere, or re-think your present site.

 

The aforementioned exhibition of works by local Aboriginal artists is titled Connections – Contemporary Aboriginal Art from the Swan Hill Region, and is scheduled to run until 17 July.  This is a “survey of contemporary Aboriginal art…..(it) celebrates this rich and unique country and waterways, the plants, the fauna, the foods, and the history.”

 

I am not equipped to comment on Aboriginal art, but I happily accept that the display of artefacts and artworks was consistent with the foregoing description. 

  

The tightly-framed display of quandong seeds, Suzanne Connelly-Klidomitis’s Quandong Tracks, gave out the contradictory message of fecundity in the midst of desert.

Young visitors have not been overlooked, and with Nathalie “Lucy” Williams Connelly’s Looking Through My Eyes children are asked to search the thirty 59cm x 50cm panels for “How many koalas can you see?”

As I conclude this reflection on the Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery I wonder whether my comments about the smallness of the Gallery and the sequestering of its permanent collection have been too unsympathetic.  The Gallery’s website informs that it has hosted some twenty exhibitions in the past twelve months (meaning, perhaps, the year before Covid), and has managed five outreach exhibitions to neighbouring communities.  This is a lively exercise of the Gallery’s desire to inform and to educate – and perhaps a source of precious revenue that a static permanent display might not be. The Gallery even embraces concerts “featuring our magnificent 1923 Steinway & Sons grand piano”.

 

And, sensibly, the focus of the Gallery’s collection has been kept narrow (Australian naïve art; Australian prints and drawings from the 1970s onwards), and kept local (Works of art that relate to the Swan Hill region).

 

So, with penitent demeanour, I recognise – all considered – that the Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery does indeed do better.

 

Gary Andrews