Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

possess her children and the friend is spurned. In Holiday in Essex 1910, only mother and children are now depicted (Amy and Constant are both without shoes) and there is a joyous, carefree feeling to the painting that would seem to confirm Amy's statement, said, one feels with exasperated relief, that the occasion records the first time 'in ages' that the family had been away from Thea. It was the last time that Lambert depicted the group, perhaps as a result of the review in the Times which remarked: '... the painter has for five or six years been one of those who promise much. But he tends to repeat himself; we have had this lady, these children, and this pony before'.18 What the Times's critic missed was that these family portraits were essentially exercises in colour, composition and technique, in which subject matter was secondary. The figures were generalised, the absence of individualisation a deliberate ploy. However, while there is an uncomfortable theatricality in many of his paintings — a consciousness that the characters appear to be acting — in his family portraits Lambert captures a naturalness that is entirely modern. This distinguishes them from the High Society portraits which, on the whole, contain 'an intentional artifice'.19His portraits of Mrs Derwent Wood, an opera singer from Rockhampton, and the actress Kitty Powell (both in the QAG Collection), were executed at this time. This was the richest period in Lambert's working life and culminated in 1914 with the picture Important People (AGNSW). However, surviving as an artist was difficult, and despite his efforts Lambert could find neither the commissions nor the acclaim he desired. He yearned to unlock the secrets of the great masters, as if there was some kind of formula that could be discovered and applied. Towards the end of his life he wrote: After many years of consideration I am convinced that both Frans Hals and Reynolds had constructed for themselves or found a piece of machinery that one could almost liken to a perfect motor car; a thing you can park, place in a garage, leave it for two or three days, bring it out and after having given it the necessary fuel and lubricant, start its engine and go on as before20 In January 1918 Lambert accepted an invitation from the Australian government to go to Palestine as an official war artist. This trip produced one of his best loved works, A Sergeant of Light Horse in Palestine 1920 (National Gallery of Victoria). His links with Australia thus renewed, he left London for Australia in 1921, hoping to succeed in winning more commissions for work, and then return, with money in hand. Left George W. Lambert A model resting 1901 Oil on canvas 38X60.8cm Purchased 1954 Queensland Art Gallery George W. Lambert The blue hat 1909 Oil on canvas 181.5x181.5cm Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth When Constant died Amy wrote and thanked me for helping her to bring up both her sons — and 1 remember how much interest they gave me and you too when you were living with them. I told her once they had spoilt me for ordinary children. I gave Maurice his first encouragement when both his parents were completely hostile about art as a profession for him because they knew it was a hard life. He used to come to me for sympathy. I would have liked to see his work included in Sixty Years of British Art21 Lambert undoubtedly intended visiting London and seeing his family again but work and an active social life seem to have prevented him. He took great pride in his Lambert still remained very much the patriarch, and his letters from this period demonstrate a distanced concern for his family's affairs, though he did not know then that he would never see his sons again. When he left they were 20 and 16. They had grown up in a bohemian atmosphere of artists, musicians and writers and, unsurprisingly, Maurice became a sculptor (who exhibited at the Royal Academy for over twenty years) and Constant a composer. Both enjoyed being part of an élite artistic and social group in London and achieved a level of success in their careers. Constant, always a sickly child, died at the age of 46 with complications arising from undiagnosed diabetes. Amy Lambert lived until 1964, dying a few months before Maurice. Shortly after Maurice's death, Thea Proctor wrote a letter to Dulcie Stout, Amy's niece, which would seem to indicate that she was a valued family friend who was close to all its members: trim physique, bragging in April 1929, 'I am twenty-seven inches around the waist and hard as tin'.22He rode frequently and sailed with Charles Lloyd Jones but he still suffered from bouts of malaria contracted in Palestine in 1918 and had been a heavy smoker, both of cigarettes and the pipe. Added to this was the stress of completing several projects to which he had committed himself. Having turned to sculpture late in his career, by all accounts Lambert drove himself to the point of physical exhaustion. At his death at the age of 56, he had just finished the cast for the memorial statue to Henry Lawson. Towards the end of his career Lambert seems to have reconciled himself to the fact that he would never again paint as he once had been able. Never again would he capture that thing he had striven for all his life through his art and which he described as: the quick spasm, the tour de force, the stroke of genius, the surprise, the popular note, the staggaring [he] invention, the Bolshevistic crash of quantities upset, the record breaking achievement of two years work crammed into two weeks.23 Dr Candice Bruce is the former Curator, Australian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery 1993-95 and is now an independent curator and consultant in Sydney. FAMILY AND A SPECIAL FRIEND 107