Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

number of influences and opportunities — a year-long scholarship under Godfrey Rivers and L. J. Harvey, books on J. M. W. Turner and Corot, an illustrated geography book on Paris, and an assortment of lineblock reproductions in magazines. The snail's-pace technique and prosaic expression that Rees developed from these sources were a straightforward characterisation of everyday life in Brisbane early in the twentieth century. The artist who most influenced Rees never set foot in Brisbane. He was the American printmaker Joseph Pennell, a follower and biographer of Whistler, whose reproductions Rees discovered in a 1908 omnibus volume of Century Magazine. Rees copied Pennell's black and white images with his first bottle of Indian ink, purchased for him by his mother. He drew the images of fine Tuscan architecture in his first studio — ironically, an abandoned brick outhouse behind the family home.4 Rees began to draw Brisbane as Pennell had drawn Tuscany. He had absorbed Pennell's characteristic way of rendering sunlight on architecture by allowing the white of the paper to represent the fall of sunlight on stone and timber walls while drawing only the dark tones and cast shadows. This technique well suited capturing the effect of high-key light on solid sculptural forms — a subject for which Rees has since become renowned with drawings of sunlit rocks, cliffs, tree trunks and buildings. In 1913 Rees made a series of postcards showing Pennell-like views of well-known Brisbane buildings and locations. Commissions followed for sets of postcards depicting the Brisbane Hospital, the Womens College at the University of Queensland and more city buildings. The postcards were reproduced using photolithography at the Government Printing Office where Rees was employed. Shortly after the last of these commissions in mid-1915, Rees left the Printing Office and, simultaneously, he moved away from Pennell's graphic style. He recalls in his autobiography Peaks and Valleys: ... I realised I was not restricted by the process of reproduction and evolved a fine feathery Lloyd Rees Australia 1895-1988 St Brigid's, Red Hill 1917 Pen and ink on wove paper on card 17.7X15.3cm Bequest of Mrs Lilian Pedersen 1983 Queensland Art Gallery St Brigid's Church, Brisbane, pen drawing by Lloyd Rees, reproduced from Art in Australia: Twenty-five Years ofAustralian Art, eds Sydney Ure Smith, Bertram Stevens & C. Lloyd Jones, Angus & Robertson Ltd, Sydney, 1918 Lloyd Rees Interior, St Brigid's Church, Red Hill 1916 Pen and ink and watercolour wash over pencil on wove paper with watermark 20.8x13cm Gift of John Brackenreg 1965 Queensland Art Gallery style, even using the back of the pen to get feathery effects.5 1continued developing my pen technique and the drawings attracted attention and lead [sic] to commissions — in one of the newspapers I was referred to as 'the boy artist'. The most important commission was for a series of pen drawings of St Brigid's Church on Red H ill... ... I did them inside and outside, sometimes just sections of the building — one archway perhaps and the trees leading up to it.6 The completed commission comprised fourteen drawings, which were exhibited at the Turner Art Gallery, Brisbane Town Hall, in October 1916. It was Rees's first solo exhibition. Two of the drawings were later given by the artist to John Brakenreg, the founder of Artlovers Gallery in Sydney (now known as Artarmon Galleries) and a lifelong friend of Rees. Brakenreg donated the drawings to the Queensland Art Gallery in 1965. They carry the pragmatic titles, Interior, St Brigid's Church, Red Hill and Exterior, St Brigid's Church, Red Hill. Another sketch, entitled St Brigid's, Red Hill 1917, drawn by Rees the following year, is also in the Queensland Art Gallery Collection. It shows a distant view of the church and appears to be a study for a finished work printed in Art in Australia in 1918.7 Despite presenting contrasting views of the church, the two commissioned drawings, Interior... and Exterior..., employ identical compositional devices. Most obvious are the verticality of the compositions and the receding foreground elements which lead the eye back diagonally to a cathedral wall parallel with the picture plane. Each wall displays a central feature that protrudes at an angle into the picture space — a vestry perpendicular to the external wall of the chancel and an internal balcony with a truncated octagonal awning. The small figures in both drawings impart a dramatic sense of scale to the building, like cameo performers overwhelmed by a colossal backdrop. Washed with dull colours, the works have a soft chromatic effect reminiscent of a faded photograph. Each presents a scene of civilised harmony, drawn from an environment that was already civilised and harmonious — revealing 118 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965