Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

IN CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP Christian Waller and Napier Waller Anne Kirker Facing page Napier Waller Australia 1893-1972 The man in black c.1926 Colour linocut on smooth cream wove paper on cardboard 30.6 X 17.7cm Purchased 1927 Queensland Art Gallery Right Napier Waller. Photograph by Jack Cato, C.1932, courtesy John Cato M ervyn Napier Waller and Christian Waller met as „ students at the National Gallery School in Melbourne during the period 1910-14 and married in 1915. Both artists stood apart from the more familiar paths followed by their contemporaries in Australia; they were not painters concerned with issues of nationalism, nor with symbolist flights of fantasy. The British Arts and Crafts Movement, fuelled by William Morris and his Utopian Socialist beliefs, was an initial touchstone for their singular approach. For Napier Waller it led to the very public art of murals, mosaics and stained glass and a belief in the artists responsibility to the wider community. His monumental figure compositions based on classical and mythological themes decorate civic buildings in Melbourne, Canberra and Perth while the later stained glass works grace churches throughout the country. In the case of Christian Waller (née Yandell) the Movement encouraged a career in the applied arts, where she specialised in designs for stained glass windows and illustrated books. She stands as one ofAustralia's most significant and original religious artists. From the start, the Wallers shared a love of literature (Homer, Virgil, the Arthurian legends and, especially in Christians case, Coleridge and Poe) and had a common knowledge of biblical writings. They pursued the practice of linocut printing when it was in its infancy in Australia, studied stained glass manufacture in England and later collaborated on several monumental projects. The English journal The Studio kept the Wallers informed about recent developments in European art practice until they travelled to England and Italy in 1929 and 1930 and experienced at first hand not only aspects of British Modernism but the Egyptian collection at the British Museum and the mosaics at Ravenna.1This trip proved decisive in clarifying the future direction and mature styles of these two artists. In some ways, there would be divergences in their development, with Christian following her spiritual inclinations and becoming more inward-looking and Napier becoming increasingly worldly and public-minded. These linocuts — Napier Wallers The man in black c.1926 (Queensland Art Gallery) and two illustrations from Christian Wallers 'The great breath' series of 1932 (QAG) — testify to their common interest in elevating the applied arts to an exemplary level, but the images also express very obvious differences in aspiration. As one commentator observed, Napier's .. self portrait linocut The Man in Black of c.1926 is that of a playboy not a saint'.2 Napier Waller is credited with being the first known artist to make linocuts in Australia.3He first exhibited examples of these relief prints during 1923 in Melbourne and at Burlington House, London, in the comprehensive 'Exhibition of Australian Art'. The early black and white linocuts show a debt to William Morris's Kelmscott Press productions which, when set up in 1891, had the express aim of making beautiful, limited edition books. Harking back to medieval times, Napier Waller, like Morris's contemporaries Walter Crane and Edward Burne-Jones, cut intricate visions of a heroic past with the engraving tool. Rather than the woodblock technique employed 128 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965