Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

IN FROM THE COLD Leonard Shillam Reclining woman Bronwyn Mahoney Facing page Leonard Shillam Australia b.1915 Reclining woman 1942 Sandstone 64x108x56cm Purchased 1994 with funds from Grace Davies and Nell Davies through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Above Reclining woman in the garden at the Johnstone Gallery, Bowen Hills, Brisbane, c.1960. Photograph by Arthur Davenport, from Johnstone Gallery scrapbooks, courtesy James Hardie Library, Brisbane Reclining woman being transported to the Johnstones' home, Bowen Hills, Brisbane, in 1954. Photograph by Arthur Davenport, from Johnstone Gallery scrapbooks, courtesy James Hardie Library, Brisbane R eclining woman 1942 (Queensland Art Gallery) was situated for several decades in the gardens of Brian and Marjorie Johnstones influential contemporary art gallery and residence in Bowen Hills, Brisbane. A gift from the sculptor Leonard Shillam to the Johnstones after their move to the suburb in 1954, the stone figure spent forty years collecting moss and lichen, merging with its tropical surrounds. Brian Johnstone dubbed the sculpture 'Eve', perhaps indicating his feeling that it somehow belonged 'to' the garden.1 During exhibition openings and at parties, Reclining woman was climbed on by children and used as a surface to rest drinks on — she was part of the life of the gallery, a silent witness to the gatherings that were such a vital part of the Brisbane art scene during these years. In 1964 she even made it into the pages of Vogue magazine.2 In 1994 the Queensland Art Gallery purchased Reclining woman at auction, removing her to the 'hallowed' spaces of the museum, where the sculpture's own history was modified through conservation work, and where it is now frequently displayed as part of the 'story' of Australian art. Leonard Shillam first showed with the Johnstone Gallery in 1952, a period when he was arguably at his height as a sculptor, receiving commissions and regularly participating in solo and group exhibitions. The Johnstone Gallery was the most innovative commercial gallery in Brisbane in the 1950s, and one of the leading modern galleries in Australia, dealing in the works of Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd and Ray Crooke, among many others. Shillam had trained at the Central Technical College, Brisbane, where the emphasis was on acquiring skills in drawing. Though there was limited artistic activity in the city at the time, there was a great deal of private research and exploration. Shillam, his future wife Kathleen O'Neill (with whom he would form one of the most successful and long­ standing partnerships in Australian art history) and fellow artists Francis Lymburner and Will Smith, shared a studio in 1935, modelling for one another, and stockpiling art books, including British poet and critic Herbert Read's Henry Moore: Sculptor, which was one of their initial experiences of modern art.3 In 1937 Leonard Shillam was awarded a scholarship from the Carnegie Corporation to study in London. Owing to the outbreak of war in Europe, he was able to complete only one year of his course, returning home in 1939. However, during the year in London he studied with a number of influential instmctors — drawing with Bernard Meninsky and Leon Underwood, who had taught Henry Moore; modelling with Eric Schilsky; drawing with Vivian Pitchforth at the Westminster Technical Institute; and carving sculpture at the London Central School of Arts with Blair Hughes-Stanton and John Skeaping. A notable modern sculptor, Skeaping invited Shillam to be his assistant in the summer of 1939, teaching him the fundamentals of stone carving.4 On his return to Brisbane Shillam was more sure of his direction as a sculptor. He had been exposed to the work of Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, Jean Arp, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Jacob Epstein, and his own output consistently relied on both figurative and conceptual models — it would never become fully abstracted. Shillam's sculpture has always reflected an amalgam of influences, not only from the art world, but from nature, and he sees no difference between abstraction and realism — 'sculpture is purely a matter of arranging shapes'.5 Nevertheless, the impact of the art of Henry Moore on the Brisbane sculptor cannot be overemphasised. Moore was the focus of early studies by Shillam, both in Brisbane and overseas. The 1934 text on Moore by Herbert Read, which had been so influential for Shillam, featured thirty-six illustrated plates, ten of which dealt with reclining figures (sculptures and drawings) dramatically similar to Shillam's later work. As Glenn Cooke has demonstrated, the artist's debt to Moore was not overlooked 178 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965