Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

wrote his first edition of Australian Painting, 1788-1960 in the early 1960s, he titled chapters according to the books of the Old Testament — Genesis, Exodus, and so on.3Now, in contrast, Australian art historians are striving to account for the visual arts in ways that do not depend on a single underlying concept, or one redemptive destination. Today the vital importance of different regional interests in art is becoming clearer. The Queensland Art Gallery is the key collector of works by artists from this state, and reflecting on the artistic interests and achievements of Queenslanders is a crucial responsibility of the Gallery. Thus works by leading early artists such as Isaac Walter Jenner, Godfrey Rivers, F. J. Martyn Roberts and the young Lloyd Rees are important to our sense of the artistic and social geography of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Brisbane; the struggle to come to terms with Modernism is evident in the works of long-time expatriate Bessie Gibson and Brisbane-based Vida Lahey and Daphne Mayo; and, from the mid-1950s, works by the powerful modernist painter Jon Molvig show not only his own achievement but also his lasting influence on generations of students and audiences. Building on the work of my predecessors Bettina MacAulay and Candice Bruce, I am the custodian of a living Collection that continues to grow. Some of the Gallery's most recent acquisitions could not be included as the subject of essays in Brought to Light but illustrations of a few of them appear at the beginning of the book. For example, in 1998 the Gallery acquired a rare group of watercolours of Queensland scenes made in the 1850s by the important colonial painter Conrad Martens. They are amongst the very first visual records of the Darling Downs by a professional artist and have remained in the possession of the family which commissioned them ever since. However, despite the long private life of these watercolours as family treasures, connections can be traced between them and important currents in the public history of Australian art over the century and a half since they were made. Through such works the Gallery honours its custodianship of these histories, one connecting thread of which is the abiding Australian passion for picturing the land. If artists were crucial in starting the Queensland Art Gallery Collection, they also carried the burden of scholarship and knowledge about art long before the establishment of university art history courses, formal teaching of theory and history in art schools, and the employment of curators in art museums. For instance artists Lionel Lindsay and Douglas Dundas both published books on the art of Conrad Martens. In turn, Ian Burn wrote in the late 1980s and early 1990s on the enduring importance of the landscape tradition in Australia, outside canonical Modernism as well as within it.4By continuing to explore unexpected interconnections, and the enthusiasms of artists, audiences and scholars, future research on the Australian Collection of the Queensland Art Gallery will yield fresh insights into the cultural life of the city, the state and the country. Endnotes Julie Ewington is Curator, Australian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery 1 Rivers gave Woolshed, New South Wales 1890, still a persuasive testament to rural Industry; Jenner gave Cape Chudleigh, Coast of Labrador 1895, a sublime landscape of the frozen coasts off Canada; and Fristrom gave Duramboi 1893, an oil painting. 2 'Margaret Preston and William Dobell Loan Exhibition', Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 19 March-16 April 1942. 3 Bernard Smith, Australian painting, 1788-1960, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1962. 4 Lionel Lindsay, Conrad Martens: The Man and His Art, 2nd edn, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1968; Douglas Dundas, The Art of Conrad Martens, Macmillan, South Melbourne (Vic.), 1979; Ian Burn, National Life & Landscape: Australian Painting 1900-1940, Bay Books, Sydney, 1990. Left Conrad Martens England/Australia 1801-1878 Killarney, Canning Downs 1854 Watercolour on paper 29.4x43.2cm Purchased 1998 with funds raised through The Conrad Martens Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Appeal and with the assistance of the Queensland Goverment's special Centenary Fund IN T R O D U C T ION 17