Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

Left Daphne Mayo working on a bronze statue of Major-General Sir William Glasgow. Sunday Mail, Brisbane, 21 October 1962, courtesy Fairfax Photo Library An example of Maillol's work as reproduced in Jean Bellette, 'Aristide Maillol', Art in Australia, 1 September 1941, unpag. Right Daphne Mayo Fat man 1940 Bronze, wooden base 29 X 12 X 10.4cm Purchased 1981 Queensland Art Gallery However, in his definitive history of Australian sculpture, Graeme Sturgeon asserts that in Mayo's later work 'it is possible to observe not so much a change in technique as a change in attitude, which makes her a transitional figure'.16In the works created for the Society of Artists' exhibitions in the early 1940s, subdued modernist influences were obvious. Mayo simplified her forms and approached her subject matter in a far more animated manner than had previously been evident. Compared to her public sculpture, these works were almost frivolous. Judith McKay asserts that figures such as Fat man 1940 (QAG) and Two jolly sailors 1944 (University Art Museum, The University of Queensland) can be placed 'among Sydney's most avant- garde sculpture' of this period.17 Mayo's choice of Susannah, a woman persecuted for her tenacity, is a strong, personal statement. Although Mayo had conventionally used biblical references in her public sculpture, her private work was usually less allegorical.18As previously noted, traditional images of Susannah represent only two elders, and Mayo's idiosyncratic inclusion of a third indicates the sculpture's potential metaphoric function — Mayo crowded by the art world, contesting her position within the contemporary scene. When the group of plaster maquettes was exhibited it was praised for its 'neat simplicity and feeling for contour and rhythm'.19It seemed that Mayo's 'modemist' credentials had been tentatively validated. The Susannah group was illustrated in the Society o f Artists Book for 1942, and other small-scale works were reproduced in an essay on Mayo in Sydney Ure Smith's publication Australian Present Day Art (1943) written by her former fiancé Lloyd Rees. Rees describes these objects as 'small figures and groups of great distinction and charm' in which the sculptor has 'modified outward appearances to arrive at a basic sculptural statement of organic form and rhythm'.20 Owing to economic necessity, Mayo was dependent on commissions for academic portraiture, and by 1949 these pressures meant that she was no longer flirting with modernist principles. Mayo chose not to exhibit with other sculptors, including Margel Hinder, Tom Bass and Leonard Shillam, feeling that her work was not compatible with what she considered their more experimental efforts.21 The maquettes of Susannah and some Elders straddle this division between Mayo's domestic and public output. The principal figure became the basis for a life-size plaster of Susannah in 1946. There is no record of the elders being 'sized up'.22The artist kept the plaster in her possession until her death in 1982, when it was gifted to the Queensland Art Gallery, and a successful bronze cast was made in 1995. In the final work, Mayo has avoided depicting Susannah as a victim, and invests her subject with immense dignity. She is captured at the exact moment at which she notices the presence of the elders, but she does not cower. The exclusion of the elders from our view increases the impression of Susannah's solitary strength. Bronwyn Mahoney works as a research assistant at the Queensland Art Gallery and is currently undertaking her doctoral thesis at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. THE JUDGING OF SUSANNAH 199