Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

for the founding of a public art gallery in Brisbane: The building should be situated, if possible, in the public garden or park, which might contain the botanical and horticultural gardens, and also the zoological gardens, and so make the one institution minister to the success of the others.13 His was a typical late-Victorian view of such an institution — worthy, educational, inspirational and fundamentally of serious intent. Jenner assumed that his own work would figure largely in the proposed National Gallery. He offered to: ... commence the painting of a large picture to commemorate an incident of some interest in connection with this colony with a freak of nature and with myself, which I shall be happy to present to the colony as the nucleus of the future national collection of works of art.14 It is indeed remarkable that an artist who at this stage had been in the colony barely one year fancied his paintings as the centre-piece of the first public collection in the State — we are given a clear indication both of his confidence in his own ability and his judgement of those artists already working in Brisbane. Jenner led a deputation to the Premier, Sir Thomas Mcllwraith, requesting the establishment of a public gallery, but it was some years before the idea gained official support. Jenner's promised gift to the finally established Queensland National Art Gallery in 1895, Cape Chudleigh, Coast of Labrador 1895, imaginatively records the search by Sir John Franklin for the Northwest Passage. Recollections of a voyage to Lapland, Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen in the early 1850s provided Jenner with the basis for this work.15 Within the restricted opportunities of 1880s Queensland, Jenner did quite well. Of course his continued promotion of a public gallery may have been partly related to his need to have a space to display his more sober works. Though not history paintings in the strict sense of the term, many of them are commemorative, including Cape Chudleigh, Coast of Labrador, in that they describe certain historic events. As art historian Bernard Smith has remarked, history painting requires a gallery or public building system for its dissemination.16 Jenner seems to have walked a fine line between his cultivation of the Brisbane establishment and his privately expressed despair at the level of appreciation he found in the city. Confiding to a friend in England, Jenner wrote that: ... with respect to the thick mass of ignorance through which one has to wade in the matter of art in this country, the people here cannot see colour except as Rad, Bloo and Yaller [sic]. They cannot see any other intermediate colours and tints.17 Above Isaac Walter Jenner View of Brisbane 1885 Oil on wood panel 21.7x52.5cm Purchased 1986 Queensland Art Gallery Right Isaac Walter Jenner Cape Chudleigh, Coast of Labrador 1895 Oil on canvas on composition board 76.5 X 126.9cm Gift of the artist 1895 Queensland Art Gallery Jenner's oft-repeated jibes about the barrenness of Queensland art prior to his own arrival cannot have endeared him to Clarke. Their public feud reached its heights in the days after the opening of the Queensland Art Society's first exhibition in 1888. Clarke derided the content and quality of the exhibition, with much of his fault-finding directed in particular at Jenner: At the late art exhibition, loan pictures, copies, and other works — some new, but many old stagers that crop up at every exhibition, were mixed up in a most striking manner. The local work was chiefly foreign, to use an apparent paradox. Queensland was left almost entirely out in the cold, and the regulation examples of British scenery loomed largely on the walls. Where does the Australian or educational character of such an exhibition come in?18 Clarke died in 1890, and in 1891 he was replaced at the Technical College by R. Godfrey Rivers. Rivers's credentials from Londons Slade School were even more impressive than Clarkes and his effect more lasting on Jenner.19By this time Jenner had been the senior figure in Brisbane art for seven years. His paintings, whether of British or Australian subjects, were popularly acclaimed, and he had put himself to the fore in local art politics. However, Godfrey Rivers came to Queensland with an 'official' sanction to take control of artistic matters in Brisbane. 56 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965