Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

Left Charles Conder The Buddha fan 1905 Watercolour and gouache on silk 25.5 X 64cm Purchased 1954 Queensland Art Gallery Right Charles Conder Figures on a beach c.late 19th century Oil on canvas 27.8 X 35.8cm Purchased 1980 Queensland Art Gallery simultaneously tinged with melancholy and wistfulness at the impossibility of this as an attainable, permanent state. For all the gaiety, the escapism and the sense of richesse in the audience, we are drawn to the figure of Pierrot, the indelicate, simplistic butt of jokes, who may aspire to, but could never achieve, acceptance in the world that he unsuccessfully seeks to entertain. The screen's darker lower panels show Pierrot removing his mask and brandishing a golden cane. Away from the rarefied air of the self-absorbed aristocracy above, he stands alone, fully lit in a forest clearing — perhaps a metaphor for the underworld The screen itself would have made an elegant addition to a stylish home or a refined boudoir, insinuating itself into the most intimate of bourgeois places. Screens, like the flirtatious fans that Conder frequently painted, imply a desire for privacy and secrecy: it is something to place between the unmasked person and the world, a shield or masque to hide behind when needed, when whispers, secrets or expressions are not deemed to be for public consumption. For Conder, this was away of entering the aristocraticworld as if by proxy, on a most intimate level. Rather than featuring a painting on display for public consumption, the screen serves a double function of aesthetic gesamtkunstwerk and of the demi-monde. It is here that he can reveal himself. On either side of the unmasked Pierrot, in two oval panels, are painted heraldic shields adorned with roses and garlanded with strings of pearls — symbols of passion and purity. Falling from these are loosely tied or unravelling knots, and above are the implements of lovemaking: musical instruments, arrows and a flame, of passion longed for and lost. One is tempted to ask: which of these panels represents the return of Pierrot? Pierrot returning to the stage, unnoticed, or returning to the underworld, again unnoticed, but unmasked? also as an aid to privacy through hiding any possible indelicacies of the body. In September 1897 Carfax Gallery was established in London to exhibit the works of French-inspired English artists such as Walter Sickert, Augustus John, William Rothenstein and Conder whose work had found little interest among the established galleries.7On 13 May 1899 Conder's first solo exhibition opened there; Le Retour de Pierrot was included in the catalogue and was subsequently sold to the collector B. L. Bisgood.8A fewweeks before his solo show opened, Conder wrote excitedly to William (later Sir William) Rothenstein, one of Carfax's founders: I have just sent off the things to be forwarded to you & they should arrive the day after tomorrow — The screen is not yet absolutely mounted at the back & I fancied that had better be absolutely finished in London as something might always happen in transit & there is scarcely anything to do — Maple made it &should have come up today to fit in the back. Several people seem very keen on it while it was here Coquelin &Thaulow among others — Blunt is sending 5 fans — I am sending one no 6 in the enclosed list & expect to send more almost at once & an oil painting.9 For several years Carfax proved to be a financial saviour to the perennially impoverished Conder. His exhibitions there were successful, and from 1898 he was assured of a regular income through Carfax agreeing to purchase all his paintings on silk.10In 1902 the relationship dissolved under acrimonious circumstances, but by then Conder's reputation in England as an artist and personality was finally established. As a result, his skills in decoration were employed in the rooms of wealthy clients such as Sir Edmund Davis, Mr Pickford Waller and Mrs Dalhousie Young in London. Towards the end of his life, Conder found an entry into the world that had eluded him for decades. In 1901 he married the niece of one of his students, the wealthy widow Stella Maris Belford, who was devoted to him. For a brief few years they led the life he had painted, as the centre of a fashionable social élite in London. Five years later his illness returned, with more severe attacks of the same paralysis he had suffered in 1891. By early 1907 his case was deemed hopeless, and two years later he died of 'brain fever' (a euphemism for the final stages of syphilis) at home, nursed by his wife. Robyn Daw is an education offlcer/volunteer guide lecturer at the Queensland Art Gallery. THE ILL-FATED PIERROT: Charles Conder in Europe 83