Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

the year in which Godfrey Rivers arrived in town, Brisbane was the fastest growing city in Australia.8 During these years Brisbane entered into a period of extensive building programs and substantial economic expansion. Considerable progress was achieved, but at the expense of cultural pursuits; despite the changes, Brisbane was thought to lack finish. Much to the chagrin of many of its inhabitants, the city was still perceived as a new, brawny, uneven and half-finished' frontier town, lagging behind its southern counterparts in gentility and cultural sophistication.9 Perhaps nowhere was this unevenness more evident than in Brisbane's arts scene; the cultural tastes of much of Brisbane's population during the period have been described as distinctly 'middlebrow'.10 In the absence of government-funded intellectual or cultural institutions such as a public gallery, a public library or a university, appreciation of the arts fell to that very small section of Brisbane's society that had the time, the money, the social access and the inclination to patronise organisations such as the Royal Geographical Society, or to pursue interests in theatre, music and art. Consequently, the development of 'high brow' cultural institutions had to overcome considerable public and administrative apathy, if not direct resistance. The setting up of the Queensland Art Society in 1887 represented one attempt to cultivate local support for the arts. The Society arranged exhibitions for local artists through the introduction of its Annual Exhibitions from 1888, and also played an important role as an advocate for the endowment of an art gallery in Brisbane. A number of prominent citizens started to lend their support to the project, and at the opening of the Society's inaugural Annual Exhibition both Lady Musgrave, the governor's wife and patroness of the Society, and Society member (later president) D. S. Thistlewayte made speeches calling for the foundation of a public gallery 'such as they enjoy in the capitals of the neighbouring colonies'.1 Given that the Society was viewed as a definitive move towards the establishment of a gallery, it is significant that Godfrey Rivers was elected its president in 1892, just one year after his arrival in Brisbane.12 Rivers's appointment as art master at the Brisbane Technical College had prompted his move to Brisbane, having emigrated to Sydney from Great Britain about two years earlier. He was appointed to the teaching position in preference to sixteen other candidates, Tom Roberts amongst them, after the vacancy was advertised Australia­ wide. Both his position as the art master at the Technical College and his early training at the Slade School in London lent Rivers authority and glamour within Brisbane's burgeoning arts community, as local artist and a former student of Rivers, Gwendolyn Grant, recalled: The opening of the Queensland Art Society annual exhibition was one of the events of the year, and Godfrey Rivers, as president, in a top hat, and a frock coat, escorting his excellency to the dais, was a sight worth seeing. At that time Mr Rivers was, I suppose, about the only 'real artist', as people say, in Brisbane. He was a 'Slade' man and had exhibited at the RA [Royal Academy] and the Salon, so could speak with authority on art matters, about which ordinary people knew little. Therefore he was looked up to, and his advice asked on every subject.13 Rivers also enjoyed a position of rank in Brisbane society. Within a year he had been elected to the exclusive Queensland Club,14whose members included past and current premiers, members of parliament, successful businessmen, professionals, and other well-connected individuals, and in 1901 he made an 'excellent' marriage to Selina Bell, daughter of the distinguished local surgeon, Dr Hugh Bell. The genteel and elegant lifestyle of the Bell family may be surmised from Rivers's work Shall we join the ladies ï, exhibited at the Queensland Art Society in 1898, which depicts Selina Rivers listening to a woman playing the piano.15This theme is also picked up in Rivers's small watercolour Woman at a piano c.1886-90 (QAG). As in the southern capitals, the élite of Brisbane attempted to emulate the social graces and lifestyles of the British leisured 90 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965