Under a Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s–1950s

100 Under a Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s–1950s 101 BETTY QUELHURST A contemporary of Margaret Olley and Margaret Cilento, Betty Quelhurst contributed to the development of art in Queensland both through her own practice and as a teacher. Her studies at the Central Technical College (1935–39) under FJ Martyn Roberts and Cyril Gibbs laid the foundations for her appreciation of drawing and design. Following service in the Royal Australian Air Force during World War Two, Quelhurst taught at the College herself before moving to Melbourne to study at the National Gallery School in Melbourne (1947–50). While there, she developed her skills as a painter under the tuition of renowned portraitist William Dargie. 1 Quelhurst’s studies were first financed under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme, and then by the Half Dozen Group of Artists’ Travelling Scholarship, which she won in 1949. While at the National Gallery School, she was awarded the Hugh Ramsay Portrait Prize and the Sara Levi Prize for the most outstanding student. 2 While her paintings from this period were predominantly portraits, Quelhurst also painted semirural landscapes of the outskirts of Melbourne. She subsequently funded her own travels to Europe, studying briefly at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and visiting galleries in Paris, London, Rome and Madrid before returning to Brisbane in 1953. Painted two years after Quelhurt’s European sojourn, The convenience store, Breakfast Creek 1955 is a fine example of the everyday scenes she was drawn to, demonstrating her preference for workaday buildings in the inner suburbs over the city’s more formal architecture. At this time, Quelhurt began teaching at her alma mater, the Central Technical College, and Breakfast Creek was one of the locations she chose to hold her sketching classes. Quelhurst also travelled frequently to the Gold Coast and, from 1961, maintained a studio at Tugun. The region’s holiday lifestyle would become a recurring subject in her work. Notes 1 Stephen Rainbird, ‘Betty Quelhurst’, in Breaking New Ground: Brisbane Women Artists of the Mid Twentieth Century , Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Art Museum, Brisbane, 2007, p.41. 2 ‘Betty Quelhurst’, Design & Art Australia Online , 1999, <https://www.daao.org.au/bio/ betty-quelhurst/biography/#:~:text=Betty%20Quelhurst%20was%20a%20painter,life%20 studying%2C%20painting%20and%20teaching>, viewed December 2024. Betty Quelhurst , The convenience store, Breakfast Creek 1955