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

20 Under a Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s–1950s Margaret Cilento , Study for ‘Street in Spring Hill’ 1953 Margaret Olley , Allamandas 1 c.1955–58 (pp.22–3) Betty Quelhurst , The convenience store, Breakfast Creek (detail) 1955 audiences, despite the efforts of artists like Mayo, Lahey, Cilento and, later, Jon Molvig, as well as gallerist Brian Johnstone through the Marodian Gallery (1950–52) and the Johnstone Gallery run with his wife Marjorie (1952–72). There are moments of lyrical beauty here in Margaret Olley’s still-life Allamandas I c.1955–58, and in the Fauvist colour of Vincent Brown’s Back of houses, Spring Hill c.1945 (pp.140–1). And moments too of introspective darkness, as found in Charles Blackman’s (Self-portrait in front of a boarding house, Spring Hill) 1951 (pp.150–1). It is also well established that the conservative collecting practices of the Queensland Art Gallery held back the rising tide of Modernism in Queensland. Nonetheless, the movement’s driving tenets emerged organically as, for example, when photographers and painters followed the progress of new bridges being built in Brisbane to serve fast-growing populations. Venturing well beyond the capital into the state’s arid inland, and ranging across its fertile rural and coastal edges, these works of art show Queensland, as it was, ‘Under a Modern Sun’. I would like to warmly acknowledge Samantha Littley, Curator, Australian Art, for the light she has shone on Queensland Modernism with this project, both in her astute selection of works in the exhibition and essay in this publication. I thank Samantha for her sensitive exploration of this pivotal moment in Queensland art, which builds on the extensive scholarship of the late Glenn R Cooke, the Gallery’s foundation Curator of Decorative Arts and later Research Curator, Queensland Heritage. I also recognise the important contributions made by former QAGOMA colleagues Michael Hawker, Angela Goddard, Bruce Johnson McLean, Judith McKay and the late Bettina MacAulay, among others. Likewise, Emeritus Professor Peter Spearritt has contributed a lively account of the sociopolitical context in which these works were made. I thank too the many generous donors who, over the course of decades, have gifted or supported the purchase of works featured in this exhibition. I further acknowledge the Gallery’s deep appreciation of the exhibition’s Major Benefactor, the John Allpass Charitable Foundation, as well as the Gordon Darling Foundation’s generous support of this publication.