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

257 JON MOLVIG Following service in World War Two, Newcastle-born artist Jon Molvig studied at the East Sydney Technical College where his teachers included the social realist Roy Dalgarno. More pivotal, however, were Molvig’s travels through Europe from 1949 to 1952. While in Oslo, he was drawn to the emotive artworks of painters such as Edvard Munch (1863–1944) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), later telling his friend Laurie Thomas (Director of the Queensland Art Gallery from 1961 to 1967), ‘I think the people who interested me most in my approach to painting were the German and Norwegian expressionists’. 1 Having spent time in Brisbane in 1953, and been impressed by WG Grant’s expressive, highly coloured watercolours, Molvig settled permanently in the capital two years later. 2 He proceeded to carve out a national reputation, eschewing the art centres of Melbourne and Sydney. His infectious presence was soon felt by the city’s aspiring artists who gravitated to classes he held in the basement of St Mary’s Anglican Church, Kangaroo Point. Molvig brought with him an experimental and fervent attitude that would inspire a generation of local painters, among them Joy Roggenkamp and Gordon Shepherdson. Drawn to explore Central Australia’s unique qualities, Molvig travelled to the region in 1958 with fellow painter and partner Maryke Degeus. Departing from Melbourne, the pair journeyed by road to Adelaide, Port Augusta and then on to camp near Uluru, with Molvig painting en route and on his return to Brisbane. 3 The artworks Molvig made at that time, which would become known as his ‘Centralian’ series, were shown at the Johnstone Gallery in Brisbane in 1959. The cattle grid 1958 (pp.258–9) is one of the paintings inspired by this trip and effectively captures the landscape’s sparse, arid character. Notes 1 Jon Molvig, quoted in Betty Churcher, Molvig: The Lost Antipodean , Allen Lane, Ringwood, p.32. 2 Glenn R Cooke, ‘Helge John (Jon) Molvig (1923–1970)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography , 2006, <https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/molvig-helge-john-jon-11145 >, viewed December 2024. 3 Michael Hawker, ‘Jon Molvig: A restlessness of vision’, in Jon Molvig: Maverick , Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2019, p.15. Jon Molvig , A ballad of native stockmen no.2 1959