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

43 writers, including Collinson, Barrett Reid and, significantly, poet Barbara Patterson, who would become Blackman’s wife and inspire some of his most memorable artworks). 24 As Blackman would recall: Brisbane happened to me when I was growing up a little bit . . . [it] was an exciting place then, because Barjai was here . . . and because people were all doing something. 25 Having seen and been inspired by Nolan’s ‘Mrs Fraser’ paintings at the Moreton Galleries, Blackman went on to develop a style influenced by Nolan’s untutored and expressive approach, which he used to capture the city’s unique qualities. The inner-city suburb of Spring Hill, favoured by artists at the time for its inexpensive lodgings, drew Blackman’s eye and formed the subject of several paintings, including (Self-portrait in front of a boarding house, Spring Hill) (pp.150–1) and Interior view, Spring Hill Brisbane, both 1951. These artworks evince Blackman’s affection for Queensland’s distinctive architecture and its subtropical climate, conveying the heat of the northern sun: in the former artwork through sunlight and strong shadow, and in the latter through the latticework and window slats designed to keep the heat out. The interior view includes two figures becoming one, alluding to Blackman’s impending marriage to Patterson, which would soon take place in Melbourne. In 1951, Margaret Cilento returned to Brisbane, having studied at the East Sydney Technical College (where Margaret Olley was a friend and fellow student) and then in New York and Paris. In New York, Cilento was fortunate to connect with artists from the Subjects of the Artist School, including abstract expressionist Robert Motherwell and colour-field painter Mark Rothko. While the artworks that Cilento made following her return do not reveal obvious associations with the avant-garde paintings of these artists, there is something of their style in her expressive, gestural mark‑making and in the bold colours she employed in watercolours such as House at Annerley Junction 1951 (p.145) and Study for ‘Street in Spring Hill’ 1953 (p.144). Cilento influenced the direction of art through her own work and through the painting classes she held in the basement studio of St Mary’s Anglican Church at Kangaroo Point, which John Rigby would inherit after she left for England in 1954. According to art historian Dr Nancy Underhill, it is Cilento, rather than Jon Molvig, who should be credited as having introduced Abstract Expressionism to Brisbane. 26 Margaret Olley returned to Brisbane in 1953, the year before Cilento departed the city. Olley had spent the previous five years in Europe travelling and studying in Paris, bringing back with her an aesthetic that revealed her admiration for the work of French intimists such as Édouard Vuillard (1868–1940) and Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947). Brian Johnstone, Marjorie Johnstone and Margaret Olley at the Johnstone Gallery 1957 Charles Blackman , Interior view, Spring Hill Brisbane (detail) 1951