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

53 Queensland’s rich social and political history is the backdrop to how artists have portrayed the state’s people and varied landscapes. Some artists, including Vida Lahey, Kenneth Macqueen and Joe Alimindjin Rootsey, painted landscapes they knew well. Visiting artists and photographers, from Max Dupain to Charles Blackman and Sidney Nolan, focused on what they found striking or unusual. This essay traverses the social, economic and political setting of the era. Brisbane, the state capital, grew rapidly in the 1920s. After the carnage of World War One (1914–18), there was a sense of economic and social change in the air. Queensland’s radical Labor government drew strong support from the Australian Workers’ Union, which came to prominence during the shearers’ strikes of the 1890s, and industrial workers in the larger cities. The progressive policies of the interwar years saw an expansion of government-run secondary schools in a state dominated by private schools, usually under the auspices of Roman Catholic or Protestant churches. This provided educational opportunities in cities and in country towns for families unable to afford private schooling. Successive Labor governments not only invested in education — including schools, technical colleges and the University of Queensland — but also expanded healthcare in 1945 by providing free treatment in government‑ owned hospitals, the first government in Australia to do so. 1 For some decades, the Labor party managed to unite both its Protestant and strongly Irish-affiliated Catholic wings. At the same time, the government also had to placate both its rural support base, represented by the Australian Workers’ Union, and industrial base in the larger factories and on the wharves. These various factions fell out in 1957, when a Catholic breakaway party under the premier, Vince Gair, turned on their erstwhile colleagues. 2 Labor fell from office and conservative governments then ruled the state from 1957 to 1989. For more than three decades, rural and city business interests presided over a government where the rural electorates had much smaller populations than urban seats. Creating the Sunshine State Peter Spearritt Roy Dalgarno , Smoko (detail) 1939