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

Hints of modernity in Brisbane were overshadowed by a run-down railway system, still primarily pulled by steam trains, and a decrepit tramway system whose demise was hastened by a fire at the Paddington depot in 1962. Trams were abandoned by 1969. Most homes in the inner suburbs were also run-down, from small wooden rental cottages in Woolloongabba to the larger guesthouses found in New Farm and Spring Hill. Both houses and guesthouses were always in need of a lick of paint, and often had a dark and rather foreboding appearance, as depicted in Charles Blackman’s 1951 portrait of himself in front of a Spring Hill boarding house that was almost toppling down. Churches still dominated Queensland’s city and suburban landscapes, including the Spanish Revival Anglican churches on the hills in Hamilton and Woolloongabba. Roman Catholics had a site for a very grand cathedral in Fortitude Valley, but it never came to fruition, so the Anglicans won out with their high and mighty cathedral on Ann Street with its pinkish Helidon sandstone. The Lutherans, hailing from German migrants in the late nineteenth century, were more likely to embrace modern architecture than any other Protestant faith, appointing Dr Karl Langer to design a strikingly modernist church at St Peters Lutheran College in Indooroopilly and another in the city centre. A-frame churches were built in a number of regional towns from the late 1950s into the 1960s. Architects embraced some church design jobs when congregations wanted something modern. Even in the late 1950s, Brisbane still had the appearance of an overgrown country town, with the colonial Parliament House (1868–88) almost abutting the corner of George and Alice streets, boasting the Bellevue Hotel and the Queensland Club, both relics of the age of the squatter. In Fortitude Valley and in central Brisbane, large old-fashioned department stores, WG Grant , Suburban street , Nundah (detail) c.1930s Charles Blackman , (Self-portrait in front of a boarding house, Spring Hill) (detail) 1951 Construction of Centenary Pool, Spring Hill, Brisbane July 1960