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

This annual pilgrimage to the coast, reflecting the fact that most industrial workers only got two or three weeks’ holiday a year, also caught the imagination of artists. Some, notably Kenneth Macqueen, were drawn to the natural beauty of sand and water, and the tempting patterns made by coastal vegetation. Macqueen excelled in his representation of pandanus trees and their exotic aerial roots. Other artists, including Elaine Haxton and Betty Quelhurst, revelled in the opportunities provided by populated beaches, captivated by the colour and movement of bathers and their accoutrements, from beach umbrellas to surfboards. Until the 1950s, regulations on bathing costumes were quite strict, requiring men as well as women to be covered from neck to knee. 8 By the 1950s, it became obvious that Brisbane, with its often-smelly Moreton Bay swimming enclosures set amid mangroves, had no surf beaches and looked dowdy and dull. Brisbanites, with rapidly growing car ownership, could readily get to the Gold or Sunshine coasts — as they became known — for a weekend trip. This embrace of surf beaches can be seen in the colour covers of the best-selling Courier-Mail Annual . The American-style motel, providing a self-contained bathroom and car space, challenged the cloying atmosphere of guesthouse culture, which only welcomed married couples, families and well-behaved single adults. Motels, with their aggressively Joe Rootsey depicted the north Queensland Country in which he was born, and the landscape around Cooktown where he worked as a stockman. During World War Two, more ‘city slickers’ spent time in the outback in army training camps, and after the war a growing number of artists, captivated by the state’s stark landscapes, attempted to capture its harsh realities. Holidays at the coast City and country folk alike flocked to coastal guesthouses in the hot and humid summer months. Many came by train to Manly and Sandgate on Moreton Bay. The more adventurous also set out for Tweed Heads and Coolangatta on a train line that opened in 1903. Here they could sample surf beaches on the ‘South Coast’. Holiday-makers heading for the near north coast (Caloundra, Mooloolaba) had to catch the inland train on the Gympie Line, and thence a horse-drawn coach or, from the 1920s, buses to get to the beach. Religious groups built their own guesthouses, while large camping grounds catered to the less well-off. Joe Rootsey , (Wakooka, inland from Barrow Point) (detail) 1959 Joe Rootsey , (Looking over Cooktown) (detail) c.1958 Cover of The Courier-Mail Annual 1956