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

67 Kathleen Shillam , (Banksia flower) (detail) c.1950s–60s (pp.68–9) Kenneth Macqueen , Harvesting scene (detail) c.1935 (p.70) WG Grant , Venetian blinds (detail) c.1946–51 it included more than 100 pages on early exploration and the problems of the ‘infant settlement’; 150 pages on beef, wool, sugar and mining; and another 100 pages on ‘political and economic growth’. Perhaps surprisingly for the time, it also included a chapter entitled ‘The Aborigines: The guerilla war among the fragmentary Aboriginal frontiers and the attempt at Rehabilitation and Assimilation’. On an elaborate dust jacket, graphic artist Frank Jesson picked out pictorial milestones in the progress of the state. 9 Successive state governments, of whichever political hue, have always promoted Queensland in glowing terms. Adopting the nomenclature of the ‘Sunshine State’, governments and tourist promoters have been trading on it ever since. 10 Notes Population growth, employment patterns and housing stock data was drawn from Centre for the Government of Queensland, Queensland Places , 2018, <www.queenslandplaces.com.au >, for this essay. The author wishes to thank Dianne Byrne and Fiona Gardiner for assistance with local content, and Anne Gilmore for a timely structural edit. 1 Raymond Evans, A History of Queensland , Cambridge University Press, New York, 2007, p.94. 2 BJ Costar, ‘Vincent Clare (Vince) Gair (1901–1980)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography , 2006, <https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gair-vincent-clare-vince-10267 >, viewed March 2025. 3 See Glenn R Cooke, ‘Search for an icon’, in Peter Spearritt (ed.), Seeing Brisbane 1881–2001 , Brisbane Institute, Brisbane, 2002, pp.21–30. 4 Renamed the William Jolly Bridge on 5 July 1955, in memory of William Alfred Jolly CMG, the first Lord Mayor of Greater Brisbane. 5 See Margaret Cook, A River with a City Problem: A History of Brisbane’s Floods , University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 2019. Floods were photographed by both amateur and press photographers. 6 The author often stayed with his paternal grandparents in Grove Street, Woolloongabba, abutting the railway line and overlooking a boot factory, and listened to neighbours bemoaning the construction of Torbreck. In 1959, the Queensland Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects published the invaluable guide Buildings of Queensland (Jacaranda Press, Brisbane). 7 Peter Spearritt, ‘Suburban cathedrals: The rise of the drive-in shopping centre’, in Graeme Davison, Tony Dingle & Seamus O’Hanlon (eds), The Cream Brick Frontier: Histories of Australian Suburbia , Monash University Publications in History, Melbourne, 1995, pp.94–7. 8 Jim Davidson & Peter Spearritt, Holiday Business: Tourism in Australia Since 1870 , Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2000, p.141–8. 9 Raphael Cilento & Clem Lack (eds), Triumph in the Tropics: An Historical Sketch of Queensland , The Centenary Celebrations Council of Queensland, Brisbane, 1959. 10 ‘The Sunshine State, 1960’, 15 November 2010, Queensland Historical Atlas , <https://www.qhatlas.com.au/photograph/sunshine-state-1960 >, viewed March 2025.