QAG-2015-21

LURE of THE SUN : Charles Blackman in Queensland LURE of THE SUN: Charles Blackman in Queensland page 31. page 30. Laurence Hope exhibition catalogue cover, Moreton Galleries, 1949 / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library LAURENCE HOPE Sleeper 1946 Watercolour / 29.2 x 23.8cm / Gift of Mrs Pamela Crawford (née Seeman), 1988 / Collection: The University of Queensland / Photograph: Carl Warner Charles Blackman (left) with Laurence Hope at Hope’s exhibition at Moreton Galleries, Brisbane, 1949 / Image courtesy: Laurence Hope As Barbara Blackman has written, ‘Rebellious in our motives, we nevertheless wore our stockings, hats and gloves and hired the ballroom of the Temperance Hotel Canberra for the exhibitions’. 8 A more bohemian late-night venue was found in Frank Mitchell’s Pink Elephant cafe. Charles Blackman is known to have ‘gravitated to the Pink Elephant as soon as he hit town’, whereas young women writers and poets were warned about the ‘unwholesome characters’ who might frequent it. 9 Another meeting place for the young artists and writers at this time was the Ballad Bookshop, established by Barrie Reid and Charles Osborne in late 1947 and located on the first floor of Bowman House near the corner of Adelaide and Edward Streets, at the time of Charles Blackman’s visit. As Osborne later recalled: We started the Ballad Bookshop because we thought there was no bookshop in Brisbane where the best of modern poetry and fiction could be found. Peter Porter . . . was a customer. 10 The Ballad Bookshop’s offerings of avant-garde books and Boyd pottery benefited from Reid’s personal contacts with Max Harris in Adelaide and the Boyd family at Murrumbeena in Melbourne. Reid, who worked for the State Library of Queensland, was appointed in May 1948 as the custodian of the Carnegie Art Reference Library, located near the George Street law courts. 11 The Art Reference Library, aside from its collection of art books and reproductions, also became a modest exhibition venue; Laurence Hope had two solo exhibitions there prior to his solo exhibition at the Moreton Galleries in 1949. Charles Blackman’s visits to the Ballad Bookshop were often to collect the key to the Art Reference Library. In Brisbane, Blackman was befriended by Laurence Hope, of similar age and with similarly precarious finances. 12 Friends with Reid and Osborne, they made good use of the Art Reference Library. Reid recalled that Hope, and somewhat later Blackman, slept in a back room, which was strictly against the rules. Blackman recalled: ‘I used to creep in like some sort of mouse and sit up reading art books all night’. 13 When homeless, Hope had slept at Miya Studio, creating friction and testing friendships. 14 Such a dispute appears to have resulted in Hope being more closely aligned with the Ballad Bookshop, and Blackman may have followed suit. However, Blackman attended Miya Studio life-drawing sessions, as his 1948 Sketch of Don Savage testifies. Hope recalled that he admired Blackman’s ‘Gaudier-Brzeska- style drawings’, being ‘very impressed by the line drawings’. 15 Before coming to Brisbane, Blackman had worked as a ‘cadet process artist’ with the Sydney Sun and had attended evening classes at the East Sydney Technical College (1943–46) and, with Lois Hunter, life drawing classes at SORA in Sydney. 16 Of the two 1948 drawings by Blackman in this exhibition, one is Giant tortoise: Brisbane Botanical Gardens 1948, comprising a page of rapid ink sketches — in the manner of Henri Gaudier- Brzeska — of the famous Galapagos tortoise Harriet, reputedly collected by the naturalist Sir Charles Darwin. 17 The other is his sketch of Savage, depicting fellow Miya Studio artist Donald (Don) Savage, who later carved a career in the French fashion industry. 18 Hope has described Blackman’s drawings as ‘marvellous accomplished drawings’, noting that a ‘whole stack’ of drawings were later burnt by his landlord in Melbourne. 19 Hope also recalled that he witnessed Blackman making his first painting in the room in Spring Hill — a flowerpot on a windowsill; however, Blackman’s focus on drawing continued until he moved to Melbourne in 1951. 20 Blackman’s development as an artist was undoubtedly influenced by his time in Brisbane; significantly, it was here that he saw Nolan’s paintings for the first time. 21 Hope and Reid had met Nolan when they hitchhiked to Melbourne and Adelaide in 1946–47, and visited John and Sunday Reed at Heide. There they met Albert Tucker and Joy Hester, and witnessed Nolan working on the Ned Kelly paintings. 22 Nolan painted portraits of the two visitors; Hope’s is now held in the Art Gallery of South Australia and Reid’s in the Queensland Art Gallery. For Hope and Reid, it was a deeply formative experience. Reid later said, ‘I saw real painting, free and authentic, for the first time’. 23