Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

particularly to Hendrik Kolenburg, Curator of Australian Prints, Drawings and Watercolours, who developed a friendship with the Lymburner family after curating an exhibition of the artist's drawings in Hobart; and Barry Pearce, Senior Curator of Australian Art. The exhibition has particular significance and interest for Brisbane, as Lymburner was Brisbane born and educated-at Brisbane Grammar School ( 1929-33), and later at Brisbane Technical College ( 1934-36), where he was known for his bohemian ways. In his final year at the College, he was awarded the Godfrey Rivers Medal as the top student. He eventually moved to Sydney in 1939, where he became one of Australia's most promising young painters and one of the few early Queensland artists to play an important role in Sydney's contemporary art scene of the 1940s. He had a particular gift for drawing and draughtsmanship. Eager for new challenges, he left for England in 1952. The next eleven years proved desolate and he struggled for existence. His return to Sydney in 1964 did not bring the success of his earlier years. Two years later a stroke ended his artistic career and he died in 1972. His life was characterised by his passionate commitment to his art. In 1941 he wrote to a friend: 'My work is still the governing passion of my life'. The works in this exhibition come from many public galleries (Queensland Art Gallery, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australian National Gallery, Newcastle Regional Art Gallery, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Art Gallery of South Australia) and private lenders (including commercial galleries, Robert Holmes a Court Collection, Perth, and the Sydney Morning Herald). The Queensland Art Gallery work in the exhibition, Waterfront 1945, is one of several Lymburner works in our Collection. A recent acquisition, Bus stop, was generously gifted to the Gallery by The Margaret Olley Trust. In his personal memoir of Francis Lymburner, in the catalogue which accompanies the exhibition, Bernard Smith encapsulates Lymburner's approach to his art and life: If ever a boy believed in Art for Art's sake it was Francis. He lived out his life within that most French of all modern traditions. In that regard, so far as Australia is concerned, only Conder may be compared to him. Though he yearned for success and fame, he loved his own kind of art even more. And that meant he felt he must hold on desperately to his own personal expression of life and remain in direct contact with its lyrical intensity, not by some aesthetic double-dealing in metaphor, paradox, or, God save us, 'quotation', but in responses as direct as he could possibly make them, to what was out there in the theatre, the ballet, the flesh of young women, and the animals in the zoo. 16 Speech at the official opening of 'ANZ presents the Art of Frederick McCubbin 1855-1917', 27 October 1992 NOTE: THIS EXHIBITION, SPONSORED BY THE ANZ BANK, WAS ORGANISED BY THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA AND SUPPORTED BY AUSTRALIAN AIRLINES EXPRESS, AUSTRALIAN AIRLINES AND TEN NETWORK IT WAS SHOWN FROM 28 OCTOBER TO 6 DECEMBER 1992. 81