As promised , art correspondent Ponsonby Willis has produced a most unexpected Brisbane connection with legendary King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
The above bookplate portraying Sir Lancelot in an assignation with Queen Guinevere is from the great art library of pioneering Queensland medical practitioner James Vincent Duhig (1889-1963) , nephew of former Catholic Archbishop Sir James Duhig of Brisbane .
During WWl James served with the AIF in field ambulances and general hospitals , demobbed he became the first medico to set up as a pathologist in Queensland .
With a brilliant mind , he attacked all forms of hypocrisy , supported free speech and opposed book censorship . Despite having been brought up as a Catholic , he became president of the Queensland Rationalist Society. It was said he delighted in publicly baiting Archbishop Duhig, saying religious beliefs frustrated honest thinking .
During the Depression he took part in "radical causes " and led deputations demanding help for unemployed . He advocated prohibition and said reform of military drinking should take place in officers' messes.
He campaigned strongly for a medical school to be set up in Queensland and became the Professor of Pathology at the University of Queensland from 1938-l947. Poisonous Queensland fish were one of his many interests, especially the highly venomous stonefish .
A president of the Royal Queensland Art Society for 10 years , much of his art collection was left to the Queensland University . (The Archbishop, who also had a large art collection and loved literature , spoke out against the Chifley plan to nationalise banks and supported the vote to ban the Communist Party .)
The bookplate is in a well illustrated book by Robin Ironside about Wilson Steer , a painter in the British Artists series by Phaidon Press, 1943. It was drawn by New Zealand born painter , commercial artist , Albert Collins (1883-1951 ) , a teacher in New South Wales secondary schools (1906-1916 ), director of an advertising company and also conducted the popular ABC children's radio show , The Argonauts .
A president of the Royal Queensland Art Society for 10 years , much of his art collection was left to the Queensland University . (The Archbishop, who also had a large art collection and loved literature , spoke out against the Chifley plan to nationalise banks and supported the vote to ban the Communist Party .)
The bookplate is in a well illustrated book by Robin Ironside about Wilson Steer , a painter in the British Artists series by Phaidon Press, 1943. It was drawn by New Zealand born painter , commercial artist , Albert Collins (1883-1951 ) , a teacher in New South Wales secondary schools (1906-1916 ), director of an advertising company and also conducted the popular ABC children's radio show , The Argonauts .
