A tribute to a talented, determined woman -Margaret Vine - who contributed to research for major books on Australian artists , early important documents in the nation's international affairs and the production of Queensland regional memoirs and Magnetic Island heritage signs . During her life she collected pottery , jewellery , costumes , Persian carpets , books and indulged a deep interest in opera . With her liking for black , purple and green clothing and sporting long fingernails painted green , some children went in awe of her , asked if she was a witch.
The late Margaret Ann Vine, at the time Mrs Willis, talking to artist Sir Russell Drysdale at a January 1970 exhibition in the Johnstone Gallery , Brisbane , to launch the Australian Art Library , the function attended by leading Australian artists and sculptors. This cutting, from the Australian Women's Weekly , reported she was stylishly dressed in a tiered dress of crisp black taffeta, with black accessories .
From the l950s to early 1970s, the Johnstone Gallery was a major force in the Australian art world . The proprietors, Brian and Marjorie , were close friends of Margaret's . Brian , born in India , educated in Adelaide, attended Duntroon Military College , became a captain. He served in America and Europe after the war , Margaret saying he had been personally involved with Dr Herbert Vere Evatt , an art lover , who from 1948-1949 was the third President of the UN General Assembly , helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, became leader of the Australian Labor Party .
By Peter Simon
For a short time, Johnstone had served as aide-de-camp to the Queensland Governor , Sir John Lavarack . Mrs Johnstone , an actress , into mime , added to the atmosphere of the distinctive gallery they ran at 6 Cintra Road , Bowen Hills. Both were foundation members of the Queensland Art Gallery Society.
Margaret's connection with the dynamic gallery proprietors was so strong that her pet Beagle , Ponsonby, and a Dachshund named Lindy , owned by them , used to send each other Christmas cards , one of which she showed me , along with a wide range of art gallery ephemera and catalogues.
Margaret recalled that one Christmas , Brian Johnstone had an ox tail sliced down the middle to expose the marrow , put it together, wrapped it up , and had it delivered to Ponsonby who " went mad over the gift ". In return, Margaret made Christmas cake , probably using her mother's recipe with a dash of sago , cut it into cubes , wrapped it in cellophane , and sent it off to the Johnstones and their Dachshund .
The last Christmas card sent out in l972, marking the end of the gallery, because Brian had suffered TB and they were both tired, showed the Johnstones in an Australian sleigh , led by their dog, presents being thrown out the back , depicting the work of artists connected with the gallery over the years, which included Ray Crooke, James Gleeson, Margaret Olley, Charles Blackman , Arthur Boyd .
DESIRE TO BE AN OPERA SINGER
Born in Ashgrove, Brisbane , in 1936, Margaret remembered being carried about on her father's shoulders , he singing what she later identified as opera , showing her possums and birds.
A Brisbane newspaper asked parents to send in photographs of their children , the snapshot judged the best would be turned into a professionally produced portrait in a special frame , behind glass. Portrayed holding a teddy bear, Margaret's photo won , see below. It was offered to the National Photographic Portrait Gallery in Canberra last year , but it was declined . It now hangs in this blog's den, not far from a political painting by American artist Bucklee Bell, prominent in the 1967-1970 Underground Comix movement of San Francisco and Berkeley, California , the subject of several posts in Little Darwin .
From the age of about three to five , the Vines lived in a house on stilts ,where Margaret often sat up close to a mantel radio , listening to people singing . One day she told her mother she had heard "Darna Derba"-Deanna Durbin - the Canadian born-American singer and actress , performing. On a swing under the house she imitated a song by the popular American singer and actress , Jeanette MacDonald. Nelson Eddy, who co-starred with MacDonald , also inspired her singing .
Travelling with her mother in the tram, she often stood up and broke into song , causing passengers to clap . She announced she would like to become an opera singer . When she accompanied her mother who went to a dentist , she sat quietly in the waiting room totally engrossed by the "yellow books"-National Geographics . Staff remarked that it was amazing that she sat still, turning the pages over and over , as most young children fidgeted , ran about. It was an indication of her future voracious reading and interest in so many subjects .
THE WAR YEARS AND BEYOND
Her father , a bank employee, who had been educated at Townsville Grammar, where he enrolled in 1923, became a top cricketer , said to have taken eight wickets for four runs , who could have gone on to play for Australia but for the demands of his job . During WWll, employed by the Bank of Australasia as a teller , he was stationed in the Lennon's Building , Brisbane , used by US supreme commander of Allied forces in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur , and had many dealings with the Americans , helping them convert dollars into Australian currency , complimented for his service .
The family moved about during the war to such places as Windsor and Enoggera ( where the school had air raid exercises and she found it claustrophobic looking up from trenches). From there they went to Oakey where an airport was being built nearby and she saw her first "black man "... not an Aborigine , a " Negro " soldier.
An uncle went to Singapore, was captured, spent time in Changi , and lost a leg . At one stage Margaret and her mother moved to a sheep and cattle property ,"Geradan" at Tara , near Dalby , where she had a pony , Sally . Her mother said she could ride the pony after first doing her intensive primary correspondence course and getting it right . She passed the course in six months and was awarded Mickey Mouse merits for her work .
While at Geradan in 1950 she received a book as a Christmas present from an aunty and uncle, the Ernestine Hill novel My Love Must Wait ,the story of maritime explorer Matthew Flinders , and in later life she became interested in maps during her wide ranging research .
In the postwar period the family continued to move about due to her father's job with the bank . At one school , where she studied home science " and all that jazz ", cooking and sewing , she sat for a scholarship exam and tied ninth in the state .
The school manager at the time was rotund Eric Davis, son of the writer Arthur Hoey Davis (1868-1935), creator of Dad and Dave , author of the Australian classic , On Our Selection, written under the name Steele Rudd . The son of Eric Davis was named Steele, who told Margaret she could play doubles tennis with him if she let him look at her homework to see if he had the right answers .
Because she was so bright , Eric Davis bet her father a brand new shirt that she would come within the top 10 in the scholarship exams. Margaret commented that it would have been hard to find a shirt big enough to fit him because he weighed about 16stone . Prizes came her way in the shape of school book awards , one from Nambour High and Intermediate School in 1953, Seven League Boots by Richard Burton , which she kept until 2017 , by that time containing pencilled in margin notes .
Due to her father's employment , the family moved to the mining town of Mount Isa in the l950s and she described being driven to the open air theatre by Len Evans , later the prominent wine writer , in a 1925 Packard car with running boards , a pet Collie dog , Prince , taken along for the ride , which licked ice cream from a cone as they sat in canvas seats gazing at the screen .
Her younger brother, Jim, said there was hardly ever a night without a message being flashed across the screen for the local doctor to come to the office as he was wanted . A book read during that period in Mount Isa , when the Vine residence was 8 Fifteenth Avenue , was the 1952 Brisbane published Where Strange Paths Go Down , by A.M. Duncan-Kemp, about outback Australia , retained by Margaret until late in life . Unfortunately not going into details , she mentioned "theatricals " performed in the Isa and that Evans may have taken part in them .
It became a bone of contention that her father told her she could not go to university because she was a girl , that she should take up teaching instead. In due course she did become a teacher and while at a girls' school , slipped away for an arty weekend in Brisbane , attending a party dressed as Picasso's giraffe , her hair pink . So that she would not stand out at school on Monday , she hastily washed the colour out of her hair .
Years later, attending the school reunion, an old girl informed her that she had noticed the teacher's hair on that Monday had a pink patch at the back and had drawn other girls attention to the spectacle, who then trooped behind the teacher , had a peek, and raised eyebrows. During her teaching career she was presented with a number of cookery books , one entitled A French Woman for a Wife .
Last year, knowing she did not have much time to live because of cancer , with a colostomy bag seemingly affectionately called Stanley , she began to provide me with disjointed anecdotes from her life for Little Darwin .
NEXT : Margaret puts herself through university , runs a café , goes to Canberra , attends lots of book sales , goes overseas , tours art galleries all the way to Moscow and takes in some auctions along the way .
