Australian Art Researcher's Eclectic Collection, rerun.
The late Margaret Vine , of Magnetic Island , shown in a magazine article chatting with Australian artist Sir Russell Drysdale , at a Brisbane exhibition , passed on to Special Collections at James Cook University , Townsville , part of her extensive art library. Her interests included architecture , clothing , jewellery , pottery , Persian carpets , editing , wildlife , conservation .
By Peter Simon
Her donation to the university included three boxes of unique art ephemera containing art catalogues of Australian art galleries , invitations to exhibitions , newsletters , single sheet illustrations . Come along for a quick, offbeat tour of the fascinating contents.
An exhibition catalogue which particularly grabbed my attention was one by Marie McMahon, inspired by the birds and vegetation in the region of the Rum Jungle uranium mine in the Northern Territory .
It was shown at the Australian Girls Own Gallery , Canberra , in l994. The gallery , known as aGOG , was owned and operated by former National Gallery of Australia curator Helen Maxwell to combat bias against women artists ; at times it handled work of male artists .
It tells how Prime Minister Robert Menzies in opening the uranium mine in 1954 said it brought Australia into the "Atomic Age". Upon its closure it left 30 kilometres of the East Finniss River dead , pollutants said to be discharged for 300 years. McMahon's early life was on defence bases in Australia , including Darwin ,with time in the Philippines. Her artwork involved social, political and environmental themes. She lived at Batchelor , the town constructed to serve Rum Jungle. Conflict in Indochina and Cambodia reflected in later works .
Flip open a card and there is a dramatic invite to an exhibition which modern day farmers, under great economic pressures , drought , massive flooding in parts , would appreciate .
It is contained in tree folders specifically covering exhibitions by the legendary art dealer and gallery proprietor Ray Hughes of Brisbane and Sydney with whom she had a close association ,along with other prominent people in the art world .
 Ray Hughes , above , enjoying life ; below, an invitation to his gallery in the form of playing card for an exhibition by Alan Bourne in l977. Hughes started his first gallery in Brisbane in 1969 at the age of 21 , with just $500 , later opened another gallery in Sydney , promoted an early interest in Papua New Guinea , New Zealand and contemporary Chinese art ( which included visiting China) , died age 72. Other invites of his took the shape of specially designed, illustrated postcards, a packet of tobacco for sculptor , artist and print makere Tony Coleing , renowned for satirical and cutting edge works. |
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WOMBATS AND POLITICIANS
There was a Clifton Pugh wombat hanging on the wall of Ms. Vine's island home . In the boxes of ephemera at James Cook University is the following Melbourne University Gallery catalogue for Pugh's portraits with a stern looking depiction of himself on the cover .
Involved in conservation issues from the l950s, Pugh wrote Death of a Wombat in 1972 ; aligned himself with the Australian Labor Party , influenced the Whitlam Government's support for the arts and painted politicians , Gough Whitlam ,Tom Uren , Clyde Cameron , Don Dunstan , all of the ALP, and Country Party leader , John " Blackjack" McEwen .
SAD AND SAVAGE DARWIN LEAVES
Cover for exhibition by Wendy Stavrianos which compared the vegetation of Darwin and New South Wales. The artist said this exhibition was like two
earlier exhibitions she held in Melbourne and set out to show a side of the Darwin environment in which she lived for three years
This sad and savage land seemed at times to be bleached out to white fragments ; giant leaves dried of all sap through a long dry season were reduced to wavering wafer like shapes that twisted up and lay forgotten in the wide landscape.
The dry season seemed like an endless peeling off of skins that curled and split and fell to the barren earth.
Then the coming of the Wet brought bougeoning growth , a fresh filling out of luxuriant flesh. and so the cycle repeated itself . Always against the immense flat background of land, sea and beach. Sydney Harbour Bridge and Circular Quay below.
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FOOTNOTE: Under her married name, Margaret Willis, she assisted Gordon Greenwood and Charles Grimshaw in their jointly edited l977 Documents on Australian International Affairs, 1901 -1918, Nelson , 779pp, illustrated , endpaper maps. She probably assisted in the selection of cartoons and other artwork related to that period which appear in the book .
(Vine. Art. University.)
