06 Newsletter June 21 - adfas.org.au

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ADFAS Camden Australian Decorative & Fine Arts Society, Camden Inc. ABN 49 917 925 347

Member of the Association of ADFAS (Group Associate Member of NADFAS)

NEWSLETTER

From the chair

Dear Members and Friends,

As we count down to our first lecture for the year on 31st July, I know I speak for all the Committee when I say how much we welcome your cheerful emails/phone-calls/supermarket feedback saying that you are looking forward to the re-turn of ADFAS. We are certainly looking forward to seeing you all!

For our program this year we chose Australian lecturers who have proven very popular in Camden, but in this time of change we have had to make a change to our first lecturer. Instead of commencing with ancient Egypt we now begin with something a little different – an enthralling journey through the three waves of Australian film over the past 50 years. Then we move on to Australian history through art, a vicarious trip around literary sites of England and the beauty of historic map making.

Once again, I’d like to thank the Committee for their unwavering ‘the show must go on’ support. And a special thank-you to Peter Claxton, our retired Committee member (although it’s hard to pick the difference). Peter, along with Gaylene, is responsible for our excellent newsletter and he also de-signs and produces all our artistic marketing flyers and brochures. I think of Peter as Camden’s answer to Harry M Miller and hope he will see that as the compliment that is intended!

Thanks are also due to Carrington, where management and staff have made us so welcome and have worked with us to ensure we have a venue that meets all requirements.

Just a brief reflection on the wider world. With all that has been said on the late Prince Philip, you may not know, as I didn’t until I read it this week, that he was a keen artist and collector.

As far back as 1956, when he came to Australia for the Olympic Games, he was collecting the work of Aboriginal artists including Albert Namatjira, and over the years he also collected many works by well-known Australian artists such as Sidney Nolan, William Dobell and Russell Drysdale. He was certainly a man with many interests.

Please remember to book our lectures (even if you were a financial mem-ber in 2020) to help us with our planning. You’ll find more details in this newsletter. And if you want to bring friends, they will be very welcome.

Linda Linda Inglis, Chairman,

M: 0428 825 386, E: [email protected]

Back in business!! And a late change

Our first lecture for 2021 will be held, COVID willing, at the NEW TIME of  

11.30 for 12.00 noon at  Carrington Recreation Hall 90 Werombi Rd, Grasmere 

Dr KAREN PEARLMAN DCA, MA (UTS), MA (AFTRS), BFA 

will present 

‘Telling Our Stories”: Images and 

Ideas from Three Waves of Australian Film 

For COVID and catering reasons BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL FOR ALL. See inside for booking details 

IN THIS EDITION… Following Art Quiz No 11 on page 2 (thanks Cliff) you will find details on page 3 of the new program for 2021 together with booking details. Booking is essential for everyone this year for COVID and catering reasons.

Although you will now have to wait until next year for Rodna Siebels’ presentation on the Valley of the Kings I am sure you will find a lot to interest you in Karen Pearlmans’ very popular presentation on Australian film over the past 50 years.

Also on Page 3 is a short, hopefully not too premature, note on the resurrection of the Arts Scene. This is followed by three con-tributed articles on pages 4, 5 & 7 which I hope you will enjoy.

And the quiz answers are again on page 8.

Peter Claxton, Ed.

Number: 2106 (131)

June 2021

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ART QUIZ No 11 1: Within an hour’s drive SW of Camden NSW is one of

the finest, some say the finest, gardens in Australia. What is the name of this property and where is it locat-ed?

2: The well-known artist who painted the picture below was born and currently lives in the NSW Blue Mountains and much of his work reflects his love for that beautiful part of Australia. What is his name?

3: What was Freddie Mercury’s real name and where was he born and educated?

4: What is the significance of the painting below by Henry Brueckner painted in 1855, 241 years after the depict-ed event?

5: Who was the rock icon who co-founded The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-haired Men?

6: Where is the world did these golfers continue to play

golf during a volcano eruption?

Photo by Mario Tama (Getty Images)

7: From which book came the famous quote: “Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”? And who was the Irish author (pictured be-low)?

8: Where in South America is this 2-storey 500m2 purpose-built and fully functioning terracotta building located?

9: This Dutch artist painted many pictures depicting life in Nazi concentration camps such as the one below. What is his name and why did he focus on this aspect of WW2 history?

10: Is gardening a good way to lose weight?

ANSWERS ARE ON PAGE 8

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There is no doubt the ARTS Scene is coming to life again. A quick scan of the weekend newspapers revealed an in-creasing number of performances, exhibitions and arts related activities that are now opening to the public, at least in Sydney and Brisbane, where COVID restrictions are (were?) minimal.

The Art Gallery of NSW is celebrating the 100th anniver-sary of The Archibald Prize and you will be able to view

not only the 2021 Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prize winners but also Archie 100: A Century of the Archibald Prize.

These are ticketed events but you can use the same ticket to see both the 2021 prizes exhibition and the Archies 100 until September 26, after which the exhibitions will be tour-ing nationally. For more information go to the Gallery web-site: www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

While at the Art Gallery, you may also care to spend some time viewing another exhibition which is also open until September, described as Swedish symbolism to delight Sydney art lovers.

ADFAS Camden is back!! Lecture Bookings opened on 14 June 2021!

This year we are asking EVERYONE to book so that we can plan ahead to meet all requirements.

Lecture dates for 2021 (All Saturdays)

31 July (NEW) Dr Karen Pearlman: ‘Telling our Stories’ – Images and Ideas in Three Waves of Australian Film 28 August Paul Brunton: Art work & Journals of the First Fleeters 25 September Susannah Fullerton: Literary England – Top Ten Places 23 October Prof Robert Clancy: The Printed Map as an Art Form

NEW lecture time is 11.30 a.m. for 12.00 noon.

Usual refreshments after the lecture.

Venue: Carrington Recreation Hall, 90 Werombi Road, Grasmere

How to book

You can phone or email to: Linda 0428 825 386 [email protected] Susan 0499 636 885 [email protected] Pam 0412 311 194 [email protected] Gaylene 0417 659 587 [email protected]

Can I book for more than one lecture?

Yes. As many as you want.

What about payment?

2020 Financial members: You are in credit. We will deduct $25 per lecture for lectures you actually at-tend (no payment for lectures you can’t attend, even if you have booked).

People who were not financial members in 2020: The cost will be $25 per lecture. Please book, then pay on the day.

We look forward to seeing you there!

The ARTS Scene Resurrected

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This exhibition, that has been ‘curated for Sydney audi-ences’ will feature more than 100 works by Swedish artist Hilma af Klint. She is described as an abstract artist who was unappreciated in her time but who left behind over 1300 works, rarely seen until they were rediscovered fairly recently. That rediscovery led to a 2019 blockbuster exhi-bition at New York’s Guggenheim museum which broke all attendance records there. Tickets are $20.

And provided COVID19 does not interfere, there is a rather full program around Sydney this winter of events to suit all tastes, including VIVID Sydney in August, contemporary music performances and jazz. There are also choral per-formances starting this month with In Song by Sydney Chamber Opera at the church, Alexandria, June 12, 19, 26 and July 3. Opera is also returning with The Tales of Hoff-mann presented by Opera Australia in the Joan Sutherland Theatre in August.

And in late August the SSO will be performing Sibelius’s haunting Violin Concerto with virtuoso violinist Grace Clifford, followed by Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.

A number of exciting dance performances will be present-ed in coming months, including Sandsong: Stories from the Great Sandy Desert by the Bangarra Dance Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House until July 10 before it moves to Canberra.

There is much more happening in Sydney over the winter months, but something that really caught my eye is an event coming up later in the year (October – November) and a little further afield in Brisbane.

If you have the stamina, a liking for Wagner and COVID permitting, are prepared to cross a state border, Opera Australia is presenting Wagner’s full Ring Cycle.

Lyndon Terracini (Opera Australia’s Artistic director) has described this as ‘the Everest of Opera’

‘This 15-hour (yes 15-hour) epic tale of gods and giants, dragons and dwarfs will be performed over four nights and features towering digital screens, immersive technology, astonishing costumes and a story that will leave you truly transformed.’

This is a very special event and NOT part of Opera Aus-tralia’s regular season. Each Ring Cycle is sold as a four-opera series and tickets are available for complete cycles only. Tickets are on sale now and range from $380 to $2200 per cycle.

Book now at opera.org.au/ring

Visit Australia’s greatest War Horse in Murrumburrah-Harden NSW – the home of the First Australian Horse Regiment, where one of the legends of the WWI Battle of Romani – a Waler warhorse called Bill the Bastard as a result of his obstinate nature – is the star of a new statue.

The life-size bronze statue of the massive horse, who weighed 730 kilograms and stood at 17 hands, depicts a famous scene from a battle on August 4, 1916.

Bill was known for allowing only one man, Major Michael Shanahan of the Second LHR, to successfully ride him. But in the thick of fighting on that August day, Bill did something quite remarkable.

Visit Bill the Bastard in Harden-Murrumburrah to discover his story and view Australia’s greatest warhorse recreated by passionate Sculptor Carl Valerius.

https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/country-nsw/young-area/harden/attractions/bronze-bill-the-bastard-australias-greatest-war-horse.

The following are the back dustcover notes from the book, Bill the Bastard, written by Roland Perry – published by Allen and Unwin

‘Bill was massive. He had power, intelligence and unmatched courage. In performance and character he stood above all the other 200,000 Australian horses sent to the Middle East in the Great War……but as war horses go he had one serious prob-lem. No one could ride him but one man – Major Michael Shanahan. Some even thought Bill took a sneering pleasure in watching would-be riders hit the dust.

‘Bill the Bastard is the remarkable tale of a bond between a determined trooper and his stoic but cantankerous mount. They fought together. They depended on each other for their survival. And when the chips were down Bill’s heroic efforts and exceptional instincts in battle saved the lives of Shanahan and four of his men.

‘By September 1918, Bill the Bastard was known by all mem-bers of the entire Desert Mounted Corps, who used his name not as an insult but as a term of endearment. Bill had become

Bronze Bill the Bastard: Australia’s Greatest War Horse

Major Shanahan on Bill in 1915 (Supplied: Terry Shanahan)

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a legend, a symbol of the courage and unbreakable will of the ANZACS. There was no horse like Bill the Bastard.’

Roland Perry's book 'Bill the Bastard' inspired sculptor Carl Valerius to recreate the daring ride of Bill and the Major in bronze. Mr Valerius lives in Murrumburrah, northwest of Canberra, where in 1897 the first Light Horse Troop was raised to fight in the Boer War. It's taken him nine years to capture Retreat from Romani, the moment when Bill and the Major carried four troopers to safety.

It's no mistake that the statue features a loose rein. Mr Valerius explained, "The loose rein is trust, 'C'mon Bill we can do this, you can do it, you can come up under five you have never taken anyone but me'."

"I tried to get the expressions in the face, that little moment of belief that 'yes we are going to get out of here, we are going to be OK'. "What an incredible ask of an animal, but he seemed to know the circumstances in which he found himself, and the trust he had in the Major was incredible, the same as the trust the Major had in the horse, it's not a one-way thing it's a two-way thing."

A local vet gave Mr Valerius horse bones so he could get the life-sized sculpture right. "It has a skeleton underneath it, it was made with every bone correct for 17 hands, it moved like a real horse."

The $780,000 needed to fund the statue came from the Valerius family, state and federal government grants and public donations. The statue now stands in Murrumbur-rah's main street, but Mr Valerius's studio has already hosted hundreds of visitors who want to pat Bill and hear about that rescue.

Very few war horses returned to Australia. Most were shot to save them from a life of misery after the war. However, Bill escaped that fate. He returned once again to Gallipoli as a packhorse to assist soldiers collecting battlefield arte-facts. It's believed he then lived out his life with Turkish farmers, who were warned never to put anyone on his back.

Story compiled by Gaylene Feld

Mary Poppins delighted audiences for generations — the magical British nanny made Julie Andrews famous, Walt Disney rich and delivered royalties and prestige for author P.L. Travers. But there was another character behind the scenes you've probably never heard of.

Abc.net.au: By SHELLEY LLOYD Posted Saturday 21 March 2020 at 9.25am

Updated Saturday 21 March 2020 at 12.00pm

Illustrator MARY SHEPARD received little credit and little financial reward for her drawings of Mary Poppins, in the series of eight books by Travers.

University of Southern Queensland visual artist and re-searcher, Professor Margaret Baguley trawled through thousands of letters exchanged between Travers and Shepard and is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-ly excited about what she found.

Dr Baguley attended a library at Princeton University in the United States where she discovered the original drawings for the Mary Poppins books, with handwritten notes from both the illustrator and the author — most of which have never been seen before outside of academic archives.

In an effort to reveal Shepard's vital role in Mary Poppins, Dr Baguley examined the P.L. Travers archive at the Mitchell Library in Sydney and the E.H Shepard Archive at the University of Surrey in the UK, but it was the Cotsen Children's Library at Princeton that was her holy grail.

The library held the original drawings for the Mary Poppins books and Dr Baguley received a Princeton research grant to access the library to study the communications between the author and illustrator.

"Something that the other two archives do not have were the original illustrations of the Mary Poppins books with comments from both P.L. Travers and Mary Shepard on the actual drawings with the decisions about how the vari-ous illustrations would look," she said.

Shepard's father was a well-known illustrator, famous for his drawings in Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Wil-lows.

Travers first asked him to illustrate her children's books but he declined the commission claiming he was too busy.

Finally recognised after international search reveals

rare original drawings

Photograph of Mary Shepard, c. 1925 (Ref no. EHS/F/14/2) From the E. H. Shepard Archive, University of Surrey. (Supplied: University of Surrey)

Bronze statue of Bill the Bastard , his rider Michael Shanahan and four ‘hitchhikers’ and sculptor, Carl Valerius to the left.

(ABC News, Pip Courtney)

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According to Dr Baguley"…….Travers saw a Christmas card that Mary Shepard had illustrated and really liked the whimsical style and asked her to illustrate the Mary Pop-pins series of books,".

In the early 1930s, Shepard had recently graduated from London's Slade School of Fine Art.

Dr Baguley went on to say that "Travers was 10 years her senior and took on a mentoring role to assist in obtaining the types of drawings she wanted".

"Shepard's illustrations provided readers with their first glimpse of Mary Poppins and were critical in helping the reader visualise the stories.

"She really set the aesthetic for how Mary Poppins looked."

The partnership between the two women began amicably but ended badly in a protracted legal battle over the issue of copyright.

When Travers reached an agreement with Disney for the film rights in the 1960s after more than 20 years of negoti-ations, she did not include Shepard in the deal and it im-pacted their relationship.

"There are letters from Mary that are really quite sad, say-ing, 'Is there any part in this for my drawings?'" Dr Baguley said.

Shepard didn't get any of the millions Disney made at the box office, but she did manage to get a one-off payment, all thanks to Mary Poppins’ toes.

Shepard drew Mary's feet in the first ballet position and when her lawyers realised that this was also used in the Disney movies, they had legal grounds for some compen-sation.

"Mary Shepard's solicitors said, 'Look at the feet, you know when Mary Poppins lands and her feet are turned out, that isn't written anywhere in the book, that's your own intellec-tual property and Disney have used that'," she said.

"I think she only received about a thousand pounds for that, something very minimal.”

"I also found a whole folder of correspondence where she's [Shepard] having to sell the Mary Poppins drawings at Sotheby's because her house needed repairs …"

Shepard didn't get any of the millions Disney made at the box office, but she did manage to get that one-off pay-ment, all thanks to Mary Poppins toes.

Shepard was born in Sussex on Christmas Day in 1909, the only daughter of Florence Chaplin, a painter, and E.H. Shepard, Her mother died suddenly in 1927, and that same year Mary was accepted into the Slade School of Art where she studied painting and drawing.

The inspiration for Shepard’s initial sketches was a wood-en Dutch doll owned by Travers. Travers did not want Mary Poppins to be beautiful: Shepard wrote she was di-rected to make Mary Poppins “totally bosomless, as flat as a board, which as a character seemed to suit her best!”

But in later drawings there is a visual change, perhaps reflecting Shepard’s growing confidence. Poppins be-comes prettier, more feminine, and eventually Shepard goes so far as to transpose her own features onto Pop-pins’ face.

Shepard was a talented artist who also illustrated Ruth Manning-Sanders ‘Adventure May be Anywhere’ (1939) and A. A. Milne’s ‘Prince Rabbit and the Princess Who Could Not Laugh’ (1966).

In 1937, she married E.V. Knox, the editor of Punch mag-azine who her father worked for as an illustrator and politi-cal cartoonist. It was a happy union, with Knox often stand-ing in as a model for Mr Banks in Shepard’s drawings.

Mary Shepard died in September 2000, largely unrecog-nised for her role in bringing to life such an iconic literary character.

Her grave is beside her stepdaughter the writer Penelope Fitzgerald, who was only seven years younger and to whom she was very close.

Fitzgerald’s headstone depicts a hand with a pen. Shep-ard’s has a hand holding a paintbrush. A fitting tribute.

An early drawing for the Mary Poppins books with notes from the author P.L Travers and illustrator Mary Shepard. Line illustrations by Mary Shepard © The Shepard Trust. Reproduced with permis-sion from Curtis Brown Group Limited on behalf of The Shepard Trust(Supplied: Princeton University Library)

Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins, showing the turned out feet as in Mary Shepard’s illustrations. Disney

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This Photo by Unknown Artist is licenced under CC By-SA

The current Australian $10 note celebrates that very well-known Australian bush poet, Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Pater-son, CBE. He was born in 1864 on ‘Narrambla’ a property near Orange and died of a heart attack in Sydney in 1941.

His first career was as a law clerk, before being admitted as a Solicitor in 1886. During this time he began writing poetry, mainly for The Bulletin under the pseudonym of ‘The Banjo’ - apparently the name of his favourite horse.

He became very popular as a writer for the Bulletin and became particularly friendly with that other well-known Australian bush balladist, Henry Lawson. Over a number of years they engaged in a friendly rivalry in verse about bush life in Australia.

Following a career change to journalism in the late 1890s, he was a war correspondent for the Sydney Morning Her-ald and the Age in 1899 during the second Boer War. In the early 1900s he was editor of the Sydney Evening News and then the Town and Country Journal.

During WWI he was an ambulance Driver with the Austral-ian Voluntary Hospital in France – and also became an ‘honorary vet’, making three voyages with horses during the War, from Australia to Africa, China and Egypt.

While continuing to publish his poetry, short stories and essays after the War, Banjo also wrote on Rugby League in the 1920s for the Sydney Sportsman!

The publication of his poem The Man from Snowy River made him a household name. In 1895 he wrote another now globally recognized poem set to music, Waltzing Ma-tilda.

Although he was raised in a property near Yeovil, for most of his life Banjo lived and worked in Sydney. As a conse-quence, his poems reflected a more romantic version of life in the bush, with the bushman being a tough, inde-pendent and heroic underdog.

Apart from his many poems and ballads he authored two novels - An outback Marriage (1906) and The Shearer’s Colt (1936) - and wrote many short stories, along with a book based on his experiences as a war correspondent and a children’s book.

In June 2013 he topped the list of The Greatest of All – Our 50 Top Australians published in The Australian. Over the years he has been recognized in many ways – in fact in 1983 the first song that was ever broadcast to earth by astronauts was Slim Dusty singing Waltzing Matilda! wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo_Paterson

Several country towns in NSW pay public tribute to Banjo Paterson in different ways. Among them are Winton (Qld), Yeovil (NSW) and Corryong (Vic):

WINTON houses the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Elderslie St., in front of which is a statue of Banjo Paterson.

Winton was the scene of the great shearer’s strike in the 1890s and it is believed that the fate of one of the shearers at a nearby station was the inspira-tion for Waltzing Matilda. www.monumentaustralia.org.au

YEOVIL is where Banjo Paterson spent his childhood years on his father’s property Buckinbah. In 2014 the town opened a museum and exhibition to coincide with the 150th Anniversary of his birth.

The museum contains letters, books memorabilia, newspapers, and other material to show the life and times of Banjo Paterson. A recent addition is a bronze of the man by Melbourne artist Paul Smits. Banjo is dressed in the uniform of Major of the Allied Remounts in Egypt, copied from a pencil sketch drawn at the time.

The legend of The Man from Snowy River is revived each April at CORRYONG in the foothills of the Snowy Moun-tains. The Man from Snowy River Bush Festival Poetry and Music Competition, first staged in 1995 has become one of the most prestigious events in rural Australia, at-tracting visitors from all over the country.

This annual event, recently interrupted by COVID, has been de-scribed as a ‘unique bush gathering of mountain riders, po-ets, artists and lovers of the Australian High country and pioneer-ing spirit.’

What started as an idea to attract tourists to Victoria’s High Country has become a passion to preserve Australia’s bush heritage.

ABC Goulburn Murray/ By Gaye Pattison and Erin Somerville Posted Sun 11 Aprl 2021 at 4:04pm, updated Sun 11 Apr 2021 at 4:56pm

Compiled by Gaylene Feld & Peter Claxton

‘Banjo’ Paterson, CBE The man on our $10 note

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ANSWERS TO ART QUIZ 11

1. Milton Park in Bowral (see below). The garden Antho-ny Hordern initially laid out was typically Edwardian. However, in 1932, Anthony married Mary Bullmore Packer and the garden today is largely due to her vi-sion. She removed hedges, redesigned lawns, imported trees and shrubs and added features such as pools, waterfalls, pergolas and stone walks. Anthony Hordern & Sons was once the largest department store in both Sydney and the world.

2. John Wilson is one of Australia’s leading fine art oil painters whose elegant pictures capture the elusive qualities of the landscape in a unique and gentle man-ner. For John, growing up in the beautiful Blue Moun-tains of NSW instilled a deep love of the rugged gran-deur, spectacular colours and the many moods they in-spired. He is an award-winning artist who is recognized internationally.

3. Farrokh Bulsara (1946-1991). He was born in Stone Town Zanzibar, now Tanzania. He went to school in India and then migrated to England in 1964. His vocal range extended from bass low F to soprano high F. He was born with 4 extra teeth which pushed his front teeth forward. He refused to get that remedied in case it affected his vocal ability.

4. It depicts the marriage in 1614 of the famous Powhatan chief’s daughter Pocahontas (c1596-1617) and Eng-lish settler John Rolfe (1585-1622). The marriage en-sured peace for several years between the Jamestown settlers – who created the first permanent English set-tlement in North America - and the Powhatan tribe. Their marriage was the first inter-racial church wedding in America.

5. David Bowie (1947-2016). In 1964 he made his first appearance on television, then known as Davy Jones, and on it, he championed his cause as the spokesper-son for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men; taking a stand against prejudice. Bowie is considered to be one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.

6. Hawaii. Despite huge clouds of ash and smoke roll-ing towards them, some people just continued playing golf !

7. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900).

8. The Casa Terracota is in Colombia. It was built by lo-cal architect Octavio Mendoza Morales over a period of 14 years entirely by hand with clay and then baked in the sun. His goal was to prove that structures can be built from natural resources.

9. Henri Pieck was captured by the Nazis in 1941 for his part in Dutch resistance. He was interned in the Buch-enwald concentration camp in Germany and survived until being released by the Americans in 1945. Just pri-or to their arrival, Gestapo HQ telephoned the camp and told the person who answered the phone that they were sending explosives to blow up the camp and in-mates in order to leave no evidence. Fortunately, the person who answered the phone was a German-speaking inmate who told the caller that the camp had already been destroyed, which it had not, the camp administrators having already run away in fear of their lives! Inmates had died in their thousands from dis-ease, malnutrition, beatings and executions. Doctors also performed medical experiments, testing the effects of viral infections and vaccines. The camp comman-dant’s wife Ilse Koch collected lampshades, book co-vers and gloves made from the skin of camp victims! Among those saved was Elie Wiesel who would go on to win the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.

10. Clearly yes, judging by this sculpture by British sculptor Wilfred Pritchard (1970-) 😉

Editor Honorary Secretary Peter Claxton Gaylene Feld 4655 9781 0417 659 587 [email protected] [email protected] ADFAS CAMDEN Inc. PO Box 146 Camden NSW 2570

www.adfas.org.au