sandr020

Albert Coates (1895-1977) was born in Ballarat in Central Victoria, oldest of seven children of strong Methodists Arthur and Clara Coates. Alth­ough money was short, Arthur and Clara raised their family valuing educ­at­ion. Albert had a thirst for literature and know­ledge, but his formal educ­ation ended at 11. At first he worked in a butcher's shop on Saturdays only, then he worked 6 days a week. At 14 was indentured to a Ballarat bookbinder, which gave the lad the chance to read widely and study at night. Encouraged by night-school at Ballarat, Coates passed the junior public examination with distinct­ions in French and German in 1913. But Coates wanted a career in medicine. He qual­ified for Melbourne University but as he could not afford to take his place on financial grounds, he moved to Wang­aratta. There he worked in the Postal Department and studied in his spare time. World War One and after By 1914 Coates was able start a university medical course, however WW1 interven...

A Scandal in Bohemia by Gideon Haigh (Hamish ­Hamilton, 2018) tells an incredible story.  Mollie Dean (1905-30) was a very attractive Melburnian, a young woman who had great plans for the future. Many men said she was an excep­t­ional person, with great vital­ity and was a good conversation­al­ist. Women (like playwright Betty Roland ) said Mollie was sul­try or sullen-looking. Everyone agreed she was slim with dark bobbed hair and simple makeup. And that she was forceful and Bohemian, wanting to energet­ically discuss art, culture and pol­it­ics with the males. Clearly Mollie was a rising star, writ­ing a novel that would be call­ed Monst­ers Not Men . Mollie’s family was already problem-filled. Her father George, a tough school prin­cipal, died during her childhood. Her mother Ethel Dean was manipul­at­ive, controlling and physically violent. Ethel had just one plan for Mollie: to quickly marry her off, to a specific groom - mechanic Adam Graham (the Deans’ lodger in Elwood ...

Thelma Komesaroff (1923-2015) was a student at University High, a selective school in Melbourne that encouraged its students to stay at school, even throughout the Great Depression and the 1939-45 World War. At a time when most girls and some boys were encouraged to leave school at the minimum legal age, Thelma finished Matricul­ation and was offered a place in the prestigious University of Melbourne . Her passion was English and Russian Literature.    Thelma and Les, post  retirement The U niversity did not close during the war, but students whose husbands, fiancés and fathers were recruited into the Armed Serv­ic­es felt obligated to get paying jobs. Thelma married Lieutenant Les Webb­erley (1922-2015) in 1945; she continued working in a city bookshop when Les returned to University after demobilisation, to finish his engine­er­ing deg­ree.  Once their babies were out of napp­ies, Thelma bec­ame a journalist at The Australian Jewish Herald , pub­lished weekly in ...

Harold Freedman (1915–99) was born in Melbourne and educated at Melbourne Technical Col­lege. Starting his long career in 1936, he worked in all public arts: port­raits, war propaganda, polit­ic­al car­toons, graphic design, ad­vertising, illust­ration, children’s books and large-scale murals. Harold Freedman: Artist for the People was at the Art Gallery of Ballarat in 2017. Freed­­man’s designation as a people’s artist was seen in his democr­atic teaching style, his well-known murals, and his serv­ice as an Official War Artist in WW2. But whereas Christopher Allen (The Australian, May 2017) and blogger Black Mark thought the work was insensitive to modern art styles, Ballarat curator Julie McLaren believed the work was access­ible, democratic and full of honour for the WW2 soldiers. In WW2, Freedman enlisted and became a war artist attached to the Royal Austral­ian Air Force Histor­ical War Records Sec­tion. He worked during 1944-5, in Bor­neo, Noemfoor and around Australia. F...

For the 2017 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces, the National Gallery of Victoria/NGV put on a fine exhibition called Van Gogh and the Seas­ons . This exhibition featured works lent by intern­ational museums, and attracted a huge number of Australian visitors. This year the NGV, in partnership with The Museum of Modern Art New York , is presenting MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemp­or­ary Art as the 2018 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces ex­hib­it­ion. From 9th June–7th Oct 2018, the exhibition is providing a unique survey of the Mus­eum’s iconic collection. The key works are arranged ch­ronol­ogically into 8 them­atic sections, tracing the development of art and design from late-C19th urban and industrial transformation, until the global present. MoMA is dedicated to championing innovative modern and contemporary art. The Museum opened in Manhattan in 1929, with the plan to be­come the greatest modern art museum in the world. This is seen in its inter-disciplinary collection of c20...

Danila Ivanovich Vassilieff (1897-1958) was born at Kagalnitskaya, near Rostov-on-Don Russia. Educated at a technical school at Novocherkassk and at a milit­ary academy in St Petersburg, Danila specialised in mechanical eng­ineering. In WW1 he served on the Eastern Front with a Cossack cavalry regiment. Then he saw action with the White forces in the Russian Civil War.  After being captured and imprisoned by the Reds at Baku in 1920, Danila escaped on a motor bike, event­ual­­ly travelling to China. Due to his wartime experiences, Vassil­ieff felt free to continue life as a womaniser; until  he married Anisia Nicolaevna at the Shanghai Russian Church in 1923. From Shanghai the couple sailed to Australia  in 1923. In 1923 they bought a sugar-plantation near Towns­ville but in 1928 he separated from his wife and was employed on the Northern Territory railway. In 1929 he left Australia, studying art in Brasil (1930-1) and in the West Indies and South America (1932-3). Then...

I have happily read the book Acland Street: The Grand Lady of St Kilda , written by Dr Judith Buck­rich (Nov 2017). It ex­plores the history of architecture on Acland St, starting from the 1850s and early settlement, through swamps, race courses, development of the Acland St village, Vict­orian prosperity and boarding house poverty. Buckrich searched the archives and inter­viewed famous peop­le from the Melbourne Jewish community who had a connection to Acland St. She recognised that the street was one of Melbourne's most important because it mirrored so much of the social change that occurred in Australian cities over 175 years. It encapsulated the social and cultural history of the city in a unique way, having been part of Melbourne’s entertainment scene for decades, as well as home to the wealthiest and poorest of its citizens. The Melbourne suburb of St Kilda was named after Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet (1787–1871) of Killerton Manor in Devon, a British politician and ...

Brave New World: Australia 1930s is a special exhibition at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV in Melbourne until mid Oct 2017. The 1930s was a turbulent time in Aus­tralia’s history.  Major world events, includ­ing the Depression and the rise of totalitarian regimes in Europe, shap­ed our nation’s evolving sense of identity during this decade. See a multitude of art­istic styles, both progressive and reactionary, which were practised during the 1930s: fash­ion, commercial art, architecture, industrial design, film and dance. The exhibition presents a  detailed picture of this dynamic time and reveals some of the social and political concerns that were pertinent then. The life saver and the Sydney Harbour Bridge Celebrating the bridge's opening in 1932 The exhibition charts the themes of technological pro­g­ress and its antithesis in the nostalgia for pastoralism; the emer­gence of the New Woman; nationalism and the body culture movement; mounting calls for Indigenous rights and th...

Melbourne has become renowned as Aus­tral­ia’s cultural capital. Note Southbank’s Arts Prec­inct located next door to Southgate, stretching from the Yarra to the end of Sturt Street. Over the years it has become home to perform­ing arts com­p­anies, venues and galleries. This pedestrian-friendly Arts Precinct includes Sid­ney Myer Music Bowl (1959), the newest National Gallery Victoria building (1968), the city’s premier con­cert venue  Hamer Hall (1982), Arts Centre Melb­ourne (1984) and its spire, Malthouse Theatre (1990), Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2002), Melbourne Recital Centre (2009) and Melbourne Theatre Company’s Southbank Theatre (2009). The Melbourne Arts Precinct Blueprint 2014 is a co-ordinated app­roach to the future devel­op­ment of the precinct. The study has been co-ordinated by the key arts stakeholders: City of Melbourne, Arts Victoria and State Government. Whilst each individual org­anisation has its own plans for the future, the Blueprint ...