Country Life

Country Life Few people can encapsulate nostalgic rural imagery in the style of this talented man. The charm of his paintings speaks for itself … but here are some words from the artist.

- John Cornwell

I grew up in Sydney. After leaving school, I won a scholarship and spent three years full-time at the National Art School. Leaving there, I went out into the world to earn a living.

In the early 1950s you could count the number of artists actually earning a living from painting on your fingers. Even such masters as Eliot Gruner had worked in a Sydney department store. Others were teaching, which I was disinclined to do; or else they were involved in commercial art.

I travelled, and worked on a Moree sheep station as a jackeroo. I loved the life. Riding, mustering and droving, and all that went with a country existence. However, if you were not likely to become a land owner (which I was not), there was little future in it.

Returning to the big smoke I looked around for some occupation connected with art in which (with my strictly limited capital) I could set up business. Screen printing appeared an attractive possibility. To learn more about it I worked for a textile printer, after which I set up with an older partner – and we worked through thick and thin together (too thin for my partner, who left). I carried on for 18 years, my swan song being the production of all the banners that lined the streets of the Sydney CBD for the Captain Cook Bicentenary celebrations.

I had kept my hand in with life drawing and a little painting until I saw an opportunity to sell my work. The business was sold up and after a year of screen printing during the weeks, and painting all through the weekends and in the evenings, I almost instantly became a full-time artist. Some 47 years later I am still a full-time artist.

Lady luck was good to me, and I got commissions for murals at the Gazebo Hotel at Kings Cross and the Terrace Hotel in Brisbane. The latter was 2.5 metres square, and was transported in a semi-trailer, sandwiched into a load of mattresses. It remained on display until quite recently.