Autobiography of My Mother

by Meg Stewart

  He filled my head with stories of famous artists and writers, such as Scott Fitzgerald, whom he had actually met in New York. He worked as an illustrator for the same magazines as the writers wrote for and he talked about the Salmagundy, the famous club where they all met. My eyes were out on stalks. How I envied him.

  His studio was where the English artist Augustus John had stayed when he was in America; West 67th Street, the Hotel des Artistes. Jack’s studio was on the top floor and he had a giant skylight cut into the roof for extra light while he worked.

  As well as illustrating stories, Jack did advertising work for a French shipping line. He loved the East and the Middle East, and in return for doing a series of beautiful black and white drawings he travelled on their line free of charge.

  The East was the source of much of his inspiration. Some of his most famous works were illustrations for The Story of the Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke, the tale of a fourth wise man who visited the infant Christ. In his Australian exhibition there were forty pen and ink drawings with exotic titles such as Song of India, The Garden of Eros, The Pearl Maiden and Blood and Sand. Eleven watercolours were also included, as well as an etching called The Sage and a lithograph titled simply Head of Old Man.

  I dreamed about New York after my night out with Jack. If only I could go to America, all those wonderful things might happen to me, too. Meanwhile in Sydney, Jack was lionised wherever he went, and there were parties thrown for him all over town.

  Jack showed a marked preference for my company, which miffed some of the relatives. Cousins of ours held a big party at Mosman for him and I wasn’t asked; Mollie was, but not I. I stayed at home moping.

  ‘Where’s Margaret?’ Jack asked as soon as he arrived at the party.

  ‘We didn’t ask her,’ they said. ‘But Mollie’s here.’

  ‘I know,’ Jack replied, ‘but I want to see Margaret.’

  He stayed for half an hour at the party, then came back to the Australia and rang me up.

  ‘Come in and have a Clover Club,’ he said.

  I was in like a shot, brooding forgotten. This was a great feather in my cap. I went to many places with him after that. I was wildly jealous when a society writer on one of the papers took a fancy to him and started to chase him.

  Rubbo had taught Jack before he went to America and the Royal Art gave Jack a send-off party. Jack told me on the side as he was leaving that he was glad to be returning to America. He was a bit tired of Rubbo’s enthusing.

  ‘He keeps calling me “Jacka”,’ Jack said. ‘It makes me feel like a bloody kookaburra.’

  At the end of a fortnight’s hectic socialising, Jack sailed out of my life, bound for the East on a ship called the Malabar. I went to see him off. Afterwards life seemed suddenly very flat.

  Somehow, I vowed, I would get myself to New York. I would have my own studio. I, too, would make a fortune as an illustrator. I could think of nothing but Jack Flanagan and New York. I became obsessed. I wrote Jack miles of letters and lived for the postman bringing a letter back from him. When a letter from him finally did arrive, written on the notepaper of the Japanese cruise ship the SS Tenyo Maru, which eventually took him back to America, I was mortified beyond belief because I had misspelled his name. It was not ‘Flannaghan’, but ‘Flanagan’, like the Irish kings, he pointed out. I never was a good speller.

  A beauty contest was advertising a first prize of a trip to Hollywood. If I could make it to Hollywood, I felt sure New York would be only a stone’s throw away. I entered the contest under the name of Perdita Adams and sent in two portraits taken by a studio photographer. Very appealing I looked, gazing soulfully up at the camera, my hair cut short and waved. The photographer carefully concealed my heavy black freckles.

  On the strength of the photos, I made the finals. It was more than a beauty contest, though; the contestants were supposed to be able to act. We had to appear on stage at a Kings Cross picture show for the last judging.

  I didn’t really think I had much chance of winning, but I was determined to go along. I had nothing to wear.

  ‘Do you think Mollie would mind if I borrowed her new frock?’ I asked Mum. Mollie had just finished paying off a lay-by on a frock for the Randwick spring meeting and Mum and I knew very well that Mollie would mind. She worked hard for her clothes and, as she had to pay rent at home (which I didn’t), every new dress was precious. An outfit for the spring meeting was sacred.

  My mother agreed not to breathe a word about my borrowing the dress. Aunt Mary Carter, my mother’s closest friend, lent me a pair of shoes with high heels. I didn’t wear high heels myself; I wore flat, woven, Spanish-style sandals from a shop at Circular Quay. I was really happiest in no shoes. Aunt Mary’s shoes were two sizes too small for me, but I forced my feet into them, donned Mollie’s dress and took myself off to the Cross.

  We had to walk across the stage of the theatre and say a few words as if we were in a play. I got stage fright, as I had in the Yass school concert many years before. I completely dried up. I couldn’t get a word out. Perdita Adams came nowhere in the beauty contest, but at least Mum kept her word and Mollie never found out about the dress.

  There was, of course, no hope of my being able to leave Australia. Going to America took weeks and weeks by boat and cost a fortune. Most girls didn’t go off by themselves in those days; even if we could have afforded it or if I had won the Hollywood prize, I doubt if I would have been brave enough to set off alone.

  To cheer myself up, I sent one of the Perdita Adams photos to King in Bundaberg. Perdita was a winner up there; King showed the photo to his mates in the bank, who were most impressed. King wrote back enthusiastically saying he hadn’t realised how good-looking I was.

  The postscript, however, was a jarring note. ‘P.S.,’ King added, ‘for God’s sake never come to Queensland.’ He didn’t want to lose face with his mates; he knew the glamorous girl in the photograph didn’t quite match the freckle-faced reality.

  America was a dream. I worked much harder at being an artist after Jack Flanagan’s visit; I struggled to get out of the antique into the life class at the Royal Art. Jack Flanagan’s visit also inspired me more than ever to be a black and white artist. I resolved to take the first commercial art job available.

  SIX

  OUR TALENTED MASTER

  I answered an advertisement in the paper. ‘Wanted: apprentice for commercial artist’, the ad ran. This sounded like me, so down I went to Angel Place where Mr Angus, the commercial artist, had his studio.

  Mr Angus was a tall, thin, sharp-featured man with a pointed nose, a mouth like a piece of string and ice-blue eyes behind rimless round glasses. As it turned out, he was also extremely mean.

  Being Mr Angus’s apprentice meant that I wouldn’t receive any salary but, he promised, I would learn everything there was to know about black and white reproduction. It could be my entree to Jack Flanagan’s world, the beginning of my career as a black and white illustrator. I signed up with Mr Angus.

  A World War I fighter pilot hero, Mr Angus had difficulty adjusting to civilian life after the war and more difficulty still in attempting to earn his living as a commercial artist. He hit on a simple solution: let other people do the work and don’t pay them. The scarcity of work towards the end of the 1920s made this easy for him.

  Mr Angus’s artwork consisted of advertising commissions. He had an extensive filing system, a huge library of drawings cut out of magazines and filed under various headings such as ‘a day at the beach’ or ‘family picnics’, ‘on the golf course’ and ‘jockeys and horses at the races’. Mr Angus was always keen on including animals.

  When a commission came in the three apprentices – myself, another girl called Bessie and a boy, Stanley – had to search the files, find an appropriate drawing and carefully trace it onto paper. The tracing was then reversed and rubbed down onto a sheet of clean white paper. The finished product looked like a well-done pencil drawing. Mr Angus himself never dr
ew anything; he couldn’t draw and his sole contribution was to ink in our traced pencil work. His pen and ink technique was crude. Apart from Jack Flanagan’s work, I studied every black and white artist I came across and Mr Angus didn’t measure up.

  Not only was he exploiting our artistic abilities as fast as he could and not paying us, but he was mean with materials. It added insult to injury in our eyes. Our pencils had to be used right down to the stub. When one was too short to hold, Mr Angus devised a holder into which the stub was fitted, like a pen nib. Every pencil was used until the last bit of lead was gone.

  Stanley grew more mutinous by the day; Mr Angus had taken me on as the new apprentice, knowing Stanley would soon quit. Stanley frequently took the day off. He was clearly fed up with Mr Angus and his school of hard knocks. Finally he vanished for good. Bessie stayed on for a few months and I stuck it out for almost a year, slaving away at the wretched tracings.

  After I finished work, four nights a week I still went to the Royal Art Society. To fill in the time from five or five-thirty until the classes started at seven, I used to walk up from the Angel Arcade to the public library and read. I got through a lot of books there. I was addicted to reading and in winter the library was always warm and comfortable, an additional benefit. Mum kept dinner for me at home on top of a saucepan on the stove and it was usually about ten when I ate. Sometimes I had a sandwich with one of the boys from the Royal Art on the way to class. Bob Gunter also read at the library; sometimes I would meet him there and we would share a snack together before class.

  One summer’s night, Bob and I came out of the library starving. We sat in the Domain to eat our tea. Bob had a pie and I had a slab of chocolate.

  The most hungry-looking dog in the world approached us. He sat down in front of us and just looked, occasionally giving a feeble half-wag of his tail. Bob, always kindhearted, was the first to weaken. He tore off a piece of his pie. One gulp and the pie was gone. Immediately contrite, I gave the dog half my chocolate. A second gulp and that was gone, too. The remainder of Bob’s pie went next, followed by the other half of my chocolate. We were rewarded by much tail-wagging. The dog’s dinner had made the dog’s day.

  Everyone was hungry then.

  I loved the library as much as I did reading. I was determined to have my own library. There must be thousands of books at home now, but then I was only beginning.

  I started buying World Classics, a series that cost 7½d each at Anthony Hordern’s, a big old-fashioned city department store, on my way home from school in my last year. World Classics included authors like Victor Hugo and Guy de Maupassant. Maupassant’s short stories delighted me. I read the first volume standing up in Angus and Robertson’s bookshop in Castlereagh Street. The paper was poor, the print atrocious, but I had quite a collection of World Classics.

  The book that had pride of place in my home library was A Painter’s Anthology by the English artist and illustrator Arthur Watts, a collection of his favourite poems – Shakespeare, Browning, Blake, Keats and many others – all illustrated by himself. There were twelve colour plates, eight black and white plates and fifty black and white line decorations. I had discovered the book in my last year at school and had immediately coveted it.

  Grandma used to send the family £10 every Christmas. Mum used to take £5; the rest of us got 25s each. Mine usually went on a book, or a couple of books. The Painter’s Anthology cost 17s 6d, expensive for me.

  I told Mum about it, hoping she might advance me my share of Grandma’s £10. Mum said, ‘I’ll see if your father will give it to you for Christmas.’

  ‘But I’ll have to put a deposit on it now, or it might go,’ I begged.

  Mum went into town and actually bought the book for me, then she wrote to Dad saying that this was what I wanted for Christmas. To Mum’s surprise, Dad sent up the money for the book straight away and she was reimbursed. I cherished that book, and I still have it today.

  At work, Mr Angus became more demanding. I had to run messages for him, not just work messages, but personal errands. He wanted me to do his household shopping. I don’t know what his fat French wife was doing; resting at home, I supposed, while I did her work. I was very angry with Mr Angus by now, angry that he didn’t pay me for the endless tracing, angry that he didn’t pay me an office girl’s wages for the other chores he made me do, and angry that he could teach me nothing about black and white drawing because he knew nothing.

  My dissatisfaction came to a head when Mr Angus decided to move offices. He presented me with a list of premises to inspect. I was to report back on the condition of the buildings, what the office space was like, and measure up the interior. There were also groceries to be picked up, including meat from the butcher’s. The butcher’s errand finished me. I took the instructions, didn’t say a word, put my hat on and walked out. I didn’t go back.

  Mr Angus rang Mum at home, very disturbed and most upset. What could I be thinking of? he shouted down the phone. How could I be so ungrateful after he had taught me so much?

  My mother wasn’t fooled. She was fully aware of his perfidy, and she took him severely to task in reply to his barrage.

  ‘Anyway, she’ll never be an artist,’ Mr Angus retaliated as he hung up.

  Fifteen years later, I was on the judging committee of the Watercolour Institute and some works came in from a Mr Angus. It was the same Mr Angus, who, in his retirement, had turned his hand to watercolours, still traced, I was sure, from an English magazine.

  My brief description of Mr Angus and his methods of commercial art ensured that the committee promptly put his dreadful paintings out as they deserved. It gave me the greatest satisfaction.

  I received no money from Mr Angus during the year I was with him. The fees for four nights a week at the Royal Art were not expensive but at this time in the late 1920s there was almost no money around. I knew I should try for another job immediately, a proper paying job.

  Besides, Trix, my godmother at Kincoppal, was worried about me. I think she thought I was spending too much time with artists and mixing with a wild crowd. Cloistered away at Kincoppal, how Trix knew or could possibly suspect what I did was a mystery. Nun or not, however, she was a smart woman.

  The phone rang; Trix wanted to have a talk with me. She had been talking to the Reverend Mother at St Vincent’s, Trix began innocently. Without pausing, she continued that, as a very special concession, the Reverend Mother had agreed to accept me as a trainee nurse. ‘Everybody knows how difficult it is to get into St Vincent’s; you know what a favour it is,’ she rattled on.

  Dismay filled me. A nursing career, for me who was going to be an artist?

  ‘Trix,’ I pleaded, ‘I couldn’t do such a thing. It’s ridiculous!’ All those lessons wasted, all those nights coming home late to warmed up leftovers, a whole year of Mr Angus for nothing! Trix gave me a reprieve.

  But her offer (or threat) certainly speeded up my efforts to find work after quitting Mr Angus. I answered an advertisement by a woman called Phyllis Seymour. She had a commercial art studio in Bond Street and was looking for assistants.

  Phyllis was the sister of the Seymour whose bequest to the University of Sydney many years later resulted in the present Seymour Centre, but there wasn’t too much money floating around Phyllis in those days. My new job was colouring in photographs of Persian carpets.

  Five days a week, nine to five, for £1 a week, three of us girls worked with our heads down colouring in the endless, intricately patterned Persian carpets. It was exacting work; if nothing else it taught patience.

  The carpets had been photographed in black and white. We rubbed them down with French chalk, then laboriously hand painted them to match a series of colour plates. The French chalk was a powder that took some of the gloss off the photos so the paint would stick to their surface.

  Working for Phyllis had one completely unexpected result. For years I had been hearing about and wanted to meet Norman Lindsay, because of his connection to Jack F
lanagan, whose early career he had helped. But Norman’s world was as far from mine as Jack’s America, or so I thought.

  Dick Hore, another commercial artist, had a studio in the same building as Phyllis. I was chattering on to him about Jack when suddenly and quite casually Dick said he knew Norman Lindsay and would take Phyllis and me up to Springwood to meet him.

  I was bowled over. Anything to do with pen work still fascinated me. I hoped that maybe Norman would teach me, as he had my cousin.

  Dick, Phyllis and I caught the train to Springwood from Central station on Saturday morning to stay with the Lindsays for the weekend. I was twenty years old and so looking forward to our visit. Springwood in the Blue Mountains isn’t far away, but the train jolted and jerked its way up the mountains, stopping at every little station: Glenbrook, Warrimoo, Valley Heights. I thought we would never get there. It seemed an age, but at last we arrived.

  Rose, Norman’s dramatically handsome wife, met us at the station. On the front bonnet of the big car sat a sphinx, a little figurine Norman had made specially for the radiator cap, an exciting beginning to our visit.

  We sped up the main road for a couple of miles before turning off, down a rough track through dense bush. Rose, who was a forthright woman, commandeered the conversation. Dick made polite and appropriate responses. Phyllis and I sat in the back, straining our eyes to see something of the house.

  The car bumped and wound its way through the bush, up and over a slight incline. Then the car swung round to the left and we were confronted by a large square sandstone house with a columned verandah. Norman had added these pillars and replaced the original fussy corrugated tin roof of the verandah. To one side of the house was a walkway of more columns. It had a trellis roof and was planted with roses (later it became covered with wisteria); at the top of the walkway was Norman’s statue of a satyr chasing a nymph. In the lawns surrounding the house there were coral and magnolia trees, as well as ornamental urns and more of his statues. Inside the house was a courtyard which had a verandah on either side with cane chairs and a couch, while in the centre was a lovely statue of a Balinese girl in an elaborate headdress, sitting up very straight with her legs folded in front. Phyllis and I were thrilled.