by Meg Stewart
I made my own clothes because I couldn’t afford to buy them. I used to embroider them to make them more attractive. A high-waisted dress of dusty pink and black was my favourite; it had black cross-stitch on the pink bodice and pink cross-stitch down into the black skirt. I kept that dress for years. I also used to buy white voile and make it up into blouses which I also embroidered and wore with a black skirt. I wore one of the embroidered voile blouses for Harvey’s portrait.
The glass beads were a present from a friend of Mollie’s who had been overseas and had come to dinner wearing some glass beads like grapes she had bought in Venice. I couldn’t take my eyes off the dark green and clear glass clusters.
‘Your beads are so beautiful,’ I said. She took them off and gave them to me as a present. They were the most beautiful beads; people fell in love with them. At a party, a man stared at them all night as he talked to me. A couple of days later, he rang me to arrange another meeting.
‘Your beads are haunting me,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking about them all the time. I’ve even dreamed of them.’
I think Harvey himself provided the paisley shawl which is draped across the background of the painting.
Harvey worked at the portrait for quite a while. His method of painting – partly traditional, partly distinctively his own – was slow and meticulous. After each sitting, he carefully covered the canvas with newspaper to pick off any surplus paint before the next session.
One Saturday afternoon, Harvey and I thought we were alone in the building when we heard an extraordinary noise. Tramping of boots, bangs and crashes, the commotion seemed to be coming from the studio where Joe Holloway had his sketch club.
We went to investigate. The police were going through Joe’s studio. They were looking for someone, not an artist, but someone they wanted to question whom they thought might be hiding in the building. Not that they had much respect for artists; artists were the lowest of the low, in their opinion. The nudes, done by Joe’s students and tacked to the walls, confirmed their suspicions. Naked women, they guffawed. Artists! What a den of iniquity!
Next to the nudes, the students had stuck a front page of the Sun with the photograph of a suspect in a grisly murder case. This further incensed the constabulary. As if naked women weren’t enough, what sort of people would put such a photograph up on the wall? Artists! Empty-handed, still sounding off, the police force departed.
Harvey’s painstaking work paid off. I thought the portrait was wonderful. It was finished and entered for the Archibald Prize of 1932. We both had our fingers crossed. On the January day the prizes were announced, a downcast Harvey came to see me. The established artist Ernest Buckmaster had won, he told me.
‘What!’ I exclaimed. I found it difficult to believe Harvey’s work had been passed over. The portrait had been hung in the 1932 Society of Artists annual exhibition and reproduced in the Sydney Morning Herald. But it didn’t make up for the Archibald disappointment.
For us students, however, the great thing in those days was to have work accepted for one of the exhibitions put on by the Society of Artists, the Royal Art or the Society of Women Artists. We had to work for years before getting a painting hung in an exhibition.
I knew it was a long time off for me. The only money I could earn was from commercial art jobs and anything else I could find in the same line. Even before my ventures into the commercial art world, every Christmas after I left school I had made black and white calendars with little silhouette drawings of crinolined women in full swinging skirts and children at play, to try and earn money. I used to wear my shoes out walking round town trying to sell these, but nobody took any.
Aunt Mary Carter came to my rescue – Aunt Mary Carter who had lent me her shoes to wear in the beauty contest. As soon as I showed her my calendars, she ordered about three dozen. Her friends and her sister Beatrice all received calendars that Christmas and for Christmases to come.
Aunt Mary Carter wasn’t really our aunt, but that’s what we called her. When Mum and Dad first married and were living in Nowra, Aunt Mary Carter was married to an hotel-keeper named Walters in nearby Bomaderry. Walters was cruel to her, and their marriage ended badly. One night Mary had to flee for her life; she climbed a gum tree to hide from her husband and spent the entire night up there in her nightgown, while Walters prowled around with a revolver, looking for her.
Mary Walters divorced her husband after that. She went to Western Australia to start afresh and married a man named Carter. But Mum and Mary Carter stayed in touch and when Mary’s second husband died and she came to live in Sydney, she and Mum were best friends.
Diminutive, neat, brisk, intrepid, Aunt Mary Carter was a darling, and we all loved her. She never had any children of her own; perhaps that’s why she spoiled us so much.
She took me to see Pavlova dance at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Pitt Street the year after I left school. We saw Dionysus and Autumn Leaves, sitting right up in the gods. Even so far from the stage, Pavlova totally captivated me. Aunt Mary and I went round to the side door after the performance to see her as she left. Pavlova was so fragile I couldn’t believe it; like a fairy. At the stage door, she looked as though she would be blown away by the slightest breeze, yet on stage she was magic.
Aunt Mary had a younger sister Beatrice who used to stay with her down at Nowra. Aunt Mary often talked about her sister, but as children we never met her and Beatrice McCaughey was a bit of a legend to us. The McCaugheys were a famous family of graziers from Narranderah. Beatrice was the second wife of John McCaughey, who was seventy-five when he married her. He had a daughter older than Beatrice by his first wife. He lived for another ten years and his death left Beatrice a wealthy woman.
She had a suite of rooms on the seventh floor of the Hotel Australia, the poshest hotel in Sydney where squatters and socialites swanned. Having a permanent suite was amazing swank. Beatrice also had a chauffeur-driven limousine which she didn’t use much. She sent my mother down to Yass in it once when she had been ill.
Aunt Mary had been telling Beatrice tales of my hard luck, how I was struggling to be an artist, how hard it was to earn any money from commercial art, how trying the teaching job was, and what a fraud it turned out to be. Beatrice asked me to bring some paintings to show her at the Hotel Australia.
She was small, impeccably dressed and beautiful, with silver hair, grey eyes flecked with green and perfect skin. She led me into the pale green, soft-carpeted drawing room, almost claustrophobic in its femininity and prettiness. It had Louis XIV furniture and the couch and chairs were upholstered with a print of bunched primroses.
Bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette, pantry (even though Beatrice didn’t cook, having her meals sent up) – all the rooms in the suite showed the stamp of Beatrice’s personality. The balcony outside ran the length of the hotel and looked down into Castlereagh Street. I was overawed at such a style of living.
Beatrice took a lively interest in my paintings, studying them closely and asking me questions. Nothing more happened for a while, then she rang up to invite Mollie and me to dinner at her flat in Edgecliff. She still kept her suite of rooms at the Australia; they were her headquarters, so to speak, but she and Mary moved into a luxurious flat in Ocean Street, Edgecliff, to keep each other company.
Mollie and I arrived. At each of our places on the dining room table was a huge box of Personality chocolates, the best. The boxes were tied with lilac ribbon and on top of each was a giant purple and white orchid. Mollie and I had never been treated like this in our lives, and it was just the start. After dinner, Beatrice made an announcement.
‘I have a surprise for you, Margaret,’ she said softly. ‘I have decided to pay the rent of a studio for you and buy your materials so you can continue painting.’
A studio of my own! It was like a dream come true. John McCaughey had begun this tradition of helping people; he had put a number of students through medical school, and Beatrice carried on his generosity. However, I had no i
dea she intended to do this for me.
Getting a studio of my own was, of course, a major event in my life. I rented a large room in the same Margaret Street building where Harvey painted my portrait, I was so excited. The rent was only about 15s a week, but it would have been beyond my means without Beatrice’s assistance. I thought I was made.
SEVEN
CIRCOLO ISOLE EOLIE
Circular Quay was a world of its own in the late 1920s and early 1930s – a world of artists and bohemians. From Martin Place to the Quay was like a rabbit warren, so many artists either rented rooms to paint and even lived there. Moving into my own studio in Margaret Street meant that the Quay, its character and its characters, quickly became familiar to me.
I might meet Percy Lindsay on the steps of the Bulletin newspaper offices; Percy with his rosy complexion, shiny white hair and alert blue eyes, was an unmistakable figure dressed in white tropical suit and white solar topee. Percy had a cold shower every day of his life, which perhaps accounted for his particular sparkle.
I might see Bea Miles jumping off a tram; a young, boyishly pretty Bea, also always in white, white frock and white beret. She had a round face and short brown hair.
Everybody seemed to know everybody else. Artists and their friends congregated at the Royal Art, which had moved from Pitt Street to lower George Street, and at the other half dozen or so sketch clubs round the Quay, such as Rah Fizelle’s.
Rah Fizelle, whose elbow had been shot away in World War I, was nice but highly nervous and intense. He began painting quite traditional watercolours, but after travelling overseas his style changed drastically and he produced the modernistic nudes for which he became famous.
Dora Jarret’s studio was in the same building as Alison and George’s, 4 Dalley Street. Dora especially loved painting Sydney street scenes. Grace Crowley, as well as having the art school with Rah Fizelle, also lived in lower George Street, as did Thea Proctor. The grapevine on the roof of Grace’s studio ran about half the length of the street. Doreen Hubble, the artists’ model, used to laugh about Thea Proctor’s yellow bath tub. Thea loved to paint Doreen, with her red hair and creamy skin, either sitting or standing in this tub.
Rubbo was still ensconced in Bligh Street but Julian Ashton’s art school was in lower George Street and so were Parker’s, the framers. Smith & Julius, the advertising company which was set up by Sydney Ure Smith and Harry Julius of Art in Australia, had their offices and studio nearby in Bond Street.
Two doors down from the Bulletin offices in George Street, close to Bridge Street, was a Mockbell’s coffee shop where the Bulletin push consumed quantities of coffee, night and day, when they weren’t drinking in the pub on the corner. One of the Bulletin crowd, a man called Jim Emery, drew beautiful maps.
Percy Lindsay sometimes drank at a wine bar further down George Street, and in between this and the Bulletin pub was Leo Buring’s wine shop. Women didn’t go into wine bars or pubs. They were strictly masculine strongholds.
Next door to my studio at Pfahlert’s Hotel, older-established literary and bohemian figures hung out in the bar and grill room. I never ventured in but it added to the atmosphere.
J. S. Watkins, Dorrit Black, Miriam Moxham and my friend Hilda were still residents of Margaret Street when I moved in, but I think Joe Hollaway was about to shift into rooms above Mockbell’s. The room I rented was big and empty with bare boards. My furnishings were sparse; not that I minded. Painting was what mattered.
I already had an easel. Making a model’s throne was easy. I cut the legs off a large table so it was about ten inches off the floor. When drawing from the model, or painting a portrait, if the subject sits on a throne like this, it gives a better perspective. In Newtown, where there were lots of secondhand shops, I bought myself a marvellous old mirror, the sort that used to hang over sideboards. It made my already large room look twice its size.
The Australian agents for Vaseline rented the rooms below me, and their office was filled with red cedar shelving. Because the building was condemned, all the offices were gradually being vacated, and when the Vaseline people departed, I asked if I could buy some of their red cedar. The request was granted. I took enough to make a long shelf and a desk for my studio.
As I was still living at home, I used to help Mum with housework in the morning, but I was in at my studio without fail by nine-thirty or ten. Lunch was a packet of sandwiches from home; dinner was reheated on the top of the stove after Royal Art classes.
In my studio I mostly painted still lifes, particularly my first love, flower pieces. I had kept on with black and white for a long while, but was now more interested in colour and gradually abandoned pen and ink work.
However, I did help out my friend Hilda with some drawings. Hilda used to supplement her income from the signwriter by doing suede work. In her studio, she made suede cushions, travelling bags, notebooks and calendars, which she decorated by burning designs into the suede with a poker.
She used Australian designs – waratahs, gum leaves, native bears – I drew some birds for her. The poker looked like a copper pencil and was heated up over a methylated spirits burner. Then we drew the designs into the suede with the hot poker. It was difficult work, but Hilda needed the money for her fees at the Royal Art.
The flowers I painted came from anywhere I could get them. Mum grew a few flowers and around the corner from us in Randwick friends of hers who had a proper garden gave me some of theirs. Florists were cheap. I did buy some flowers but I’m afraid as great as my passion for painting flowers is my passion for stealing them.
Mount Vernon, a lovely old home in Botany Street, had a beautiful garden with a pink camellia tree by the gate. Very occasionally, if I was painting a flower piece that really needed a pink camellia, I would take a flower from this tree.
‘Do you want some camellias?’ suddenly a voice challenged me. An elderly man almost bent in two emerged from the other side of the bush.
‘I suppose you think I’m a thief, stealing your camellias for no good reason but I’m not, not exactly. I’m an artist. I paint flowers and I want to put your flowers in a painting,’ I said. I didn’t know if this explanation would help or not, but it was worth a try.
‘When you come by tomorrow morning, look in the tree,’ he answered, to my surprise. ‘I’ll leave you some flowers. Don’t let anyone see you taking them. I’d get the sack if they saw me picking the camellias, let alone giving them away.’
As long as the camellias were out, I would walk past Mount Vernon in the morning, quietly put my hand into the tree and take out the bunch of camellias waiting for me. The stems were only about four or five inches long, tightly tied with string so they made a real little bouquet. I was very grateful to my ancient gardener friend for his gifts.
Sometimes for a change I painted landscapes. I would catch the ferry to Balmain from the bottom of Erskine Street and get out at the various wharves on the way to paint the harbour. I painted Balmain from the Darling Street wharf, looking up the hill to the church spire pointing into the clouds. Nancy Keesing has one of these early Balmain watercolours.
Balmain appealed to me; I would have liked to live there. I was in love with a small sandstone cottage set in a rambling garden. Balmain seemed so peaceful, compared to the constant bustle of Darling Harbour, which I also painted, sitting on the grass at Observatory Hill and looking down through the elephants’ feet trunks of the Moreton Bay figs. I took the bus to Pyrmont and painted the railway and the quaint old rundown houses there.
There were problems painting outside, I discovered: namely, small children who had finished school wanted to look at what I was doing, and dogs. A fox terrier sprang into my lap once and refused to budge; a Scotch terrier tried to sit on my painting itself and a small black cocker spaniel put all its four feet into my painting dishes and turned the colours muddy. I used to wish I was one of those beetles which squirted out a smelly spray of fluid when annoyed.
But my efforts were rewarded. Th
e Five Arts Club, of which Arthur Murch was a member, had an exhibition and two of my paintings were hung. The Five Arts Club was a small group started in the late 1920s and had members representing the various arts, including architecture and music. A portrait of my mother and a fanciful black and white drawing of a mermaid surrounded by seaweed tendrils and shells were shown in their exhibition at Burdekin House, a long, low colonial building in Macquarie Street. My first exhibition and my first sale. Right at the opening, a man wanted to buy my mermaid. A red spot! Over the years, how important became the red spot that means a painting is sold! My painting in the Five Arts Club exhibition was hardly expensive – two guineas – but still a red spot. I was beside myself with excitement.
A box of violets arrived for me through the mail next day. My buyer lived at Moss Vale, he had picked the flowers at home and posted them up; a romantic gesture, but the money for the painting was what interested me. He rang and asked me out to dinner. All very well, but where was the cheque?
The show closed; still no cheque. I decided I had better accept his dinner invitation.
The Hotel Clovelly was the setting for our dinner date. He picked me up at the studio in a flash car. The hotel dining room was swish, wine flowed and as the meal progressed he grew more and more friendly. I was increasingly edgy; no sign of cheque book and pen.
Glasses were filled again, the music swelled, his advances became openly amorous. Paying for my painting was obviously the last thing on his mind. Best to make my escape while I could, I thought.
It was late. I hadn’t told my mother I was having dinner with him because she would have been asking me all the questions in the world. If I didn’t leave now, I would certainly be in trouble one way or the other. I made one last effort to secure my two guineas.
‘I haven’t received my cheque yet.’ I came straight out with it. The wine had loosened my tongue.
