C E S Tindall (1863-1951): maritime artist

C E S Tindall was a Scottish-born watercolourist best known for his marine images of Sydney Harbour. He was a notable member of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales and a founding member of the Australian Watercolour Institute. He was also the first artist to depict the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

C E S Tindall c.1912
Photo by Crown Studios, Sydney

The son of James and Jean Tindall, Charles Ephraim Smith Tindall was born in the Scottish county of Aberdeenshire in 1863. Little is known of his early life, but in early adulthood he undertook training as a lithographer in Glasgow. Tindall migrated to New South Wales in 1887 and seems to have initially settled in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.

In a short profile of the artist published in Fifty years of Australian Art 1879-1929 (Royal Art Society Press, p 93), Tindall claimed to have had his first lessons in colour from Charles Conder, an artist who was active in Sydney (at the same time as Tindall) during 1887-88. Conder was not known as a teacher at this time so this early career tuition may have been more of an informal nature. According to William Moore (Story of Australian Art, Volume I, p165), Tindall along with George W. Lambert, Sydney Long, J.S. Watkins and H.S. Hopwood were members of the Art Society of NSW Brush Club. Moore continued his historical account of the Brush Club by mentioning that its members met once a month at the Cambridge Hotel, Sydney, where their sketches were criticized by Julian R. Ashton, Henry Fullwood and others. The English watercolour painter H.S. Hopwood, who lived in Australia for eighteen months during 1889 and 1890, was, according to the profile in Fifty years of Australian Art 1879-1929, an important early influence on Tindall.

From Berry's Bay, watercolour by C E S Tindall
collection Art Gallery of NSW

By 1893 Tindall was working from a studio at 268 George Street, Sydney. That same year he began to exhibit his work at the annual exhibition of the Art Society of NSW with four Sydney Harbour paintings. Over the following half century he continued to exhibit his watercolours at many of the Society’s exhibitions. By 1894 he was residing in the Sydney harbour-side district of Balmain.

1896 saw Tindall appointed to the executive council of the Art Society of NSW, and in the following year he was advertising his outdoor watercolour class in the Art Society’s exhibition catalogue. One notable career achievement for Tindall occurred in 1898 when his A Westerly – Circular Quay, Sydney was exhibited at the 'Exhibition of Australian Art in London’ at the Grafton Galleries, London. That same year he and his family moved from working class Balmain to a house located in the affluent North Shore suburb of Lindfield. Despite the move he continued to paint ships on Sydney Harbour.

While Tindall received little mention in his early career, his reputation became established during the early years of the twentieth century. In 1902 he found his first career success when the (then National) Art Gallery of NSW purchased his watercolour Gone are the days. The following year, Tindall travelled to Japan via Shanghai, and in 1904 he exhibited seven works created during this trip. One work, Timber laden junks, Shanghai, was purchased from the (now Royal) Art Society annual show.

Almost all of Tindall’s output during his long Australian period was in watercolour, a medium which was regarded as a slight or amateur technique by many. Despite this, his well observed realist marine images of Sydney Harbour and the NSW coast found a market, and by 1907 the notable Sydney art dealer Adolf Albers was advertising that Tindall (along with several other artists) was one of his represented artists, a connection that continued until at least the start of the First World War.

While best known as a marine painter, Tindall also painted landscape. This was especially so in 1911 when he entered eleven works in that year’s RAS exhibition. A review in the July/August 1911 issue of Art & Architecture (p306) commented on his landscape at that year’s RAS show:

‘Mr. Chas. Tindall though not abandoning the wharves and the ships, gives us more landscape than we look for from him, and very good landscape it is. “The Waning Day,” “Mount Dromedary,” and “At the Shipbreakers,” are excellent; but the finest of all is “Wintle’s Rocks, Tilba Tilba.” The tall rocky pinnacles, golden in the sunshine, with a sea of beryl and amethyst plashing idly about their base, is a brilliant piece of colour that one would never tire of looking at, and it marks a distinct advance in delicacy and imaginative conception often sought for in vain in Mr. Tindall’s work.’

Dawes Point from North Sydney, watercolour by C E S Tindall
image courtesy AASD website

At the 1914 RAS annual show, the artist exhibited, arguably, his most well received image. From Berry’s Bay Heights (also known as From Berry’s Bay), an elevated view of a picturesque cove in Sydney Harbour, was purchased for fifty guineas by the National Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW). According to The Triad (10 January 1919), this work was one of the six most popular paintings in the AGNSW collection, and was later exhibited at the 1923 exhibition of Australian art at the Royal Academy in London. While Tindall had advertised his outdoor watercolour painting before, in 1921 he began to advertise his services in the RAS annual exhibition catalogue as giving instruction in painting shipping subjects.

While watercolour painting had been poorly regarded up to the war, following the death of J.J. Hilder in 1916 there were a series of Hilder tribute exhibitions that led to an increasing male respect for the watercolour technique during the interwar period. At an August 1923 meeting in Sydney, Tindall, along with prominent Sydney based watercolourists B.E. Minns, A.J. Daplyn, Martin Stainforth, J.H. Bennett and A.H. Fullwood, established the Australian Watercolour Institute (AWI). At the AWI’s first exhibition in 1924 Tindall exhibited fifteen works, mainly of Sydney Harbour and the Snowy Mountains. Tindall continued to exhibit with the Institute up to 1945.

Gloucester (1920), watercolour by C E S Tindall
image courtesy AASD website

Following the 1922 RAS annual exhibition there was a minor leadership purge within the Society which saw several members, including Tindall, removed from the executive council. Tindall seems to have taken great offence at this snub and for several years did not exhibit with the RAS. During this time he briefly exhibited his work with the rival Society of Artists SOA). Tindall exhibited two works at the 1923 SOA annual exhibition and one work at their 1924 show. But by 1925 he was exhibiting again with the RAS, though he never served again on their council.

At the second AWI exhibition in 1925, Tindall exhibited a work titled The way for the bridge, and at the 1926 RAS exhibition he exhibited a watercolour depicting the ceremony of laying the foundation-stone for the Sydney Harbour Bridge. These works were the first known artistic representations of this important construction project, something unrecognised by subsequent historians of the world famous Bridge.

While Tindall’s association with Albers has been recorded, there are no known solo exhibitions by the artist apart from a show at Rubery Bennett’s Australian Fine Art Gallery, King Street, Sydney, in December 1927. The exhibition was well received by the Sydney critics, including William Moore, writing in the Daily Telegraph (12 December 1927, p14):

'While C.E.S. Tindall is one of our best-known painters in watercolour, the exhibition of his work at the Australian Fine Arts Galleries will greatly enhance his reputation. He not only knows how to use his medium, but the sincerity and freshness of his outlook give considerable charm to his work. It is the mood of nature, that he gives in a composition; and as he has a strong sense of color, his free direct method makes a ready appeal to the spectator.’

Following the exhibition Tindall, in 1928, was appointed an Associate of the Royal Art Society (ARAS), and in 1935 he was promoted to Fellow of the Royal Art Society (FRAS). In June 1936 he made a visit to his homeland of Scotland, and at the 1937 AWI exhibition he exhibited six works, including three images of Aberdeen, one of the Loch of Aboyne, and a view of North Devon. Tindall repeated the trip in June 1939 when he travelled first class by ship to Scotland via Liverpool. Works from that tour, undertaken on the eve of war, were exhibited at the AWI and RAS exhibitions in 1940. There is little evidence of his painting during the Second World War apart from several works exhibited at the RAS and AWI shows. His last recorded work, The Coming Storm, was exhibited at the 1945 AWI show. Despite being the end of his exhibiting career, the AWI honoured their foundation member with an honorary membership, the first time that tribute had been bestowed by the Institute.

Silvery noontide, Circular Quay (1916), watercolour by C E S Tindall
collection Art Gallery of NSW

C.E.S. Tindall died aged eighty-nine on Monday 9 July 1951, and his Presbyterian funeral was held the following day at the Northern Suburbs Crematorium, Sydney. There are no major published profiles of the artist and little is known of his personality and artistic philosophy. Tindall and his wife, Mary, had three children, Conrad Lindsay Tindall (lifespan unknown) was badly wounded during the First World War and later lived with his parents as an 'incapacitated soldier’. Two of Tindall’s other children, Murdoch Charles Tindall (b.1889 in Waverley, Sydney) and Phyllis Tindall (1898-1950) became artists, Phyllis being known professionally as Nessie Tindall.

© Silas Clifford-Smith 2013

An earlier PEER REVIEWED version of this biography was first published on the Design and Art Australia Online (DAAO) website.

Joan Lindsay (1896-1984): author and artist

Best known as the author of Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay began her creative life as a painter in Melbourne. Despite her adult fame as a writer her own artistic life has been overlooked by many art historians, including those with a special interest in womens’ art.

Joan Lindsay with her husband Daryl [c.1925]
collection State Library of Victoria 

Joan Lindsay was born Joan a’Beckett Weigall on 16 November 1896 in St Kilda East, Melbourne. She was the daughter of Sir Theyre a’ Beckett Weigall and Annie Sophia Henrietta Hamilton. Her parents socialised with many of the National Gallery of Victoria’s early trustees including Professor Sir Baldwin Spencer. Joan’s father was a well respected lawyer (later a judge) and was involved in the establishment of the National Gallery of Victoria’s, Felton Bequest. Joan was related to the Boyd art family, and the potter Martin Boyd was her cousin.

After leaving school she enrolled in art classes at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). From 1916 to 1918 Joan was a pupil of Frederick McCubbin at the NGV’s, School of Drawing. Under his instruction she copied endless antique plaster casts of classical origin mostly using charcoal, this being a compulsory requirement before being allowed to enter the life and painting class. In 1919 Joan studied life drawing and painting under the head of the art school, Bernard Hall.

Fauns in the garden, watercolour by Joan Lindsay
Image courtesy of Lawsons

While she barely mentioned her art career in her memoirs, Joan wrote of her art training in a posthumously published article in the magazine, Overland. This article, based on a 1960s lecture, offers a fascinating insight into Australian art education during the early years of the twentieth century, although rarely mentions her own artistic achievements. As her art school training was undertaken during World War I nearly all her fellow students were women although things changed at the end of the war. One notable male student at the School of Painting in 1919 was the artist Godfrey Miller.

By early 1920 Joan had a studio in Bourke Street, Melbourne and she had a solo exhibition of her landscape work at the Decoration Company’s gallery in Collins Street, Melbourne in July 1920. This exhibition of oils and watercolour was positively reviewed in The Argus (12 July 1920, p 9):

'A strong feeling for the beauty of panoramic views is conveyed in some sketches of subjects of this character painted in the neighbourhood of Greensborough and Warrandyte. Some pictures in which the human figure, and in others ducks and geese are introduced, add variety, and show a decided interest in the decorative placing of figures, and also have much charm of colour… In water-colour, Miss Weigall shows several examples notable for breadth of handling united to charm of colour.’

View of the Yarra [c1925], watercolour by Joan Lindsay
collection State Library of Victoria 

During 1920 the artist shared her studio with her close friend Maie Ryan (later Lady Maie Casey ). This shared studio was described by Joan in her memoir Time Without Clocks (p 206):

'Before either of us was married we had shared a studio in Bourke Street somewhere near Spencer Street Station – not a party giving studio but a big dusty room – it never entered our heads to dust it – where in frenzied bursts of amateur energy we really worked away at our drawing. We even wrote a book together about the ballet dancer called Anna… When we got bored with the illustrations for Anna or painstaking drawing of Miss Minty – a professional model who only consented to sit if the poses were not what she called 'rude’ – we would take our 'Greyhounds’ (packets of cheap coloured chalks) and go off somewhere by tram sketch out of doors.’

Around this time Joan and Maie Ryan held an exhibition titled, 'The Neo-Pantechnicists’. This portentous title was, according to Maie Ryan, a 'leg-pull’, but with the support of Rosemary Reynolds and Ethel Spowers the exhibition was a sell out with prices between two shillings and five guineas.

Soon after leaving the art school Joan met Daryl Lindsay at M J MacNally’s Melbourne studio in Bourke Street, and Daryl soon became a regular visitor at her own studio. By this time Daryl Lindsay (a member of the large and famous Lindsay family of artists) had become interested in art and the couples shared interest led to an emotional attachment. Joan and Daryl were married on Valentine’s Day 1922 in London. After returning from their European honeymoon Joan and Daryl continued to paint together although she soon stepped back from art in favour of writing short stories, novels and memoir.

William Ford's 1875 painting At the Hanging Rock 
was the inspiration for Joan Lindsay's best known book
collection National Gallery of Victoria

Joan Lindsay exhibited some of her work at exhibitions of the Victorian Artists’ Society (VAS) in the early 1920s. Two works were mentioned by the prominent critic J.S. MacDonald in his review of the 1922 VAS exhibition published in Art in Australia :

'Joan Weigall Lindsay exhibits two Riviera watercolours. The larger of the two is attacked with boldness and decision refreshing to see, and the decorative impression of the steep face of the hill on which all the values “close” has been well maintained. Mrs. Lindsay has plenty of courage and enterprise.’

Joan Lindsay held a joint exhibition of her watercolours with her husband in 1924 at the Fine Art Society Gallery in Melbourne. The only (known) published image of her work was a watercolour titled 'Gum Tree’, which was reproduced in black and white in the June 1925 'Daryl Lindsay’ issue of Art in Australia.

Daryl only mentions Joan’s art practice once in his own autobiography (A Leafy Tree , p 128), and this comment is rather derogatory:

'Hers [Joan Lindsay] was only a minor talent but she had much more intuitive and mature judgement than most of the other students [at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School], and a lively inquiring mind.’

From 1941 to 1956 Joan’s husband was the director of the National Gallery of Victoria and during much of that time she worked as his part time administrative assistant. In 1957 Daryl was knighted and Joan became known as Lady Lindsay.

Seabirds [1972], oil by Joan Lindsay
private collection

Although a well known writer Joan continued to paint in oil and watercolour after abandoning her short lived professional career. Popular themes with the artist were beach scenes and landscapes. In late 1972 Joan Lindsay and her old friend Maie Casey held a joint exhibition of their painting at the McClelland Gallery, Langwarrin near Mulberry Hill . This was described in Maie Casey’s biography,Glittering Surfaces , as 'a historical rather than a commercial exhibition’. During the early 1980s artist Rick Amor lived on her Mulberry Hill property and he illustrated her last book, Syd Sixpence (1982). Joan Lindsay died on 23 December 1984, at Frankston, Victoria.

© Silas Clifford-Smith 2013

An earlier version of this biography was first published on the Design and Art Australia Online (DAAO) website.

Do you have any early works by this artist? If so please make contact. 

Exhibition: Art Burn, at Incinerator Art Space

This year sees the centenary of the Workers' Educational Association (WEA) in Sydney. Since 1913 the WEA has provided a broad range of adult education courses for Sydneysiders, and to celebrate the occasion art tutor Cilla Campbell has assembled a broad collection of her students' work from 30 May to 9 June at the Incinerator Art Space in Willoughby. The show of over 80 framed images includes relief prints, plein air sketches, life drawings and watercolours.

Mother & Child, linocut by Tania Castro

The exhibition is being held in a heritage listed former Incinerator designed by the American-born architect Walter Burley Griffin in the early 1930s. While Griffin designed several incinerators he is best known as the architect who designed Canberra, a city that, coincidently, is also celebrating its own centenary. After the Willoughby Incinerator ceased operation in 1972 the Art Deco building was converted to several other uses before finally being opened as a purpose built art gallery in 2011.

The Incinerator Art Space in Willoughby

Reflecting the original use of the building the WEA centennial show is cheekily titled Art Burn, and continuing the fire theme the exhibition was opened by artist and comedian Peter Berner.

Artist and comedian Peter Berner (centre)
opening the Art Burn exhibition

With the work of two dozen artists on show it is hard to mention all the exhibitors or highlight most of their works. One of the joys of adult students is that they are fearlessly independent in how they approach their work and most of the pictures on view in this exhibition are individual and personal. WEA tutor Cilla Campbell has included a distinctive series of high-key treescapes which reference the far more melancholic arboreal images of Fred Williams. Campbell clearly enjoys the technical possibilities of overprinting her work and her students look forward to seeing some of her more recent images.

Untitled reduction print by Felicity Sherratt

One exhibitor who deserves watching is Felicity Sherratt, an artist who has a beautiful command of both colour and design. Her untitled flower in a vase print is a highlight of the show. Other printmakers with a fine sense of design include Tania Castro and Susan Tee.

Beckett, linocut by Helen White

One of my favourite images in the exhibition was the small linocut portrait of Irish dramatist Samuel Beckett, a writer best known for his 1953 play Waiting for Godot. Simple in design White's work harks back to the golden age of Expressionist relief printing during the middle years of the last century.

Keko - ceremonial flower tray, Nara
relief print by Louise Madelaine

One of the most technically adept printers at Art Burn is Max Samways, an artist that clearly revels in the art of printing without forgetting the need to create a pleasing image. One participant with an intellectual approach to her art is Louise Madelaine. Conceptually influenced by Japanese art, Madelaine's images are both soulful and reflective. 

Hyde Park, pen drawing by Margaret Fegents

I have been unfair highlighting the work of the printmakers as there are also some fine drawings and watercolours on show. Stand-outs for me were the images of Margaret Fegents, Barbara Hamilton, Wendy Johnson and Susan Tee.

The WEA and their students should be proud of Cilla Campbell and her team for organising such a professional exhibition. Hopefully many of the works of the exhibiting artists will be seen again. Artists at Art Burn include: Cilla Campbell, Tania Castro, Silas Clifford-Smith, Malcolm Davison, Margaret Fegents, Barbara Hamilton, Vivien Hines, Wendy Johnson, Robert Kitson, Linda Lee, Denise Lovric, Dot Lucas, Patricia Maclachlan, Louise Madelaine, Janet McLean, Diana Modesto, Sandrine Nehme, Yvonne Preston, Max Samways, Felicity Sherratt, Susan Tee, Helen White and Julie York.

Creative Effort thanks the artists (shown above) for using their images.

INCINERATOR ART SPACE
2 Small Street, Willoughby
Gallery hours: Wed to Fri 11 – 5   Sat to Sun 11 – 4

John Williams Maund (1876-1962) - watercolourist, arts administrator and solicitor

While little known today, J W Maund was a pivotal player in the heated battle for control of what was collected and displayed in Australian public art galleries during the middle years of the last century. For Maund, this meant taking a principled stand as a trustee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales against increasing modernist influence. The dispute between the traditionalists and the modernists climaxed with the controversial decision by the gallery trustees to award the 1943 Archibald Prize to William Dobell, arguably, the most significant moment in Australian art history.  

Photograph of J W Maund
image courtesy of the Maund family

The second son of Richard Hunter Maund and Nina Brown, John Williams Maund was born in Paddington, Sydney, in 1876. An accomplished rugby player in his youth, he played for the New South Wales squad and also represented his country. Maund studied law at the University of Sydney, and after his training became a solicitor, later establishing the legal firm Maund & Kelynack in Sydney. The distinguished judge Garfield Barwick knew him well from the 1920s and wrote of Maund in his late life autobiography (A Radical Tory, p 13): His language was always direct, forceful and at times colourful. He had a sly sense of humour. He was also a good lawyer.

Maund's father was an amateur painter and this may have influenced his mid-life decision  to take up watercolour painting in the early 1920s. According to art historian Jean Campbell, Maund was a major patron of the Macquarie Galleries in Sydney (established in 1925) and never missed an exhibition. In 1928 he purchased Tom Robert's masterpiece Bailed Up (1895/1927) from the Macquarie Galleries for 450 guineas, and it was promptly lent, in his wife’s name, to the (then National) Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW). Five years later the family sold Bailed Up to the AGNSW for £350.

Bailed Up, by Tom Roberts
collection Art Gallery of New South Wales

During the early 1930s, the NSW State Government appointed Maund as Honorary Commissioner to investigate certain complaints that had been made in regard to the conduct of the fine art classes at the [East] Sydney Technical College. Maund’s report was delivered to the Minister of Education, Mr D.H. Drummond, in 1933, and the local press recorded Drummond’s comments to Maund’s findings:

I am more than pleased to find that generally speaking, the Commissioner, who is himself an art collector of considerable standing, and more than qualified by legal training and art research to report competently upon the work of the college, has effectively discounted in his report the continuous criticism on “wasteful expenditures, over-staffing, and ineffective control” and at the same time has said a well-deserved tribute to the class of work being produced at the college (Sydney Morning Herald, 4 September 1933, p 8).

Perhaps, partially, in recognition of his services as a government commissioner, Maund was appointed trustee of the AGNSW in March 1933. According to art historian Bernard Smith, Maund was one of the most conservative members on the board of trustees during the 1940s and 50s. Despite this, the family ownership of the 'mild modernist’ works of Roland Wakelin and Elioth Gruner in the late 1930s suggest that Maund may have been more open minded to modern tendencies than previously thought. Several works by artists Norman Lindsay, Percy Lindsay and Arthur Murch were also included in Maund's collection. 

Maund served on the board of trustees during the most unsettling period in Australian art history, a period of generational change that saw artists and supporters of modernism challenge the aging trustees’ antagonism to new forms of artistic expression. This period came to a symbolic climax with the awarding of the 1943 Archibald Prize to the modernist painter William Dobell (January 1944) for his portrait of artist Joshua Smith. At the deliberation of the Archibald Prize vote on 21 January 1944, Maund - according to the trustees’ minute book - was the first person to question the legitimacy of Dobell’s portrait:

Mr. J.W. Maund who also spoke said he did not agree with Sir Lionel [Lindsay] and considered the work in question was not a portrait, but a caricature and therefore not eligible for the prize.

While Maund was the first person to question the awarding of the Archibald Prize to Dobell he was bound by the collective decision of the full board of trustees. In early 1944 Sydney artists Mary Edwards and Joseph Wolinski unsuccessfully challenged the trustees decision in court to award the prize to Dobell, claiming his entry was a caricature rather than a portrait so was not in keeping with the benefactor's intentions. This bitter public dispute became a cleavage line in Australian art history. From that time on modernism became increasingly accepted in public galleries and its sympathisers were appointed to key administrative and management roles; most notably Hal Missingham who was appointed director of the AGNSW in 1945.

As a trustee, Maund worked with three directors of the AGNSW: J.S. MacDonald, Will Ashton and Hal Missingham. According to Bernard Smith, Maund loathed Missingham as well as the director’s mentor, fellow trustee, Sydney Ure Smith. After Maund’s death, Missingham wrote about the frosty relationship he experienced with Maund:

[Maund] took an instant dislike to me on my appointment. Maund would have none of what he considered the infiltration of modernism into the traditional, or rather academic art, of which he was so strong a supporter (Missingham 1973, p 30).

Although appointed a life trustee, Maund was publicly critical of such extended periods of office. In a Sydney Morning Herald report during Ashton’s directorship, Maund was reported as saying that 'The appointment of trustees for life was an anomaly which should be rectified’ (5 October 1942, p 3). Despite this, Maund was a member of the trustees for twenty-two years. According to Missingham, from 1945 up to 1954 Maund fiercely opposed the granting of powers to the [modernist] director to buy works without the collective approval of the trustees. Maund formally retired from the board of trustees in January 1956 due to ill health.

Maund's own bookplate by Arthur Murch
Maund family collection 

The first known record of Maund’s painting appears in August 1921 when he had three works shown at the spring exhibition of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales (RAS). While Maund’s involvement with the RAS was brief, he is best known for his long association with the Australian Watercolour Institute (AWI). In February 1938 the founding President of the AWI, B.E. Minns, died. Later the same year Maund joined the AWI and was elected its second President. Maund was a regular exhibitor with the AWI from 1938 to the late 1950s. His first review commented on his works on view at the AWI’s 1939 annual exhibition:

J.W. Maund’s pictures have a pleasant crispness. Their weakness is that they seem too large for the significance of their subject matter. (Sydney Morning Herald, 9 June 1939).

Despite stepping down from the AWI presidency in 1945, Maund continued his membership of the organisation until 1961. After the brief term of Hal Missingham as President of the AWI, Maund was granted life membership of the Institute in 1956, the first member to be honoured in this way.

There are five Maund watercolours in the collection of the AGNSW. Three images: She Oaks, Black Wattle Bay, and From Tomali, were donated to the gallery by the artist during his time as a member of the board of trustees. Two further works, End of the Day (1949), and Near Spencer, Hawkesbury (1950), were purchased by the Marshall Bequest Fund in the early 1950s. Despite Maund’s personal dislike towards him, Missingham, himself a notable watercolourist, reservedly praised Maund’s painting ability:

I thought he was the most callous and insensitive man I had ever had the misfortune to meet, but curiously his watercolour paintings were strongly romantic, moody and given to sudden tonal contrast, redolent of what he considered the best of the traditional English school of Cotman and Turner (Missingham 1973, p 31).

According to Meg Stewart in her biography of Margaret Coen (Autobiography of My Mother), Maund only painted on the weekends and deeply regretted in his later years that he hadn’t devoted his life to art rather than to the law, and he was trying to catch up. Stewart tells that Maund had a large car and would drive artist friends to scenic spots on the northern environs of Sydney, such as Narrabeen Lakes, Ku-ring-gai Chase and Frenchs Forest. Artists that benefited from these excursions included, among others, Isabel MacKenzie, Percy Lindsay, John Young (from the Macquarie Galleries) and Margaret Coen. After World War II, Maund bought a motor boat and often toured the Hawkesbury River with Percy Lindsay and other art-loving friends. His documented friendship with several artists certainly offers balance to the unflattering comments made of Maund by Missingham.

Watercolour by J W Maund (title unknown)
image courtesy of the Maund family

For much of his career, Maund can be justly described as a true amateur artist as he rarely attempted to sell his work at exhibitions. His amateur status changed, however, in late life when he began to sell his work at art society exhibitions. During the 1950s Maund had two one-man shows at the Grosvenor Galleries, Sydney. The first exhibition, in May 1952, was a display of thirty-six works, with prices from five to thirty guineas, and was opened by the President of the AGNSW trustees, B.J. Waterhouse. The surrealist artist and critic James Gleeson, writing in the [Sydney] Sun, reviewed the exhibition:

John Maund’s watercolours at the Grosvenor Galleries present no problems to even the most casual gallery-goer. They are quiet, modest works, keeping within the narrow limits of an orthodox technique and expressing a conventional opinion on what constitutes the proper substance of art (5 May 1952).

Watercolour by J W Maund (title unknown)
image courtesy of the Maund family

A second Grosvenor Galleries exhibition, in March 1956, had thirty-seven works on view with prices in roughly the same range as the 1952 show. The Bulletin (14 March 1956, p 19) reviewer commented on the improvements in the artist’s technique:

J. W. Maund’s watercolours at Sydney Grosvenor Galleries are considerably more finished than those he exhibited a year or two ago; less sketchy, warmer and clearer in color, more firmly transposed into patterns, smoother in tonal effect. In fact, though still light on drawing, he has made an admirable compromise between the smooth washes of the earlier style and the later tenuous 'impressionism’.

An annotated copy of the two Grosvenor Galleries exhibition catalogues in the AGNSW library show that the influential trustee James McGregor purchased works at both exhibitions. Maund married former actress Georgina Kathleen O'Meara in 1913 and the couple had three sons (John Williams Maund, Roderick Allan Maund and Owen Spencer Maund. Maund and his wife later separated, and she died in 1940. Maund himself died in Sydney on 16 October 1962.

© Silas Clifford-Smith 2013

An earlier version of this biography was first published on the Design and Art Australia Online (DAAO) website:

http://www.daao.org.au/bio/john-williams-maund/#artist_biography

My Virtual Gallery

I promised on my first posting that I would occasionally highlight some of my own artistic efforts. You were duly warned and now the threat has been acted on, so welcome to my virtual gallery. On this page I have included a selection of my relief print images. Most of my prints are available for sale either direct from me, from my stall at the Eveleigh Artisans' Market in Sydney (held on the first Sunday of the month), or from Furniture from the Attic in Edgcliff. All prints are hand printed on French made acid-free quality art paper. 

I certainly enjoyed making all these images and I hope you like them too.

Silas Clifford-Smith

LATEST EXHIBITION 

Some of my images are curently on show at the Incinerator Art Space in Willoughby (Sydney) from 30th May - 9th June 2013. The exhibition, titled ART BURN - was opened by artist and comedian Peter Berner.

Latibule, linocut by Silas Clifford-Smith

This small relief print is about time and the fleeting moments we don't normally see. Looking for a suitable title for the work I came across a website dedicated to saving little-used English words. One such endangered word was 'latibule' which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, means a secret hiding place. Make of it what you will.

Swimming Together, linocut by Silas Clifford-Smith

I was inspired to make this print after seeing a similar image on a stone capital in a Romensque church in France. According to one Greek myth this unusual design represents the fish into which Aphrodite and her son Eros transformed in order to escape the monster Typhon; they are tied together with a cord to make sure they do not loose one another.

Chaos ends, mono-print by Silas Clifford-Smith

This work was inspired by Haydn's Creation, a Classical period oratorio which celebrates the creation myth of the Bible's Old Testament. This image depicts the firmament from which - according to the Bible - our world was created. To reflect the dynamism of this early mythic world I have over printed the work ten times in different colours.

Moon, relief print by Silas Clifford-Smith

Rather than try to recreate the moon in a realistic way I have tried to represent it with a suggestion of mass. The background is created by over painting a series of dark colours. 

Open Weave, linocut by Silas Clifford-Smith

My parents were friends with the Swiss-born weaver Marianne Straub, a talented crafts women who found some fame for her modernist fabric designs in post WW2 Britain. My mother had a set of curtains made by Straub which had a very open weave.

Guildhall, Thaxted, linocut by Silas Clifford-Smith 

This is a view of the medieval guildhall in the pretty Essex town of Thaxted in England.  I love the way the building increases in size in its upper floors giving the image an unforeseen dynamism. I've depicted the front face of the building proudly showing-off its wooden beams. In recent years the Guildhall is regularly limed to prevent damage to the timber and now the building looks mainly white with only a hint of the beams below. 

Old Tools, linocut by Silas Clifford-Smith

As a professional gardener I have always appreciated my diverse range of pruners. While I mainly use modern equipment I appreciate old tools too. Here are three secateurs from my antique garden tool collection. The odd shaped piece in the centre includes an axe attachment and was used in France in the late 19th century to prune woody grape vines. 

Crozier, linocut by Silas Clifford-Smith

A crozier is a name sometimes given to the unfurling shoot of a fern. Always fresh these young fronds declare life and vibrancy. This work was inspired by a glazing detail I found on an Arts and Craft period tile.

Snip (portrait of John McDonald), linocut by Silas Clifford-Smith

Even inanimate objects can have a life of their own. Here we see an early twentieth century pair of secateurs, unclasped and ready for action. After cutting the image I noticed a resemblance to my friend, the Australian art critic, John MacDonald. A man known for his razor sharp criticisms.

Copse, linocut by Silas Clifford-Smith

I adore the silhouettes made by trees at twilight. Here I have recreated a small group that I once saw on a hillside during one such crepuscular hour.

On the Beach - Culburra, linocut by Silas Clifford-Smith

These three garfish looked so beautiful I had to draw them while they were still fresh. While this work won't win a prize for anatomical drawing, I do like the simple design of the layout.

Crow, linocut by Silas Clifford-Smith

Loosely inspired by the the shape of a menorah (a seven-branched Jewish candelabra), this simple expressionistic image depicts a black crow flying over a leafless tree.

Same-same, but different, linocut by Silas Clifford-Smith

Sometimes designs come from a simple doodle as in this work which was inspired by the breathing holes on leaves (stomata). Until recently this print was the title image for this blog.

Enigma, monoprint by Silas Clifford-Smith

I'm currently doing a series of images where I overprint a block with different colours. The outcome is often unpredictable, therefore I term these works as monoprints. More to come soon.

© Silas Clifford-Smith 2013