Fancy pants & other favourite finds

Rhiannon Walker, Associate Conservator, Sculpture surface cleaning a ceramic figurine ahead of Collection Online photography / Photograph: L Wilkes © QAGOMA

Rhiannon Walker, Associate Conservator, Sculpture surface cleaning a ceramic figurine ahead of Collection Online photography / Photograph: L Wilkes © QAGOMA / View full image

To showcase the work behind the scenes of the Gallery’s major Collection Online project, a selection of eclectic small works grew into an opportunity to display some of the conservation team’s favourite finds as well as highlighting more obscure pieces found deep in Collection Storage. Over the course of three years, conservators charged with preparing works for photography had seen it all — from Degas to Doulton, to the veritable underdogs of the decorative arts cabinets. From these came the exhibition ‘Small Figures’.

The smallest figure in ‘Small Figures’ is a tiny blue ceramic bird, no bigger than a fingertip. By contrast, the largest is a sculpture of a rhinoceros head by Australian artist Joel Elenberg (illustrated), cast in bronze and balanced on a tall pedestal — an imposing figure, towering over the porcelain animals in the cabinets below.

Joel Elenberg ‘Rhinoceros head’ c.1977

Joel Elenberg, Australia 1948-80 / Rhinoceros head c.1977 / Bronze, glass, timber and metal / 49 x 23.4 x 46 cm 103.1 cm (ht. with base) / Purchased 1977 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © QAGOMA

Joel Elenberg, Australia 1948-80 / Rhinoceros head c.1977 / Bronze, glass, timber and metal / 49 x 23.4 x 46 cm 103.1 cm (ht. with base) / Purchased 1977 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © QAGOMA / View full image

Sandra Taylor ‘Sculpture: Bella casa’ 1978-79

Sandra Taylor, Australia b.1942 / Sculpture: Bella casa (detail) 1978-79 / Stoneware, slab built and modelled with overglaze colours and lustres with aluminium, shells, coral and framed prints / 32 x 64 x 70cm (complete, approx.); house: 31 x 40.9 x 30.9cm; pool: 26 x 42 x 34cm; four palms: 30 x 22 x 14cm (approx.); three palms: 32 x 41 x 9.5cm (approx.) / Purchased 1980 with the assistance of the Crafts Board of the Australia Council / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © QAGOMA

Sandra Taylor, Australia b.1942 / Sculpture: Bella casa (detail) 1978-79 / Stoneware, slab built and modelled with overglaze colours and lustres with aluminium, shells, coral and framed prints / 32 x 64 x 70cm (complete, approx.); house: 31 x 40.9 x 30.9cm; pool: 26 x 42 x 34cm; four palms: 30 x 22 x 14cm (approx.); three palms: 32 x 41 x 9.5cm (approx.) / Purchased 1980 with the assistance of the Crafts Board of the Australia Council / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © QAGOMA / View full image

Briefed with collating a list of weird and whimsical works, members of the conservation team jumped at the opportunity to curate a display. A long list of works grew easily: All the funny animals! All the pink things! All the figurines with fancy pants! All the silly goats! Drawing on Stephen Killick’s Small figure making and recording history 1991 (illustrated) for the title, and embracing Killick’s sense of humour, the list of artworks was soon filled with sculptures that brought a smile to the faces of our project team, and those that had been both challenging and rewarding to work on. With expert advice from the Gallery’s exhibition design team, the object list was eventually refined, and the Pelican Lounge display’s peachy-pink colour scheme locked in. Well out of their comfort zone as curators, it was never the conservators’ intention for the display to be taken too seriously. Labels and captions in the display have allowed us to share behind-the-scenes conservation information and anecdotes about the process, instead of the traditional details of the individual works.

Stephen Killick ‘Small figure making and recording History’ 1991

Stephen Killick, Australia b.1947 / Small figure making and recording History 1991 / Wood, paint, metal and plastic / 124 x 73 x 42cm / Purchased 1992. QAG Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Stephen Killick/Copyright Agency

Stephen Killick, Australia b.1947 / Small figure making and recording History 1991 / Wood, paint, metal and plastic / 124 x 73 x 42cm / Purchased 1992. QAG Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Stephen Killick/Copyright Agency / View full image

While many of the Collection works needed no more than a simple condition check and clean to prepare them for photography, others required quite significant conservation. A sculpture by Joel Elenberg (1948–80), Rhinoceros head c.1977 was polished to restore the bronze to its original mirrored metallic surface, but more significantly, it was reunited with its ‘stack’ pedestal.

(Left) Rhinoceros head reproduced in The Sunday Mail, Brisbane 1 Jan 1978 / (Right) unpolished head before conservation

(Left) Rhinoceros head reproduced in The Sunday Mail, Brisbane 1 Jan 1978 / (Right) unpolished head before conservation / View full image

When initially brought out for photography, only the head was present. Searches through archives held in the Gallery’s Research Library revealed the artist’s intent for the bronze to sit on top of a piece of black glass, a wooden block and a black steel pedestal — the stack feature common to several of Elenberg’s sculptures from this time. In storage over the past four decades, the bronze had been inadvertently separated from its base pieces, and an old memo found on file confirmed the glass had been accidentally broken. An interview with gallerist Anna Schwartz, who was married to Elenberg when the work was constructed, helped to inform our decision to use a comparable sheet of reflective black acrylic in place of the glass, and to retain the original wooden block, cracks and all. Its inclusion in ‘Small Figures’ is the first time Rhinoceros head has been seen in its entirety since 1977.

Gallerist Anna Schwartz on her visit to QAGOMA Conservation

Gallerist Anna Schwartz (left) on her visit to QAGOMA Conservation, with Joel Elenberg’s Rhinoceros head, discussing the proposed treatment with conservator Rhiannon Walker / Photograph: Natasha Harth © QAGOMA

Gallerist Anna Schwartz (left) on her visit to QAGOMA Conservation, with Joel Elenberg’s Rhinoceros head, discussing the proposed treatment with conservator Rhiannon Walker / Photograph: Natasha Harth © QAGOMA / View full image

Also making their QAGOMA debut because of the Collection Online project are many miniatures, including the tiny birds, of local decorative arts legend LJ Harvey (1871–1949). Selected for their whimsy and intricate detail, small-scale ceramic creatures — beetles, dragons, frogs, fish and stray dogs — were always a welcome find for conservators when processing figurines for digitisation. Many of the ceramics required small aesthetic repairs to chipped glaze before they were ready for photography and display. High-resolution ‘focus stacked’ photography makes these details visible to all Gallery visitors now through the ArtSEEker app and touchscreen interactive, which invites viewers to ‘zoom in’ on details that were once ‘invisible’ to the naked eye. Highlighting exactly where repairs have been made is not commonplace in an exhibition setting; however, this slightly unconventional display gives visitors a glimpse of the work that conservators do, and insights into mounts, storage and even pest management.

LJ Harvey ‘Bird on a branch’ c.1920s

L J Harvey, Australia 1871–1949 / Bird on a branch c.1920s / Earthenware, modelled with a bird on a pedestal and glazed red and blue / 4.5 x 5.5 x 3.5cm / Gift of the Reverends David and Bruce Noble in memory of their mother Elsie Harvey Noble through the QAG Foundation 2008 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

L J Harvey, Australia 1871–1949 / Bird on a branch c.1920s / Earthenware, modelled with a bird on a pedestal and glazed red and blue / 4.5 x 5.5 x 3.5cm / Gift of the Reverends David and Bruce Noble in memory of their mother Elsie Harvey Noble through the QAG Foundation 2008 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / View full image

Conservators are in the privileged position of spending significant hours with each work of art, getting to know them more intimately than most: it can take a long time to clean the surface of a grimy pair of pink pantaloons! Regardless of size or value, the works that challenge or bring a smile create the most engagement, but it is always hard to pick a favourite. The Collection Online team gratefully acknowledges the opportunity to curate this display and share our work processes with the greater Gallery community. We hope our favourites make you smile, too.

‘Pair of figurines’ c.1870–80

Unknown / Pair of figurines c.1870–80 / Porcelain (bisque) slip-cast with elaborately costumed figures of a male and female / (1) 38.2 x 14.5 x 11cm (2) 38.5 x 13 x 11cm / Gift of Mrs A. Dodds 1967 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Unknown / Pair of figurines c.1870–80 / Porcelain (bisque) slip-cast with elaborately costumed figures of a male and female / (1) 38.2 x 14.5 x 11cm (2) 38.5 x 13 x 11cm / Gift of Mrs A. Dodds 1967 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / View full image

Rhiannon Walker surface cleaning a figurine

Rhiannon Walker, Associate Conservator, Sculpture surface cleaning a ceramic figurine ahead of Collection Online photography / Photograph: L Wilkes © QAGOMA

Rhiannon Walker, Associate Conservator, Sculpture surface cleaning a ceramic figurine ahead of Collection Online photography / Photograph: L Wilkes © QAGOMA / View full image

Rhiannon Walker is Associate Conservator, Sculpture, QAGOMA

‘Small Figures’ / Queensland Art Gallery Pelican Lounge and Gallery 17 / 20 September 2023 – 3 August 2025

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    LJ Harvey and his school

    Lewis Jarvis (LJ) Harvey (1871−1949) was the single greatest influence on visual culture in Queensland in the first half of the twentieth century, this important artist and teacher, and his students, highlights why Harvey was such an inspirational figure. Harvey was a distinguished modeller, woodcarver, potter and teacher active in Queensland during the first half of the twentieth century. While Harvey was a prominent figure within Queensland’s Arts and Crafts Movement, his work was nationally significant, and he inspired the largest school of art pottery in Australia. LJ Harvey LJ Harvey ‘Vase: the Rock’ 1930 Harvey trained under JA Clarke (1840−90) at the Brisbane Technical College and taught at that institution (and the subsequent Central Technical College) from 1902 until his retirement in 1937, during which time he trained generations of students. He then established his own craft school in Horsham House in Adelaide Street, where he taught until his death — dramatically enough, during a meeting of the Royal Queensland Art Society. While Harvey considered himself a sculptor, and is appreciated locally for his woodcarving, his claim to national significance rests on the pottery course that he established at the Central Technical College, initiating the first classes in August 1916. These developed primarily as popular hobby classes in the 1920s and 1930s. Harvey supplied a series of structured exercises which, with their commonality of form, decoration and glazing, established the most distinctive school of art pottery in Australia, of which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art has an extensive collection. LJ Harvey ‘(Screen with kookaburras and landscape)‘ 1931 The artistically conservative culture of Queensland, where modernist ideas were slow to penetrate, meant that Harvey developed a distinct regional style based on the use of neo-Renaissance motifs and handbuilding techniques. Harvey subsequently gave private classes, as did many of his students, and the influence of his techniques and designs are spread over more than three decades. Harvey’s most consistent potters (some for periods of up to 25 years) were the women who came to his classes as a social outing. The catalogue to the 1983 Queensland Art Gallery exhibition ‘LJ Harvey and his School’ includes brief biographies of 48 women who were Harvey’s students, but with further research it became clear that the exhibition had only skimmed the surface, we now have a record of some 1000 people who were influenced by Harvey’s example, mostly from Brisbane, but also from regional Queensland and interstate. LJ Harvey ‘Jackie tobacco’ c.1930 LJ Harvey ‘Vase: (The fox and the grapes)’ c.1920s The difficulty with attributing Harvey School works, apart from the signatures, is the consistent quality of execution and the uniformity of style — Harvey’s thorough teaching technique makes it difficult to identify individual makers. While the individual accomplishment of the pottery is considerably varied, the number of potters identified demonstrates, unequivocally, how thoroughly Harvey School ceramics permeated the social and cultural fabric of Queensland in the first part of the twentieth century. Individual potters include Alice and Sarah Ellen (Nell) Bott, Evelyn Buggy, Bessie Devereux, Val McMaster, Daisy Nosworthy, the decorator Martin Moroney, and the sculptor Daphne Mayo, renowned for her 1930 tympanum above Brisbane City Hall, and her 1932 Queensland Women’s War Memorial at Anzac Square. Although Harvey’s contribution has been largely hidden from public view in thousands of Queensland homes, he was the single greatest influence on visual culture in Queensland in the first half (and arguably the whole) of the twentieth century and a figure of national significance. Glenn R Cooke is former Research Curator (Queensland Heritage), QAGOMA Evelyn Buggy ‘Dragon bowl’ 1940 Nell Bott ‘Vase: (art nouveau)’ 1924 Elisabeth Monz ‘Coffee set’ 1929 Marjory Clark ‘Covered jar’ 1929 Featured image: Arts and Crafts Society of Queensland Exhibition, c.1933
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    Go back in time with Brisbane’s two finest craftsmen

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Between 1888 and 1931 Merten exhibited workboxes, bookcases, sideboards, writing desks, and several suites of dining and bedroom furniture. National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland Bowen Park (now known as the Brisbane Showgrounds) was the site for the first Queensland Intercolonial Exhibition in 1876, the exhibition was organised to promote the state’s agricultural, pastoral, and industrial resources, including showcasing local arts and crafts, and manufactured goods. The park was bordered by Bowen Bridge Road, O’Connell Terrace, Brookes Street and Gregory Terrace and the month of August was chosen as ideal due to its generally fine weather, it avoided any clashes with local shows, stock feed was available, and it was before the spring shearing season. Queensland resources and produce on display With the success in attracting 17,000 visitors on opening day when Brisbane’s population at the time was just 22,000, the exhibition became a permanent fixture in Brisbane’s social calendar. Brisbane’s first Exhibition Building at Bowen Hills (illustrated) used by the Queensland National Agricultural and Industrial Association was destroyed by fire on 13 June 1888 and was replaced by the current Exhibition Building and Concert Hall (Old Museum Building) (illustrated). The current building was built in 1891, however the Queensland Government took control of the building and grounds when the National Association was forced into liquidation by the economic depression in 1897. Fine Arts on display in the original Exhibition Building 1886-87 Brisbane Showground Exhibition Building, destroyed 1888 Exhibition Building (Old Museum Building) built 1891 Main arena 1896 The expanded main arena & ring events by 1906 John Merten’s connection to St John’s Cathedral During the visit to Brisbane in May 1901 by the Duke and Duchess of York, the then Prince George, and Mary (the future King George V and Queen Mary) where they laid the foundation stone of St John’s Cathedral (illustrated), Merten was entrusted with making a carved casket (illustrated) from native woods including Black bean, with a drop front, into which is slotted a watercolour illuminated manuscript address which was presented by the Government of Queensland (now in the Royal Collection Trust, UK). Merten was also commissioned to design liturgical furniture for the Victorian Gothic style Cathedral. The first stage of construction began in 1906 and took four years to complete, constructed from ‘Brisbane Tuff’ and Helidon sandstone from the Lockyer Valley Region of southeast Queensland, east of Toowoomba. Helidon sandstone was used extensively in public buildings at the time, including the Brisbane Treasury Building (construction started 1886), Brisbane City Hall (construction started 1920), and the University of Queensland (construction started 1938). Laying of the foundation stone 1901 Construction of St John’s Cathedral 1906 John Merten ‘Address casket’ 1901 Prince George at Government House 1901 John Merten & LJ Harvey ‘Hallstand’ 1920 Of particular interest here is Merten’s collaboration with Queensland’s principal Arts and Crafts practitioner, Lewis Jarvis (LJ) Harvey (1871-1949) as, at that time, carving and cabinetmaking were distinct trades. Harvey, an accomplished carver, lived on Gray Road, Hill End (now Brisbane’s West End), less than 100 metres from Merten, who resided in Hoogley Street. Harvey collaborated with Merten on two major sideboards: a neo-Renaissance style for Harvey’s wife in 1909; the other in art nouveau c.1925 (Collection: Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, Sydney) (illustrated). It is known that Harvey also carved motifs on other examples of Merten’s cabinetwork. ‘Queenslander’ furniture The furniture that decorated the typical ‘Queenslander’ home in Brisbane during the first half of the twentieth century was essentially a simplified Arts and Crafts style. The preferred timber was silky oak and, although Black bean (Moreton Bay chestnut) is native to the Brisbane area, it was used from the 1890s in small quantities. From the nineteenth century the native forests of south east Queensland provided a resource for building and cabinet timber. The silky oak’s primary significance locally was as a cabinet timber — it achieved recognition at the Queensland National Agricultural and Industrial Association exhibition in 1901 when manufacturer, John Hicks and cabinet-maker, John Merten were awarded First Orders of Merit for bedroom suites. John Hicks established his furniture business in the 1860s in Albert Street, Brisbane and led to a series of relocations and expansions over the decades that followed. For the next forty years silky-oak became the dominant timber used to furnish ‘Queenslander’ homes for the bedroom, lounge and dining rooms. Black bean was also considered a valuable source of timber, its dark-brown to almost black timber somewhat resembles walnut. Black bean derives its name from its large bean-like seeds from flushes of yellow and red flowers during summer, however these seeds are the poisonous part of the plant, and the timber’s sawdust is also toxic. John Merten, who had the reputation of being one of the finest cabinet makers in Australia, continued to make furniture for some 50 years, while LJ Harvey is appreciated locally for his woodcarving — he was a prominent...