Jane Hunt

Trafficking modernities: Gender and cultural authority in the case of the woman organist, Lilian Frost

Jane Hunt — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 16:50:11 PDT

According to the local press, Frost as both soloist and accompanist on piano and organ was reported to exhibit a musical maturity beyond her years, and stamina considered unusual for a 'young lady', but clearly this was problematic. Jealous minded organists of the sterner sex are apt to say that ladies cannot play the organ; but the meritorious performance by Miss Frost dispels that illusion; for here is a lady who can play the organ. This appeared to provoke a shift in reportage on Frost's performances: whereas previously newspaper reports repeated an established complimentary four-lined riff, detailed reviews soon replaced them, most adding to the theme of Frost's anomalous physical strength.

Art worthy of the state: Daphne Mayo and her cultural mission

Jane E. Hunt — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:52:30 PST

The Queensland sculptor, Daphne Mayo, believed in and exercised what might be regarded as a form of ‘cultural authority’, in an Arnoldian sense. She distinguished between philistines (although she didn’t necessarily use that term), and those who possessed artistic ‘sensibilities’. Those who possessed such knowledge, appreciation and sensibility were worthy of determining, in the state of Queensland, what was worthy of its state collection of fine arts. In both the 1930s and 1960s when she worked closely with them, she viewed the majority of the members of the Board of Trustees of the Queensland Art Gallery as laymen who were too susceptible to commercialism and cronyism. She was a woman of principle, and was prepared to sever her ties with the Board (as an art advisor or member of the Board) when she felt that its art-purchasing policies were being monopolised by laymen, rather than men of sensibility. Likewise she protested when Art Gallery directors lacking the requisite sensibility were appointed, or when those possessing such sensibilities were over-ruled or dismissed by lay trustees.

It wasn’t all politics for Mayo – the point was to ensure that the Queensland Art Gallery possessed the type of art that Mayo deemed worthy of a civilised state. This paper will explore Mayo’s notion of art worthy of the state of Queensland, particularly as demonstrated in her work as a member of the Art Advisory Committee, and later as a trustee of the Queensland Art Gallery, as well as her work with Vida Lahey to establish the Queensland Art Fund, and the Godfrey Rivers Trust.

Daphne Mayo’s self-portrait: Australian sculptor; experiment with colour; or woman with toothache?

Jane E. Hunt — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:45:24 PST

A self-portrait by Australian sculptor Daphne Mayo, housed, unframed, in an art file in the University of Queensland’s Fryer Library is one of those images that can lead to ever-expanding circles of research and cross-disciplinary reading. Daphne Mayo was a key Australian sculptor of the mid-twentieth century, the creator of numerous prominent pieces of public art, and a woman who contributed significantly to the shaping of the Queensland Public art collection during the same period. There are a number of ways to analyse Mayo's body of work as a whole – as an artist herself in terms of her views, methodology, and artistic experimentation; as a woman exerting cultural authority; and as an interesting counterpoint to conventional scholarly ideas about national and state cultural identities. None of this is explicitly referenced in Mayo’s self-portrait.

How might we understand the demure hands and frumpy dress; the pained facial expression; or the direct gaze of the eyes? Does it matter that on the reverse of the self-portrait is a painting of her classical sculpture Susannah? Does that discovery change its meaning? What about when this self-portrait is compared to the one Mayo self-portrait held in a public art collection, or when compared with two small portraits in the Fryer’s Mayo collection that are accompanied with notes on colour? This paper will explore a few possible ways of understanding Mayo that arise from this self-portrait.

Daphne Mayo collection

Jane Hunt — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:37:03 PST

“Victors” and “victims”: Men, women, modernism and art in Australia

Jane E. Hunt — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:24:57 PST

Extract:

It is relatively easy to misread the history of artistic modernism in Australia. Glance at a handful of key sources, and they all seem to tell the story of a battle: in the years between the two world wars the Australian art establishment was run by a band of big bad traditionalists - art historian Bernard Smith likens them to the priests of Leviticus - who were at first irritated and later seriously threatened by a bunch of critical young innovators.

Finding a place for women in Australian cultural history: Female cultural activism in Sydney, 1900-1940

Jane Hunt — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:57:55 PST

With only a few exceptions, the endeavours of culturally active women appear as irrelevant or marginal to the history of Australian culture. Australian cultural historiography dwells on antithetic relationships, whether between cultural-political elites, gendered spaces and practices, or elitist and popular culture. However, this historical preoccupation with dichotomous notions of class, gender, and culture has deflected attention from other aspects of the struggle to define culture. Cultural definitions were far from fixed for most of the first half of the twentieth century in Australia. Negotiations on what constituted appropriate cultural form, content, and practice are apparent inside and outside establishment institutions where they existed, in movements to found cultural institutions where they did not exist, and in grass roots personal and collective choices. Women who were culturally active may be viewed as participants in these formative negotiations. Through the creative application of gendered skills and practices such as nurturance, networking and charity fund-raising they made clear their views on who or what should be considered as cultural in Australia. This culture of cultural activism will be considered in the case of some Sydney women.

“Fellowing” women: Sydney women writers and the organisational impulse

Jane Hunt — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:56:04 PST