Brisbane skyline c.1944

Vera Leichney was born at Walhalla, Victoria. She studied at the Melbourne Working Men’s College and exhibited with the Victorian Artists Society before marrying photographer George Leichney in 1926 and moving to Brisbane. She became an energetic member of the city’s art circles, participating in Royal Queensland Art Society exhibitions and serving twice as a council member (1944–45, 1948–50). Leichney also joined the Brisbane Art Group, whose members included James Wieneke, and she both managed and exhibited at Finney's Art Gallery in the late 1940s.

Like her Brisbane-based contemporaries Vida Lahey, William Bustard and Charles Lancaster, Leichney was drawn to paint the city as a symbol of modern life. In Brisbane skyline c.1944, she harnessed the shapes and hues of the city’s buildings to create an engaging composition that is a record of things past. The building in the centre-foreground is the old Department of Agriculture and Stock (still extant though much altered), while on the right in the mid-distance is the silhouette of the Canberra Hotel (demolished in 1987), with the spire of the Brisbane Fire Brigade Station (demolished in 1950) visible above rooftops.