SUBURBIA: A reorganised forest
Brisbane suburbia
Brisbane author David Malouf once described Brisbane suburbia — the inside-out quality of timber Queenslander-style houses — as ‘like living in a reorganised forest’.1 The urban verandah is such a signature of Queensland architecture that settler poets wrote odes to them as early as 1875 (see J Stephens’s ‘From an Upper Verandah’)2 — but the realities of Brisbane living are ever-evolving. This feature draws together depictions of domestic life in the River City from across the QAGOMA Collection.

Glen O'Malley / Australia QLD b.1948 / Good Friday 1987, Kelvin Grove, Brisbane – Gerard and his girlfriend hung out his washing (from 'Journeys north' portfolio) 1987 / Gelatin silver photograph on paper / Purchased 1987 with the financial assistance of the Australian Bicentennial Authority to commemorate Australia's Bicentenary in 1988 / © Glen O'Malley

First house in Brisbane
- SHELDON, Vincent - Creator

First house in Brisbane
- SHELDON, Vincent - Creator

Sidney House 1890
- CAMPBELL, John - Creator

Backyard 1940
- BROWN, Vincent - Creator

Beach houses 1941
- SMITH, Frank William (Will) - Creator

A Brisbane bedroom 1944
- FRIEND, Donald - Creator

Venetian blinds c.1946-51
- GRANT, W.G. - Creator

Shadow pattern c.1953
- GIBBS, C.G. - Creator

Whynot St, West End 2014
- McKENNA, Noel - Creator

Frank’s horse 2020
- DREW, Marian - Creator
- David Malouf, ‘Boyer Lecture 4: Monuments to time‘ [ABC Radio National broadcast transcript], viewed May 2024.
- James Brunton Stephens, in Zenobia Frost, ‘"According to our bond": The poetics of share house place attachment in Brisbane‘, Research Paper, Master of Philosophy by Creative Works, Queensland University of Technology, 2019, p.56.