William Bustard was an important figure in the development of art in Queensland from the 1920s to the 1960s, and a founding member of the Queensland National Art Gallery Board of Trustees and Arts Advisory Committee in 1931. A strong advocate for Queensland artists, he led by example, extolling the need for local artists to capture the unique Queensland light and landscape.

Evening light 1927 and Brisbane townscape 1928 are fine examples of his early style. Brisbane townscape depicts a growing city in a construction boom, looking over Queen Street to City Hall (under construction) and on to Mount Coot-tha. The scene is painted from a high vantage point, perhaps close to the Tattersalls building on the corner Queen and Edward Streets, its distinctive features evident in the close foreground. The work may also have been painted from a photograph taken from this elevation. The focus of the painting is on the rooftops, the verticals of the multi-storied buildings, the cranes and the skeletal unfinished spire of the City Hall clock tower. This all gives the impression of dynamic development. A billowing cloud of smoke in the left distance reinforces the sense of activity and drama. (The reverse of Brisbane townscape features one of Bustard's more traditional Queensland landscape scenes in oil — a subject he particularly excelled at in watercolour.)

The intense building activity in Australia's larger cities during the 1920s and 1930s — as typified by the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Brisbane's own Storey Bridge and high-rise buildings — fostered considerable enthusiasm in contemporary art and inspired numerous images of a vibrant city. A parallel is seen in works by Vida Lahey such as Building the bridge 1931 and The new bridge 1931, which depict the William Jolly Bridge during the course of its construction. The building of Brisbane City Hall (completed 1930) was an even more important focus for civic pride, being the highest structure in the city at the time — the symbol of a modern city emerging from the Depression. In Brisbane townscape, Bustard renders the buildings in simplified blocks of pigment, depicting the light and shadow in broad bands of colour. This simplified decorative style was the face of Modernism in Brisbane at this time and can also been seen in the Collection works of Vida Lahey, such as Sultry noon [Central Station, Brisbane] 1931, and Charles Lancaster's A corner of Brisbane 1937.

Another major interest of Bustard's was the Brisbane River. In William Bustard: Painting with Light, Madeleine Hogan writes that the artist 'was fascinated with the reflection of light on the river, the shadows cast by the trees, and how these elements were adjacent to the activity of the developing city'.¹ Evening light is a rare work in Bustard's oeuvre in that it depicts the river and Customs House — one of few heritage buildings that faces the river — at nightfall. The light still plays on the river's surface, but it is the artificial lights and red beacon of the ferry stop, with the yellow glow of Queen Street in the middle distance silhouetting a large tree whose dark shadow falls on the wall of the Customs House. The city buildings in the background are depicted as ghostly projections.

The Gallery Collection holds a colour linocut Customs House, Brisbane 1931 that depicts the same scene during the day; it was exhibited at Bustard's first solo exhibition on 12 October 1931 at Griffiths Tea Rooms, Brisbane. Further research is required but it is possible that Evening light and Brisbane townscape were exhibited in the same show. Bustard was aware of contemporary trends and techniques and both paintings have elements of the Australian Tonal realist painting movement pioneered by Max Meldrum (1875–1955), which had a particular influence on a number of Brisbane painters in the early part of the twentieth century. Rather than highly detailed and photographic, both works have a soft-focus atmospheric aesthetic much favoured by the Tonalists. This is particularly evident in Brisbane townscape when compared to similar paintings of Brisbane by Lahey and Lancaster. Bustard's later work tended to move away from this style as he became more concerned with capturing the unique light of Brisbane.²

Learn more on the QAGOMA Blog: Brisbane townscape depicts a growing city in a construction boom.

Endnotes

1. Madeleine Hogan, William Bustard: Painting with Light, Museum of Brisbane, Brisbane, 2015, p.12.
2. Hogan, p.17.