Robert La Nauze

Gold Rush craftsmen and artists brought their European traditions with them in the mid-19th century, just as George de Nemes (György Nemes) brought his techniques, Hungarian folk art tradition, conceptions of what art should be, fantasies and recollections of totalitarian regimes under the Fascists and Communists in the mid- 20th century. Here he was accepted by artists in Melbourne, where he developed his own style of flamboyant, primitive art that drew on his international experiences, as well as making pottery. Rob La Nauze gives us the first account of his struggle to be an artist and outlines his contribution to Australian art.

The design and manufacture of a writing desk for the Bank of New Zealand, Dunedin (1879–83). We are familiar with immigrants trained in Britain or Europe coming to Australia and continuing their craft, or with Australian artists travelling to Europe to learn and expand their skills and ideas. Rarely have we looked at exchanges and collaboration across the Tasman. Dr La Nauze outlines the interchange among bank architects and the building and furnishing trades by exploring who designed and made an extraordinary Australian cedar writing desk for a New Zealand bank.

Wood and stone carver Lewis John Godfrey contributed to the high end of the artistic spectrum displayed at the International and Intercolonial Exhibitions from the 1850s into the 20th century, and his stone carvings still grace many buildings in Dunedin, New Zealand. Immediately after finishing his London apprenticeship, Godfrey sailed to Australia in 1852, soon finding employment with Launceston cabinet maker John Brown. His carvings were of such quality that four were sent to the 1855 Universal Exhibition in Paris. Rob La Nauze fills in this previously unrecorded gap in his life and corrects some details.

For a brief period in the late 1880s, Robert Ferry Thwaites (1833–1917) exhibited and sold paintings in Melbourne alongside such artists as Frederick McCubbin, Eugene von Guérard, Tom Roberts and Minnie Boyd. Thwaites had led an adventurous life before taking up painting in his fifties, but since his death has faded from view.

Prestigious Melbourne cabinet maker Geo. Thwaites & Son operated from 1842 to 1889, providing high-class furniture for Victoria’s mansions, homesteads and prominent institutional and public buildings. Today the firm is best remembered for its contracts to furnish Government House in 1854 and again in 1875 and for supplying bookcases to Sir Redmond Barry. Cabinet makers worked with other trades as necessary. George Thwaites & Sons collaborated with the wood carver and ornamental metal maker Daniel Livingstone during the 1860s. Together they produced some of Australia’s great Gothic Revival furniture and a series of unusual hall chairs.

In the 19th century, an appropriately draped “chair of state” under a canopy was deployed on formal occasions when the monarch or her vice-regal representative was present. These chairs were conspicuously larger than any surrounding chairs, acknowledging the status of the occupant. Dr La Nauze traces the history of Victoria’s chair of state made c 1859, outlining the role Flint Ramsay & Co played in its genesis, and the ambiguous symbolism of the Southern Cross.