Barbara Evelyn Robertson
Artist and Teacher

Born: 18 December 1921, Adelaide
Died: 15 October 2011, Yankalilla (read obituary | view The Advertiser obituary)

Barbara Robertson: capturing a portrait artist in a book

This is no ordinary woman or regular painter. Barbara Robertson is significant, an important link between the Max Meldrum tonalists and the Modernists, and a South Australian treasure with works in the Art Gallery of South Australia and in private collections of significant art collectors across Australia.

Under a quiet and gentle demeanour, a feisty Barbara Robertson managed to develop her talent in spite of constrained family circumstances during the Depression. Born in 1921 she was the daughter of Eric Robertson, an internationally shown amateur photographer, who strongly encouraged his daughter’s artistic ability. His predisposition to portraying character in his photographs nurtured in Barbara a love of faces.

Studying at the South Australian School of Art and Craft in Adelaide, Barbara Robertson developed her talent under the tutelage of Mary P Harris and Ivor Hele. After teacher training, she then taught art for several years.

Thanks to the patronage of Veta Macghey, who later became the legendary first headmistress of Adelaide Girls High School, she studied in Melbourne for two years in the late 1940s. At the National Gallery School of Victoria, Barbara was a student of William Dargie (later Sir William and winner of eight Archibald Prizes). A student alongside artists Perceval and Brack, she chose to study the techniques of tonal painting although her own work developed far from the conservative style and palette she learned in those Melbourne years.

On her return to Adelaide she made her mark among the members of the Contemporary Art Society and exhibited with the Adelaide Group in the early fifties. Highly recommended in the Archibald Prize in 1950 and 1955, she was also hung in the NSW Art Gallery in the Sulman in 1950 and 1954, and in the Blake competition in 1958.

After working in her own city studio for a time she was forced to go back to teaching to support stretched family finances. Although a much loved teacher at Adelaide Girls High School for over twenty years, teaching and devoting her creative energies to nurture others eventually wore her down and she took early retirement to resume her own work.

Robertson reinvented her style of painting, experimented, lapsed into sentimental animal washes and then lashed out with her brush against vivisection and cruelty to animals. Eventually moving into large bold paintings with religious subjects, she had two solo exhibitions: The Lord of the dance and St Francis Australis series. In the latter she created extraordinary canvases using David Gulpilil as the face of her Australian version of St Francis of Assisi.

In 1986 she made a sea change to live in Carrickalinga, south of Adelaide, where she exhibited, painted more religious works and fine still lifes, joined life drawing classes and captured faces of locals in her portraiture. And finally, she also branched into painting minutely detailed mandalas with biblical symbolism. Ill health stopped her painting in 2000. Some of her religious works are displayed in the hall of Christ Church Anglican Church in Yankalilla. Others are in Anglicare chapels.

The Art Gallery of SA, Castlemaine Gallery in Victoria and The Cruthers Collection of Australian women artists at the University of Western Australia possess Robertson works. So do significant private collections across the country. Religious works hang in the church and hall at Christ Church Anglican Church, Yankalilla, and Anglicare bought several Mandalas for its chapels.

With the passing of artist Barbara Robertson on 15 October 2011, South Australians have lost a talented artist and remarkable woman. A respected and loved member of the Yankalilla community, the gentle and unassuming nature of Barbara made her a dear friend of people from a range of backgrounds who included artists, ex-students and former colleagues, environmentalists and churchgoers. She was close to her only brother Douglas (deceased) and his son, Gordon Robertson, and daughter, Deb Hanlon (Robertson).

 

Books are now available. ISBN: 978-0-646-50897-9. To get your copy go to order now.

If you have any information to share about Barbara, or want to communicate with the author, please contact Lorraine McLoughlin, by completing the enquiries form.