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The Life and Work of Godfrey Clive Miller, 1893 - 1964

PhD thesis by Ann Wookey




Appendix 2. Biographical sketches of family, friends, other artists, etc, together with details of schools and institutions, exhibiting groups and other organisations referred to in the thesis text (link to notes)

 

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I.   Biographical sketches:  family, friends, other artists, etc

A.  Family

John Duthie, b unknown - 1915; from Aberdeen in Scotland, d New Zealand; business-man [ironmonger] and politician;  father to first generation New Zealanders Eliza Jane [b 20 June 1865], Isabella [b 15 March 1867], William Grieve [b 22 June 1868], John [b 27 January 1871], Edward [b 30 May 1872], Alfred [b 11 December 1873], Laura [b 1 September 1875], Henry Mercer [b 13 December 1876], Florence [b 27 January 1878], and Lenoard [b 23 January 1879]; grandfather to Malcolm Balgownie, Godfrey Clive and Mera by Isabella, and Karis, Andrew Irwin, Theni and Lewis by Eliza Jane [see below]. Duthie was a founding New Zealand businessman who initially established at New Plymouth in 1866 as an ironmonger, and expanded in 1868 to a branch in Wanganui. The family company, John Duthie and Co, Limited, was founded in Wellington in 1880. First active in public affairs in Wanganui, Duthie’s subsequent civic appointments included Lord Mayor of Wellington in 1889-90, junior member in the House of Representatives for the City of Wellington in 1890-96, and MHR again for 1898-99 and 1903-05. Between 1882 and 1903 a stately home was maintained on The Terrace in Wellington, one renowned for its hospitality, and with its own stable and string of horses. In 1903 Duthie retired to his property at Nae Nae in the Hutt Valley, entertaining still with fashionable garden parties in the elegantly laid out grounds, to which his guests came from Wellington to a station nearby by train, and then by horse-drawn vehicle. He died in 1915 and the property was sold soon after. Mera, Godfrey Miller’s full sister, was placed with her grandfather soon after birth following the death of their mother Isabella late in 1896, and remained with him until around 1911. She must thus have enjoyed a rather “exclusive” childhood, first in Wellington, and then in the Hutt Valley 1.

Thomas Tripney Miller, b unknown - 1933; from Scotland [nr Glasgow?] via Australia to New Zealand before August 1882, lived Australia ca 1925-28, d London 13 or 14 December 1933; banker;  husband to Isabella [née Duthie] and Eliza Jane [née Duthie, m ca 1898];  father by Isabella to Malcolm Balgownie, Godfrey Clive and Mera, and by Eliza Jane to Karis, Andrew Irwin, Theni and Lewis. T T Miller joined the Bank of Australasia in New Zealand in August 1882, age 24. No two-year supernumerary [probationary period] recorded, so he perhaps worked for another bank elsewhere. There is a possibility that earlier banking experience was obtained in Australia, since Miller informed the Tate Gallery, London, of his father coming as a young man from Scotland to Australia and New Zealand. Furthermore, Peter Laverty, Miller’s colleague in Sydney after 1952, understood that T T Miller was a bank manager at Woy Woy, New South Wales. In New Zealand, he became Manager, Waipawa Branch, Hawkes Bay region, in 1886-88 aged 28, Accountant, Wellington in 1889, Manager at Patea and overseeing a sub-branch at Stratford in 1893, Manager, Hawera in 1895, Manager, Palmerston North in September 1901, all North Island appointments, and in March 1908, Manager to a large branch at Dunedin on the South Island. Suffering gastric ulceration between 1914-18 if not longer, he retired in 1918. The ten years prior to his retirement are thought to have been a difficult period for him since constant staff problems afflicted the Dunedin branch. The state of his health was given by his taking of three months sick leave in 1914, perhaps a further three months leave in 1915, and his applying for another three months sick leave because of a recurrence of his symptoms of gastric ulceration in April 1917. Whether the latter was granted is unclear, but certainly by that time he was a very unwell man. He had also travelled to Tahiti in 1911. Miller stated in 1936 that his father first became ill in Palmerston, which dates his illness from 1901. Operations were necessary in Auckland, ca 1918 and 1923, and he went to Sydney for treatment in about 1924, probably to the City Adventists’ Sanatorium at Fox Valley in the Kuring-gai Shire north of Sydney, coming to live there by 1926 [see below]. From May 1924, if not earlier, the elderly man had the full-time attention of a Scottish nurse. Finally he moved to London in about 1928-29, perhaps with his son Godfrey since their dates there are very close. Dunedin directories show T T Miller as Bank Manager, Bank of Australasia, 122 Rattray Street, Dunedin, and his Dunedin private addresses as, for 1909-14 in Eglinton Road [“Montecillo”], Mornington, Dunedin, for 1915-16 at 16 Constitution Street [“Glenesk”], Dunedin, and for 1917-26, 23 Leven Street, Roslyn, Dunedin. Miller later in 1948 recalled school weekends and holidays spent doing chores at maintenance at “Montecillo”, so identifying the family’s house in Eglinton Road during his final secondary school years when a boarder at the Otago Boys’ High School [see text]. The family’s acquisition of “Glenesk” after “Montecillo” was given by the artist in 1962. It is possible that Thomas Tripney Miller moved out of the family home during 1917 since Miller’s army record address remained the Constitution Street address between October 1914 and July 1920 [despite his being in Australia after 1918]. In 1922 Miller recorded his father to usually be in Auckland, and his contact address to be c/- Mr Murdoch, the Manager of the Bank of Australasia there. The artist visited his sick father in Auckland in 1918 and 1923, and in Sydney in 1924. Between 1926 and 1928, T T Miller was resident in Sydney, at “Casa Mia” in Owen Street, Lindfield. Lindfield, like Fox Valley, is in the Kuring-gai Shire, north of Sydney on the Milson’s Point Line. Address ca 1929-33 believed to have been 38a The Grove, Ilseworth, Middlesex, probably a nursing home 2.

Isabella Miller [née Duthie], 1867 - 1896; b 20 March New Zealand, d 12 November New Zealand, tuberculosis; second of ten children, all first generation New Zealanders, to the founding New Zealand business man and politician, John Duthie; first wife to Thomas Tripney Miller, mother to Malcolm Balgownie, Godfrey Clive and Mera. Amateur painter; Miller once showed John Kaplan one of his mother’s painting, a work remembered as both amateurish and representational, while Henshaw claims her to have been ‘a modest painter of works in the tonal manner of the nineties’ 3.

Eliza Jane Miller [née Duthie], 1865 - 1945; b 20 June New Zealand, d 1945; first of John Duthie’s ten children; second wife to Thomas Tripney Miller;  mother to Karis, Andrew Irwin, Theni and Lewis, step-mother to Malcolm Balgownie, Godfrey Clive and Mera; Presbyterian and Salvation Army member 4.

Malcolm Balgownie Miller [b 1891]; b 20 November Lower Hutt, to Isabella; educated Palmerston North Boys’ High School; businessman [shipping]; served NZFA 1915-19; married 1924 to Phyllis, daughter of Edgar Jones; father to Annette [Lady Cooke] and Marilyn [Mercer]. In 1908, joined Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand, Dunedin, as assistant to management, becoming Assistant General Manager [1936], General Manager [1945], Chairman and Managing Director [1950]; director in 1956 of Eastern and Australia SS Co, Canadian Australasian Line, John Duthie Holdings 5.

Mera Bull [née Miller], 1896 - ?; b 6 February Hawera to Isabella; resided with her grandfather John Duthie, Wellington and the Hutt Valley, 1896-ca 1911; married 1921; mother to Isabel [Long] and Ngaire [Tatnell]. Lived in Tasmania sometime during the 1920s 6.

Andrew Irwin Miller, 1900 - ?;  b July to Eliza Jane; educated Otago Boys’ High School, Dunedin, 1915; businessman [ironmonger, mercer]; father to Margot [Mrs Peter Young], Valerie and Jocelyn [Mrs Miller de Barragan]. Ironmonger, Duthie’s 1939; Manager, Dominion Mercers Ltd, Dunedin 1953 7.

Theni Miller, 1907 - ?;  b 27 February to Eliza Jane; unmarried.

Karis Miller, 1899 - ?;  b 12 February to Eliza Jane; nurse; unmarried.

Lewis Miller, 1908 - ca 1981; b 3 January to Eliza Jane, d Sydney; educated Otago Boys’ High School, Dunedin 1921-22; accountant, Auckland 1953; unmarried Travelled to see his very sick father T T Miller in London in 1933, a trip Miller later implied that he financed, visiting the artist at Howland Street. The two brothers travelled in Europe in 1934. Active ca 1939-81 in the Anthroposophical movement, New Zealand, Australia, London; recalled as much Miller’s opposite. World War II, inducted into the New Zealand Army early 1941, and camp hospital private, Middle East Forces, by February 1942. Returned from Europe briefly to Sydney ca 1947 although seemingly longer term resident there on occasions between 1939-64;  moved to London ca 1957-62, apparently becoming a teacher with the Anthroposophical Society [addresses, Jan – Nov 1958, 143 Fellows Road, incl Aug 1958 c/- Mrs E Widdows, Heather Cottage, Guiden Sutton, Chester, and after Dec 1958 – Nov 1962, Steiner House, 35 Park Street]. Joint beneficiary 1964 to Miller’s paintings and drawings 8.

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B  Artists, friends, acquaintances and writers, etc

Ruth Ainsworth, dates unknown; printmaker.  Studied Julian Ashton Art School, Sydney ca 1920-22; travel studies, Britain and Europe 1923; Julian Ashton Art School, Sydney 1923. Knew of Anthroposophy initially ca 1920 when came to know a Mrs Edith Williams, a student of Steiner’s, in Australia; late 1923, interest roused by a Steiner lecture at Penmaenmawr, Wales; later in 1923, joined a recently convened Sydney Steiner group. Taught on finishing her art school training, first at Frencham, Mittagong, New South Wales, and later, in the early 1940s, back in Sydney working with Alice Crowther and taking children’s’ classes for the Anthroposophists. Another period with the Sturt Workshop, Mittagong, preceded retirement in 1963, after which she travelled overseas and worked with Bernard Leach at St Ives, Cornwall 9.

C V Allen, no dates known; a psychologist during the 1920s with the Pelman Institute in Melbourne. Since Miller complained during the early 1940s about the “brittle” nature of his memory, it is interesting that the Pelman Institute was listed in the 1936 Sands & McDougall’s Melbourne Directory as “memory teachers”. What the organisation’s precise role was in Melbourne through the 1920s is not known, but Allen during the mid-1930s certainly played a supportive role by way of letters in Miller’s life in London. It may be expected that he played a similar professional role during the 1920s. However, there was a friendship between them as well as Miller sent greetings to Allen’s daughters more than once from London. Known letters from Miller to C V Allen date between 14 May 1935 and 28 September 1938 10.

Walter Bayes, 1869 - 1956; b London; painter, critic, writer and teacher. Studied City and Guilds Institute 1886-1900; briefly Westminster Art School under Frederick Brown. Principal of the Westminster Art School 1919-34; taught otherwise City and Guilds Institute, Westminster Art School, the Slade School of Fine Art 1930-? [perspective and solid geometry]. Art critic, The Atheneum 1906-16. Published The Art of Decorative Painting, Turner, a Speculative Portrait, and The Painter’s Baggage.  Memberships: Sickert’s circle at 19 Fitzroy Street, Camden Town Group, London Group 11.

George Henry Frederick Bell, 1878 - 1966; b Kew, Victoria, lived Paris 1904-06, England 1906-18, France 1918-19, Melbourne 1920-34, London 1934-35, d Toorak, Victoria; painter [Australian Impressionism, then Post-Impressionist from late 1920s], draughtsman and teacher [Melbourne]. Studied National Gallery School, Melbourne 1896-1901; Académie Julian, with Castelucha, and at Colarossi’s atelier, Paris 1904-06. Temporary drawing master, National Gallery School, Melbourne, 1902, 1925. Bell’s first “manner” before World War I was characterised by ‘“square brushwork and crisply faceted planes”‘. British war-work, then appointed an Australian Official War Artist and worked in France 1918, 1919. His commission was terminated late-1919, and he returned to Australia soon afterwards. Both Bell and Crozier were voted into the Australian Art Association in May 1920, Bell’s membership having been proposed by Leslie Wilkie and seconded by Clewen Harcourt. In 1922 he was elected to council, being appointed president for 1924-26. Bell taught privately in Melbourne from ca 1922-23, but became better known for the Bourke Street School established in 1932 with Arnold Shore where Modernist theory was taught. Miller first mentioned Bell in June 1937 when his [Bell’s] conception of drawing was under discussion. His name next appeared in conjunction with Shore in March 1938. A year later when Miller was back in Melbourne, Bell wrote a reference for him to Sydney Ure Smith in Sydney 12.

William Leslie Bowles, 1885 - 1954; b Sydney, d Frankston, Victoria;  sculptor. Studied Brisbane Technical School 1902-08;  South London School of Sculpture, London, 1910-14. Served with the British Army, World War I, afterwards resuming his London training as a sculptor. Returned to Melbourne in 1924 and established a studio in Prahran. Between 1925 and 1931 [and later], he worked for the Australian War Memorial in Melbourne; commissioned, for instance, for the well-known The man with the donkey in 1938. Bowles’ name appeared in a Miller letter of 1938 13.

Theodore Penleigh Boyd, 1890 - 1923; b Wiltshire, England, d Warragul, Victoria [motor accident]; painter [Australian Impressionist, best known for landscapes and seascapes] and etcher.  Studied in day classes, Drawing School, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1905-06, Painting School 1907-09; travel studies England and Europe. Exhibited R A, London, 1911. Served in World War I with the Mines Corps, and invalided back to Australia from France. Member of the Australian Art Association Council by 1921, as was an A B Boyd [probably his father, Arthur Merric, since Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd, Arthur Merric’s grandson, was born in 1920]. A highly considered landscape painter [“lyric and poetic”] before the war, he never fully recovered afterwards. Died shortly after having brought to Australia an exhibition of mostly contemporary British and European art with the intention of stimulating the local art scene. Miller’s remembrance of a Boyd was of one whom was both Arthur and Robin’s father. He clearly was confused for Arthur’s father was William Merric while Penleigh was Robin’s. Penleigh is the more likely of the two given the number of Miller’s Melbourne acquaintances identified with the Association 14.

Frank Evan Charlton, b unknown - ca 1985; d Cardiff; married art student Felicity Hartland Thomas, Bristol 1936; painter [Figurative Surrealist] and teacher. Studied chemistry; Slade School of Fine Art, London 1929-33 [began 2nd half last term 1929-30, ie, in 1930, awarded diploma 1933], 1933-34 [short poses, day book signed for most of the 1934 2nd and 3rd terms]. Younger brother of George Charlton [drawing instructor, Slade], Evan had first taken a degree in chemistry, and in the late 1920s tested gasometers for the Gas Board Association with the Slade began as part-time for drawing. At the time, the students were set ambitious painting compositions [on a canvas of three foot or so] for the summer breaks. The theme ‘Open air theatre’ was won by Charlton with an Impressionistically-handled scene of two dualists, an audience, some architecture and sunlight, and the success prompted him to forego his job to become a full-time Slade diploma student. London address 1934-36, 9 Robert Street, Hampstead with artists as neighbours [George Charles Francis, 13 Robert Street 1928-38, and Michael Stewart, 11 Robert Street 1934-35]. Some years after graduating, probably during 1936, he took up a position at the West of England College of Art [later the Royal West of England Academy], Bristol. September 1938, appointed Principal, Cardiff School of Art where, among other things, the Surrealist painter Ceri Richards was taken onto staff. Some time after World War II, he was appointed to Whitechapel as an Inspector of Art, rising to be Chief Inspector. Retrospective during latter years of life, National Museum of Wales; memorial exhibitions, National Museum of Wales [1985], and Royal West of England Academy, Bristol [1986]. The few letters to Charlton held with the Miller correspondence in Sydney are dated over July - October 1937 only; Felicity Charlton, his wife, no longer holds any either. Like Sweet, Charlton knew Miller from 1929 15.

Helen Priscilla Crabb [Barc], 1891 - 1972; b Rewa, New Zealand, lived Sydney, London, Sydney 1913-39, Sydney 1942-43, Sydney 1959, Hobart, Tasmania ca 1959-64, New Zealand for the years in between, d Wellington; painter and illustrator. Studied Julian Ashton’s School of Art, Sydney, 1913-16, 1919-21; Royal College of Art London, 1916. Served World War I in the Womens Auxiliary Army Corps, France and London. Taught Pymble Ladies College, Girrahween and Ashton’s, Sydney, during the 1920s. Inherited Miller’s Paddington house on his death in 1964. Barc was claimed to have been a Christian Scientist most of her life. Her drawings were reviewed in the art student magazine Undergrowth, March - April 1927, and article by “H.P.C.” [probably Crabb] on Wakelin contributed in July - August 1928. She enjoyed a close friendship with Dora Hawthorn who was an editor for the magazine, and a Theosophist. Miller was likewise at the time of his death, and although a known active Anthroposophist from around 1940 to the mid-1950s, Ainsworth considers him to have had an earlier involvement with Theosophy. Since there are no traces thereof from his London years of the 1930s, such a contingency must be placed into the 1920s, in either Sydney or Melbourne, or both. Enquiries to the Melbourne and Sydney branches of the Theosophical Society have failed to uncover evidence of an involvement through the 1920s. There was, however, more than one branch in each city, and the old records do not appear to have been centralised, if still existent at all. Of interest here also was that Archibald D Colquhoun in Melbourne, a young artist of Miller’s age who was both friendly with the younger McCubbins and involved with the Australian Art Association [he was a member of Council in 1921], was in 1926 a member of a Melbourne Theosophist Art Group that had been established around 1922; his mother was also a Theosophist. Again, Miller’s friend Frank Crozier perhaps had connections with Theosophy, provided a Mrs Crozier of Melbourne identified by Roe was a relative. Some support for the conjecture derives from Crozier’s studio for 1931 and 1932 having been at 125 Collins Street in Melbourne, just three doors down from Colquhoun’s over the previous seven years, and thus suggesting a small enclave there of like-minded artists. Another artist who was a Theosophist in the Melbourne circle drawn around Miller for the 1920s was Christian Yandell, Napier Waller’s first wife. Although unsubstantiated, these circumstantial conjunctions allow the possibility of Miller having known Barc in Sydney during the 1920s. However, Ainsworth who mixed in Sydney then with the Underground student group was unaware of him at that time 16.

Frank R Crozier, 1883 - 1948; b Maryborough, Victoria, d Warrandyte, Victoria; painter [Australian Impressionist, best known for landscapes] and illustrator. Studied, Drawing School, National Gallery School, Melbourne, 1907, moving back and forth between this and the Painting School, 1908-10. For some years before World War I, he exhibited with Penleigh Boyd and William McInnes, while a place was rented at Alphington on the Yarra River in Melbourne to enable work at weekends on landscape painting etc. World War I, served in Egypt and Gallipoli in 1915, continuing with further service in Europe, which included his appointment as an Official Australian War Artist in September 1918. Returning to Australia in December 1919, he was decommissioned in June 1920. He joined the Australian Art Association in May 1920 at the same time as Bell, with whom he was friendly, his membership proposed by A Colquhoun and seconded by Norman MacGeorge. Believed to have lived and painted around Warrandyte during the 1920s, although he travelled in Europe and the USA ca 1923-27 [McCulloch records him as in London and America in 1923-24, while an exhibition review from 1927 had him as recently returned from three years away]. An exhibition in Melbourne in 1920 comprised mostly work from his years soldiering in Egypt and France. By 1922 he had reverted mainly to local landscapes although at least two works exhibited then were still of the Red Sea and the Nile River. A 1927 exhibition again included pictures of Egypt, together with settings from Warrandyte and America. Remembered to have joined [with Bell] in a life drawing group organised by Dr Clive Stephen [sculptor and Bell pupil] from around 1925 that came to be known as the Thursday Night Club, but this must have been after his return from the USA. Member of the Victorian Artists’ Society in 1929, 1930 [perhaps other years also]. Melbourne directories recorded ‘Frank Crozier, artist, 125 Collins St., C.1’ for 1931-32, but not listed 1917-30. Although when is unknown Miller and Crozier became close friends and Crozier may have been behind Miller joining the Victorian Artists’ Society in 1929. They remained in correspondence during Miller’s London years, with known letters dated to 1937 and 1938 and Miller having in 1934 provided a contact [Miss Hawkes] for Crozier at Warrandyte. Crozier was also mentioned by Miller in letters to others in this period 17.

William Dobell, 1899 - 1970; b Newcastle, New South Wales, lived London 1929-39, and Sydney, briefly New Guinea 1950-51, d Lake Macquarie, New South Wales; painter [Expressionist, re-known for portraiture]; knighted 1966. Apprentice architect, Newcastle, 1916-24. Studied Julian Ashton’s School of Art, Sydney 1924-29 [evening classes], winning the NSW Society of Artists Travelling Scholarship 1929; Slade School of Fine Art, London 1929-31 [non-diploma student, 1929-30 full-time, six days a week, drawing and painting, 1930-31 part-time, 1 day a week drawing, left without notice, enrolment cancelled 28 January 1931]; The Hague, Holland 1930; Europe and London, independent studies 1931-39. London address 1930-31, 34 Alexander Street, Bayswater [Slade enrolment]. Won Archibald portraiture prize 1943, 1948, 1959, Wynne landscape prize 1948; retrospective, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney May 1964 [224 paintings, all periods]. His 1943 Archibald success triggered the bitterest court battle about contemporary art in Australian history, and subsequently caused a deterioration in the artist’s health 18.

Lute Drummond, b unknown - 1948; lived Europe until 1920, returned to Australia briefly, and then back overseas, date of return to settle in Sydney unknown but before 1940, d August 1948. Studies, Germany ca 1914. Active organiser, lecturer and teacher [singing] with Sydney’s Anthroposophical Society ca 1940-48 [perhaps earlier also]. Aunt to Anthroposophical Society members Ruth and Betty Ainsworth. Miller first named Miss Drummond in letters of January 1940 in connection with a festival. Thereafter, until May 1941, the notation is generally to a “Miss D”. As “Miss D” was most often mentioned in relation to lectures, further festivals and a concert she organised, Miss Drummond can be assumed as under discussion 19.

Douglas Roberts Dundas, 1900 - 81; b Inverell, New South Wales, d Sydney; 1941 married to artist Dorothy Thornhill. Studied Julian Ashton’s School of Art, Sydney, winning the NSW Society of Artists Travelling Scholarship 1927; London Polytechnic;  André Lhote, Paris 1929. Taught National Art School [East Sydney Technical College] 1930-36 [Senior Lecturer, Painting, 1948 at the time Miller invited onto staff], and Principal, 1961-65. President NSW Society of Artists from 1948; Trustee, AGNSW 1948-69; Wynne prize 1943 20.

Arthur Fenwick, ca 1888 - unknown; b England; civil engineer; believed unmarried Educated, B Sc [Engineering], King’s College, University of London, London. After initially working in England, he was in China as Assistant Engineer on the Hankow-Canton Railway 1913-17, in France 1917-19, in Australia 1920 [his address, “Trefusis, Boomi, NSW”, a town in northeast New South Wales, near Goondiwindi, almost on the Queensland border], and in Hong Kong with the Kowloon-Canton Railway during 1921-23 and as Lecturer in Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Hong Kong for 1924-40. He held a genuinely interest in the Chinese and their culture, while Miller noted him to have been a Greek scholar. Trips are known by way of the artist’s letters to Australia in 1923 and 1924, to England and Switzerland in 1933 and to Japan in 1934. Fenwick retired to Sydney ca 1940 where he lived in a hotel in Mackay Street and undertook classes in Chinese for the University of Sydney Extension Board. Fenwick had known Miller as a youth in New Zealand probably around 1916-17 because, as the artist expressed it, Fenwick had “brightened up a boy” and helped him through a “personal affliction”. His experience of China may, therefore, have been partly responsible for the artist’s travels through China in 1919 and a lasting interest in Chinese culture. An active correspondence was maintained between the two men over almost twenty years;  letters and references to Arthur Fenwick amongst Miller’s correspondence date between 30 May 1922 - 25 October 1940. It was also through knowing Fenwick that Miller made many of his English friends, namely C S Stock, Miss Zöe Puxley and Dr Sze. By 1940, Fenwick, together with C V Allen, Fraser [an unidentified friend] and Stock, had come to be viewed by the artist as “crushing types” 21.

Leslie Freedman, dates unknown; professional artist’s model, Melbourne, ca early 1930s, at the National Gallery School, the Swinburne Art School and the Bell-Shore Bourke Street school. Although when Leslie Freedman worked as a model is not fully known, a photograph of her modelling at Bell’s Bourke Street school after 1932 suggests, from her age then, that from around 1930 was most likely. On the question raised as to whether Leslie Freedman could have been Miller’s correspondent, if she was, the two more probably knew each other either from the late 1920s or his short return visit to Melbourne in 1932. It is believed, however, that Miller’s correspondent was more probably Madge Freeman since she had attended the National Gallery School at about the same time as Miller in 1918, studied under Bell in 1923, and both remained an artist, a point implied in one of their letters, and became an active supporter of Bell’s fight for Modernism after returning to Australia late in 1935. All four factors are consist with Miller’s sending “Mr Bell and Shore” his regards as “brother strugglers” through her. The first Freman letter, however, referred to her having posed for Miller in Melbourne, thereby introducing some uncertainty since Leslie Freedman was the professional artist’s model 22.

Madge [Frances Margo] Freeman, 1895 - 1977; b Bendigo, Victoria, lived Europe and Africa 1924-35, Australia 1935, d Melbourne; painter [Post-Impressionist]. Studied Bendigo School of Mines, Bendigo 1911-15; Drawing School, National Gallery School, Melbourne, 1916, then Painting School, 1917-21 [recorded generally as “MF.Freeman”, but appears as “F.M Freeman” in 1921 Rollbook]; one of Bell’s first students, 1923; Slade School of Fine Art, London, 1924; Paris 1925-26. Contemporary, although in painting, with Miller [and his painting student friend Guthrie Grant] at the National Gallery School in 1918. As noted, confusion exists about who were Miller’s female correspondents Freedman, Freeman, etc. Both his letters to “Freman” and “Freeman” were dated December 1935, which suggests that these could have been to Madge Freeman following her return from Europe to Australia. However, the Freedman letters referred, in the first, to “Jac Vic” [Vickery] and Louis McCubbin, in the second, to Bowles, McInnes, Miller’s trunk with McCubbin, and “Mr Bell and Shore”, and in the third, to Crozier and Vickery. All except Bowles were associated with the Australian Art Association through the early 1920s, a circle of artists that was very likely to have been known to Madge Freeman before she went overseas in 1924. If this was so, Miller must also have known these artists then, a point consistent with his once knowing Penleigh Boyd who died in 1923. Most of these men would also have been well known in Melbourne art circles around the late 1920s and early 1930s, and thus may have known or worked with Leslie Freedman [as an artist’s model]. Clearly identifying these female correspondents of Miller is therefore not possible 23.

Matila Costiesen Ghyka, dates unknown [late nineteenth - twentieth centuries]; writer. Ghyka was of aristocrat Rumanian birth. Educated in Paris from the age of ten, his interests as a young adult were advanced mathematics, the sciences, literature, music, architecture, the visual arts and philosophy, especially aesthetics. A confrere of French intellectuals of the like of Paul Valéry, Léon-Paul Fargue, Saint-Exupéry, Paul Morand and Lucien Fabre, he served also in the French and Rumanian navies and the Rumanian diplomatic service, so travelling widely throughout his life. By around 1925 he was aware of the theories of Jay Hambidge in America and F Lund in Norway about Greek and Gothic planning, and the role of the golden section therein. His first book, Esthétique des Proportions dans la Nature at dans les Arts, was initially published by Gallimard in Paris around 1927; there have been a number of editions. Le Nombre d’Or, with a long introduction by Paul Valéry, appeared from the same publisher in 1931, Essai sur le Rythme from Gallimard in 1938, while Philosophie et Mystique du Nombre had its first edition from Payot in Paris in 1952. Publication in English seems to have first occurred with The Geometry of Art and Life in 1946 24.

Guthrie Grant, b unknown - 1987. Studied, Drawing School, National Gallery School, Melbourne, 1915, then Painting School 1917-20; awarded first prize, Drawing of the Figure from Life, 1917. Addresses, 57 Normanby Road, Kew, 1917-19, and 5 Carson Street, Kew, 1920-24, 1930, 1931, but none traced for 1925-29 [possibly Warrandyte] or for 1932. Contemporary with Miller at the National Gallery School in 1918 although in different disciplines [Miller was a drawing student]. Ca 1921-23, he and his sister Nancy shared their Kew house with Miller. Nothing else known 25.

Nancy Grant, dates unknown. Studied, Drawing School, National Gallery School, Melbourne, 1924-25, 1928, and Painting School 1933-36 [McCulloch records her as a painting student there again ca 1944]. Lived with brother Guthrie Grant and Godfrey Miller in Kew, ca 1921-23. Contemporary with Miller at the National Gallery School over 1923 and 1924. Taught with the Beaumauris Art Group for many years; 1960 photograph in Eagle and Minchin 26.

Carl Hampel, ca 1887 - 1942; b Victoria [?], lived Tasmania 1922, London 1923-42, d London [air raid]; married Tasmania 1923 [wife, Bertha]; painter [Australian Impressionism]. Studied with Max Meldrum, Melbourne, ca 1914-22.  McCulloch gives him to be a member of the Australian Art Association [exhibitor by invitation known, early-1920s]. Exhibited, Atheneum, Melbourne, 1922, including paintings from Eltham, Yarra Glen, the Dandenongs and the Mallee [a catalogue illustration indicates a soft rather Impressionistic style]. London address, Adelaide Road, Hampstead. Hampel’s identification as friendly with Miller is slightly questionable. Miller referred [in 1935] only to “C.H” [as having been seen in London; “little John”, possibly John Vickery, was mentioned similarly].  His correspondent was Miss Freman. The artist Madge Freeman is believed to have been the recipient although a remark by Miller on her having posed for him in Melbourne allows her to have been Leslie Freedman. The alternative identification for “C.H” is Catherine Hardess who, like Leslie Freedman in the late 1920s, was associated with the Swinburne Art School [1932] and was in London in late 1935;  elsewhere, however, Miller used the nickname “Harders” for Hardess, thereby reducing the likelihood of her being “C.H” 27.

Catherine Hardess, dates unknown; painter and weaver. Studied Slade School of Fine Art, London. Ran a teaching studio based on the Slade tradition, in Hawthorn, Victoria, ca 1928-30 if not longer; also taught Swinburne Art School 1932 [other years possibly, but unknown]; took up weaving later. Hardess provides a link between Australia and the Slade School of Fine Art in London that perhaps in part accounts for artists like Miller and James studying there ca 1928-38 [as, equally, does Melbourne artist Daryl Lindsay who became friendly with Tonks during the immediate post World War I years]. Known to Miller as “Harders”, and perhaps also [but unlikely] as “C.H” 28.

John George Henshaw, b 1929; b New Zealand, lived Sydney early 1950s, London 1957-58, Sydney 1960-; painter, critic and teacher [Sydney]. Studied Julian Ashton School, Sydney 1951-54; Central School of Arts and Crafts, London 1957-58; travel studies Europe, Africa, USA and the Pacific, 1959. Taught National Art School [East Sydney Technical College], Darlinghurst 1960-66;  Sydney College of the Arts, Glebe 1976-?. Manager, Christie Manson and Woods [Australia], 1970-75. Involved ca mid-1950s with the Anthroposophical movement, Sydney [children attended Sydney’s Steiner school]. Joint beneficiary 1964 to Miller’s paintings and drawings 29.

Roger Paton James, b 1914; b Johannesburg, lived Melbourne, London 1935-38, Melbourne; commercial artist [London], painter and teacher [Melbourne]. Studied George Bell School, Melbourne 1929-35; Swinburne Technical College 1932; Slade School of Fine Art, London 1935-37 [diploma not recorded, entry 10 December 1935, ie, 2nd term 1935-36; last entry in day book, 22 June 1937]; with Algerton Newton, London. Travelled in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, Switzerland [last with David Strachan 1936-37]; returned Melbourne ca May 1938. Served World War II in the army. Taught afterwards, design and theory at Swinburne Art School, Melbourne until retirement;  paints still. Miller’s London letters to James span April 1936 - October 1938 30.

Peter Phillip Laverty, b 1926; b Winchester, England, arr Australia 1951, lives Sydney; teacher, art administrator and painter [semi-abstract]. Studied Winchester School of Art, Winchester. Taught National Art School [East Sydney Technical College], Sydney 1952-71, becoming Principal and State Supervisor of Art. Director, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 1971-78 31.

John Kaplan, b date unknown, d 1993; German refugee, arr Australia [“from the world”] either January 1947 or January 1948, lives Sydney; librarian and teacher. Trained, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, ca 1948; Fellow, Library Association of Australia. Appointments, Art Librarian, National Art School [East Sydney Technical College], Darlinghurst ca 1949-61 [first appointment of this kind in Australia]; Rare Books Librarian, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney ca 1961-71; lecturer on aesthetics, Alexander Mackie College of Adult Education, Paddington, after SLNSW retirement - 1981. Involved ca mid-1950s with the Anthroposophical movement, Sydney [children attended Sydney’s Steiner school]. Joint beneficiary 1964 to Miller’s paintings and drawings 32.

Louis McCubbin, 1859 - 1952; b Melbourne [son of Frederick McCubbin, painter and Head, School of Design, National Gallery School, Melbourne, 1886-1917], d Adelaide; painter, teacher [Melbourne] and gallery director [Adelaide]. Studied Drawing School, National Gallery School, Melbourne, 1906-11 [day classes 1906-07, 1909, night classes 1908, 1911, the latter with his brother Hugh], and Painting School 1910-11. During World War I, he fought in France during 1916 and was an Official Australian War Artist over 1918-20. On his return to Australia in 1920, he was appointed until 1930 to the Australian War Memorial [then in Melbourne]. In 1921, by then a member of the Australian Art Association, he was invited onto Council on a motion of William McInnes seconded by Penleigh Boyd [his father Frederick McCubbin had been among the Association’s founding members]. He taught at the Swinburne Art School, Melbourne, in 1935, was president of the Victorian Artists’ Society over 1935-36 and became director of the National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, for 1936-50. His brother Hugh McCubbin was injured at Gaba Tebe in the Dardenelles on 25 April 1915, and like Miller, therefore, would previously have been in Egypt. The proposition that Miller may have known Louis McCubbin quite well in Melbourne during the 1920s was based on a claim Miller made in March 1938 to having stored a cabin trunk with McCubbin when he left for England [Miller wrote there of having enquired about it three years previously but had not received a reply, and that he had written recently to C E Miller & Co of Collins Street, Melbourne, to ask them to search for it - there were papers in it that he wanted]. Previously, in 1936, Miller had reminded his older brother Malcolm, who at the time seemed to have had a work by Charles Conder for sale, of his having met a McCubbin in Dunedin.  Which McCubbin family member was not given but Louis was the most likely since Miller advised Malcolm to contact the Melbourne or Adelaide galleries, and Louis McCubbin had recently been appointed Director of the National Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide. McCubbin was also mentioned to Mrs Freedman in 1935 33.

Norman MacGeorge, 1872 - 1952; b Adelaide, lived Melbourne, d Darebin, Victoria; painter [best known for landscapes], lecturer and critic.  Studied School of Design, Adelaide; National Gallery School, Melbourne 1897-99; travel studies Europe and Britain. President, Australian Art Association, 1922. MacGeorge was known as a supporter of the avant-garde, and therefore of artists like Bell with whom he had been contemporary at the National Gallery School. Friendships with Bell and Crozier are known from his private letters [there is no reference to Miller through these papers]. Like Bell, he both painted and lectured on the visual arts, at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and for the WEA [Workers’ Education Association] at the University of Melbourne. The family home, “Fairy Hills”, a re-known meeting place for intellectuals and artists on the Yarra at Darebin, Victoria, was bequeathed on the death of May, his wife, to the University of Melbourne 34.

William Beckwith McInnes, 1889 - 1939; b St Kilda, Victoria, lived and d Melbourne; teacher and painter [Australian Impressionist / Heidelberg School style], best known for portraiture and “poetic” landscapes. Studies:  started at the Drawing School, National Gallery School, Melbourne, in 1904 as “Master McInnes” [therefore young], enrolled in the Painting School late 1905-09; travel studies Europe and Britain, 1911, 1933, 1935. He was appointed temporary drawing master at the National Gallery School in 1917 [on the death of Frederick McCubbin, b 1855], made permanent in 1920, became Head of Painting and Drawing over 1935-39, and was Acting Director of National Gallery of Victoria for 1935-36. Miller probably became his pupil, therefore, in 1918, and again in 1923-24. McInnes had been more or less contemporary at the National Gallery School with Penleigh Boyd, Louis McCubbin and Crozier. He exhibited with Crozier before World War I, and had also lived in Alphington on Melbourne’s Yarra River then, no doubt painting with Crozier. McCulloch notes that McInnes painted ‘often with the square brushstroke made popular by Streeton’. He was a foundation member of the Australian Art Association, board member on at least one occasion before 1922, and President, 1923. Miller’s remark about McInnes was quite slight.  In the face of a sculpture made when he had been in Melbourne having been admired by the Melbourne sculptor, William Bowles, he commented, ‘Glad he had success. That will quieten our man Billy McInnes down a bit’. Its tenor, however, raises a possibility that McInnes opposed Miller’s election either into the Australian Art Association or as an exhibitor with the AAA at some time. Alternatively, the implied criticism by McInnes of Miller’s work could have occurred during Miller’s student days at the Drawing School 35.

Roy de Maistre, 1894 - 1968; b de Mestre at Bowral, New South Wales, lived Sydney, Europe 1923-26, Sydney, Paris 1930-32, then London , d London; painter [Modernist, Neo-Gothic]. Studied art, Royal Arts Society and Sydney Art schools, and music, Sydney Conservatorium, Sydney. Australian pioneer of Post-Impressionism and Cubism An issue of Abstraction-Création found in de Maistre’s library is recorded by Heather Johnson in her forthcoming monograph about de Maistre after 1930. Friends in London included Douglas Cooper, Patrick While, John Rothenstein and Francis Bacon 36.

Duncan Max Meldrum, 1875 - 1955; b Edinburgh, arr Melbourne, 1889, d Melbourne; illustrator, cartoonist, painter [Tonal Realist] and teacher [Melbourne, Sydney]. Studied National Gallery School, Melbourne, 1892-99, winner of the NGV Travelling Scholarship; Paris 1900-13. Foundation member of the Australian Art Association. Established the Meldrum School of Painting, Melbourne, 1913, where his Tonal Realist approach was taught, attracting some students away from the National Gallery School. ‘The invariable truths of depictive art’, a lecture published by Colahan in about 1917, was most influential in Melbourne art circles - his Scottish Protestant background can be held responsible for the conservativeness about painting recognisable there. President, Victorian Artist’s Society, 1916-17. Lecture tour, USA, and visit to Europe 1931 37.

John Drummond MacPherson Moore, 1888 - 1958; b Sydney, lived USA 1913-15, London and Europe 1915-20, Sydney 1920-58, d Sydney; architect and painter [Post-Impressionist, best known for watercolour landscapes]. Trained in architecture Sydney before World War I; also took classes Julian Ashton’s School of Art, Sydney, and later, London Polytechnic [drawing]. Worked as an architect in the USA, 1913-15, London 1915. World War I, in France with Britain’s Royal Engineers. Returned Sydney 1920, where practiced as an architect and painted in addition to being active in the contemporary art scene. Exhibiting member [at least] with the Australian Art Association, Melbourne, over 1924 and 1925. Crozier mentioned Moore to be interested in Miller and as having talked of him in a letter to Miller of 1938. Moore was also known to Miller in Sydney after 1939 38.

Herbert George Rodrigo Moynihan, b 1910; b Teneriffe; painter [Abstractionist ca 1934, Euston Road School Naturalism late-1930s, expressive abstraction ca 1957]. Studied Rome 1928; Slade School of Fine Art, London 1928-31 [non-diploma student, commenced 2nd term, 1928-29 Session], 1935-36 [2nd term, one day’s drawing a week, fell out with College when refused to pay fees - record noted as not to be re-admitted]. Exhibited with Objective Abstractions in 1934, and became associated with the Euston Road School later in the decade. Professor of Painting, Royal College of Art 1948-57 39.

Alfred Henry O’Keeffe, 1858 - 1941; b Bendigo, Australia, arrived Dunedin 1862, Paris 1894, Dunedin 1895, d Dunedin; painter [Post-Impressionist, flower-pieces mostly, also portraits and figure painting] and teacher [Dunedin]. Attended Dunedin School of Art;  Académie Julian, Paris, ca 1894. O’Keeffe encouraged Miller to take up painting. However, when this was cannot be completely ascertained 40, and his teaching career is not clear from the available literature. The Report and Prospectus for 1911-1912 of the Dunedin Technical School gives an O’Keefe to have taught part-time drawing in the day school of the Dunedin Technical School for 1911-12, but as not then on the staff of the Otago School of Art And Design, Dunedin [the art school was a separate campus at Moray Place]. Alfred Henry O’Keeffe is recorded as on the staff at the Otago School of Art and Design from 1909 by Platts, between 1912 / 13-20 by Entwisle, and to 1920 again in Miller. Shewell notes A H O’Keeffe to have taken life and painting classes after Hawcridge became the art school’s director in 1909, while an O’Keefe [probably misspelt], is given to be on staff in Moray Place before 1921. The artist’s two sons attended the same school as Miller, the Otago Boys’ High School, with Lawrence finishing there in 1906 and Victor in 1907. O’Keeffe’s whereabouts are unknown over 1915-16 following the loss of both in 1915 in the Dardenelles, but he was again living as an artist in Dunedin in 1917. He occasionally took private pupils 41.

John Joseph Wardell Power, 1881 - 1943; b Sydney, lived London 1906-20, Paris 1920-22, Bournemouth 1922-31, Paris and Brussels 1931-38, settled Channel Islands 1939, d West Hill, Jersey, Channel Islands; married the Australian Edith Mary James, London 1915; painter [Modernist]. Studied medicine prior to World War I, Sydney and London;  painting, Atelier Araujo, Paris 1920-22. Served World War I in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Memberships: Seven and Five Society, London 1922-23, London Group 1923-36, and Abstraction-Création, Paris 1931-36. Published Eléments de la Construction Picturale in 1933. Signed his paintings from the 1920s and after with a Pythagorean star - because a signification of health? In 1962 following the death of his widow, endowed the Faculty of Art, Sydney University, to enable teaching on and acquisition of the contemporary plastic arts 42.

Arnold Joseph Victor Shore, 1897 - 1963; b Windsor, Victoria, lived and d Melbourne;  painter [Post-Impressionist style after ca 1925], teacher and critic. Studied the National Gallery School, Melbourne, 1912-17; also with Max Meldrum, Melbourne. Founder in 1932 with George Bell of the Bell-Shore School, cnr Bourke and Queen Streets, Melbourne, where Modernist theory was taught;  partnership disbanded 1934 43.

David Edgar Strachan, 1919 - 70; b Salisbury, United Kingdom, arr Adelaide 1921, lived London 1936-38, Melbourne 1938-40, Victoria 1940-45, Sydney 1945-47, overseas 1948-60, Sydney 1960?-65, d Yass, New South Wales [car accident]; painter [Classical Romanticism] and teacher. Studied Slade School of Fine Art, London 1936-38 [diploma not recorded, probably not awarded as enrolment cancelled during 2nd term 1938 after having already dropped to part-time; last entry in day book, 10 March 1938]; La Grande Chaumiére, Paris 1937; George Bell School, Melbourne 1938-40; East Sydney Technical College [National Art School], Darlinghurst 1945;  travel studies, Europe 1948-60. World War II, camouflage unit, Victoria. Taught East Sydney Technical College [National Art School], Darlinghurst 1945-47, 1960-?65. President, NSW Society of Artists 1965.  Wynne prize 1961, 1964 44.

George Ernest Sweet, b 1909; b London, lives Bristol; married Audrey Hannam 1938; painter, illustrator and teacher.  Studied Slade School of Fine Art, London 1929-32 [diploma 1932, graduated 1933]. Travels, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid ca 1933-35. London addresses: lived with parents as a student; moved to Fitzroy Street rooms near the Slade ca mid-1935, and then, until 1938, a studio off the Hampstead Road [behind Euston] previously occupied by Evan Charlton, and before that, by the likes of Whistler, Sickert, and the sculptor F C McWilliam, RA [different to Charlton’s known Hampstead address for 1934-36 raising a slight query as to accuracy]; London flat, Fitzroy Square, post World War II. Audrey, his wife, was herself involved with the arts [during the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition, responsible for renewing a loaf of bread atop a head by Dali]. Teaching:  mid-1935 [part-time]; 1938 Painting Instructor, West of England Academy, Bristol [succeeded Evan Charlton]. Exhibited London Group, New English Art Club, RA, etc, and retrospective Browse and Derby, 1987. Still paints. Although like Charlton, few letters to Sweet remain among the Miller correspondence in Sydney, a collection was still held in 1992 by Sweet. Sweet knew Miller from 1929-31; their friendship resumed in mid-1935 on Sweet’s return from Spain when they lived close by. However, occupied professionally after mid-1935, Sweet had less time for the lectures and the other activities the two enjoyed as students. His memories of those years were that he ‘had to live in the cracks of the paving stones’ [Miller by contrast had private income] 45.

Henry Tonks, 1862 - 1937; b Soluhull nr Birmingham, d Chelsea, London;  painter [traditionalist], draughtsman and teacher.  Lived Vale Avenue, Chelsea from 1911. Studied medicine Brighton 1880, London 1881; Westminster Art School 1888 [evening classes under Frederick Brown]. Fellow, Royal College of Surgeons 1886. Abandoned medicine to teach art [Assistant Professor to Brown] at the Slade 1892; Slade Professor 1918-1930. Member New English Art Club [from 1895, exhibited annually 1891-1930 with the exception of 1912, 1919-21]. Friendly with painters Wilson Steer and D S MacColl, novelist George Moore, and later after 1923, Sickert. Published Elementary Propositions in Painting and Drawing in 1910. World War I, hospital duties [including plastic surgery] 1914-17, and Official War Artist 1918, 1919 46.

Petrus van der Velden, 1837 - 1913; b Rotterdam, arr New Zealand via Australia ca 1890, lived Christchurch, Sydney 1898-1905, Wellington, d Auckland; painter [Plein-aire] and lithographer. Studied Drawing Academy, Rotterdam; Berlin.  Involved with a group of painters in the Hague responsible in the latter part of the nineteenth century for a resurgence in Dutch painting closely related to the French Barbizon school, and whose work found acceptance in the English-speaking world before that of the French Impressionists; admired by Vincent van Gogh. Exhibited widely in New Zealand and Australia. Wilson attributes his late New Zealand colour and technique as influenced by Australia’s Heidelberg School artists and the New Zealand painter James Nairn. Latter years in New Zealand, both extremely religious, believing that he communicated with his Creator in working in and with nature, and very poor; defendant May 1907 in the Lower Hutt [where Miller’s grandfather lived] for the recovery of local board and lodging costs;  took private pupils 47.

John Vickery, 1906 - 83; b Bunyip, Victoria, lived Melbourne to 1935, London, arr New York ca 1939, d New York; commercial artist, illustrator and painter [Modernist of Cubist and Futurist inclinations, becoming a full Abstractionist, modest œuvre]. Studies: recorded as a drawing student at the National Gallery School, Melbourne, over 1923 [not on rollbooks], returned 1929-31, with one term of painting taken in 1930, awarded the school’s prize for landscape painting [vacation assignment] in 1931. Vickery and Miller probably therefore attended the National Gallery School together in 1923. Vickery exhibited regularly with Melbourne’s Victorian Artists’ Society and the Atheneum Gallery during the early 1930s. In April 1935 Miller asked to be remembered in Australia to “Jac Vic” and Louis McCubbin. After marrying in 1935 Vickery and his wife travelled and worked between New York and London, where in 1938, like many Australian artists, he belonged to the Chelsea Arts Club. He was perhaps back in Australia in September 1938 since Miller asked then that Crozier and Vickery be told that he envied them [why was not indicated]. The indications are, therefore, that Vickery had been friendly with Crozier, Louis McCubbin and Miller in Australia. He most probably saw Miller again in London as the New Zealander referred to a “Jack Vic” being there in 1937. Previously, in December 1935 Miller had mentioned a “little John” as being about to return to Australia [if this was Vickery, the planned return would have been quite shortly after his arrival]. Vickery came into contact with the New York School in the late 1940s 48.

Mervyn Napier Waller, 1894 - 1972; b Penshurst, Victoria, lived Melbourne, d Melbourne;  teacher, painter, graphic artist, designer in mosaic and stained glass [Modernist and Symbolist]. Studied National Gallery School, Melbourne, 1914-15 [and later, see McCulloch]. World War I, enlisted in the 1st AIF;  injured at Bullecourt in France, with convalescence in England;  returned to Australia 1917. Napier Waller, exactly Miller’s age, was a World War I veteran whose war injury caused the loss of his right arm. Nevertheless, he became one of Australia’s foremost artists. His connections with the Australian Art Association included being an exhibitor by invitation in 1920 and becoming voted a full member the following year. Travelled to London and Ireland 1929-30. Lecturer in Design, Melbourne Technical College [RMIT], Melbourne, 1932. Christian Yandell, Waller’s first wife from 1915, became a Theosophist, ca 1921. Melbourne artist Harold Freedman recalls that when a student of Waller’s at RMIT, he met Miller at the Waller’s house; the date this suggests is 1932 when Miller revisited Melbourne, from London 49.

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II.  Artist groups, schools, institutions and other organisations

Abstraction-Création, Paris; group of Abstract or Non-objective painters and sculptors formed in February 1931, which succeeded the group Cercle et Carré [founded 1930]. Membership was open to all nationalities. Aimed to encourage abstraction based on non-figurative, often geometric shapes rather than abstraction derived from natural appearances [such as seen in the painting of the London Objective Abstractions artists active ca 1934]. Group exhibitions held, and the illustrated annual Abstraction, Création Art Non-Figuratif published between 1932 and 1936. Art shown embraced included Constructivism, Neo-Plasticism, Crystal Cubism, Kandinsky’s expressive abstraction, biomorphic abstraction and some abstract Surrealism, although the emphasis was increasingly on forms of geometric abstraction. Artists who participated in Abstraction-Création between 1932 and 1936 included Arp [1932-34], Robert Delauney [1932-34], Naum Gabo [1932, 1933], Albert Gleizes [1932-35], Hélion [1932-34]. Herbin [a founder, 1932-36], Franc Kupka [1932-34], Lãszlõ Moholy-Nagy [1932-35], Piet Mondrian [1932-34], Antoine Pevsner [1932, 1933], John W Power [1932-36], Kurt Schwitters [1932, 1933], Tauber-Arp [1932-34], Theo Van Doesburg [1932-34], Georges Vantongerloo [1932-35], Villon [1932, 1933], the Englishman Edward Wadsworth [1932 ,1933], Joseph Albers, Constantin Brancusi and Arshile Gorky [all 1934 only], Wassily Kandinsky [1934, 1935] and Pablo Picasso [1935 only] 50.

Anthroposophical Society, spiritualist group [“science of the spirit”]; founded 1913 by Rudolf Steiner and a substantial number of German Theosophists [in protest against millenarianism, Steiner led the Theosophical Society from 1902]. World headquarters, the Goetheanum School of Spiritual Science, Dornach nr Basle, Switzerland. Supported in Sydney from the 1920s but full development not until mid-1930s under Marion Griffin’s guidance at Castlecrag, the model suburb planned and developed by her husband and fellow Anthroposophist Walter Burley Griffin on Sydney’s North Shore. In Sydney, society interests and activities include the study of Steiner’s writings, music, creative speech, drama, eurhythmy and art. Weekend festivals devoted mainly to music and drama were held at Castlecrag over the 1940-50s [and may still be], while courses conducted both in Sydney and overseas on colour in painting, movement, etc, continue today. Early childhood development and agriculture comprise another two focuses. Miller belonged to the society for about twenty years, ca 1940-57. Probable members known from his letters in both Sydney and New Zealand over 1940-41 included:  in Sydney, Mrs Badham [unrelated to Sydney artist Herbert Badham], Miss Beal, Miss Birch, Alice Crowther [Crowthy, Miss C?], Miss Lute Drummond [Miss D], Bobby Foster [a girl], Miss G, Hodson [Hoddy?], Keene, Mr Kelly, Mr Latter, Evelyn Latter [a friend of Ruth Ainsworth], Miss McTaggart [Miss McT, McTay?], Mr M, Eric Nichols [General Secretary and an architect closely involved with Castlecrag and responsible for Sydney’s first high-rise building], Miss Norton [Morton?], Lady Peggy, the Possengers or Posinghers, Dr Philips [Dr P], Mr Reekie, Mrs Walker [Mrs W], Mrs Edith Williams [a “deep” Theosophist prior to her becoming an Anthroposophist] and Mr Williams of the Grafton Players, while in New Zealand there was Mr and Mrs Mariott and Newal at Rotorua, Audrey G Caughney Hall, Mina Kronfeld and Mr W Winkfield, and perhaps Elliot and Tolberg. Known from other sources are Ruth and Betty Ainsworth and Madeleine Webb. Additional possible members known from ca 1945-47 and undated Miller letters were, in Australia [some perhaps New Zealand], Adams, Harry Adeane [died 2 June 1946, connected with Geordie, Justin, Rita], Cyril Bide, Mrs Coe, Dr Fleisman, Geordie, Mr Irwin, Ivan, John, Justin, Long, Fancy Rheinstein, Rita, Sibby, Joan Smith and her father, and Steffan, and in New Zealand, Courtney, Bob, and John Hewson 51.

Australian Art Association, Melbourne; formed 1912. Purpose to further the interests of professional artists through exhibition; members elected, other exhibitors invited. Founding members, Clewin Harcourt, Alexander McClintock, Frederick McCubbin, John Mather, Max Meldrum, Ambrose Patterson, Walter Withers.  Presidents included Edward Officer [1912-21], Norman MacGeorge [1922], William McInnes [1923], George Bell [1924-26] and John Longstaff. Generally annual exhibitions, although an active involvement in Melbourne art world politics is known for the early 1930s. Australian Art Association exhibitions, Melbourne, 1922-25 [no 1923 exhibition review has been uncovered] involved:

  1. 1922 exhibition - work by W Beckwith McInnes, Clewin Harcourt, Napier Waller, George Bell, Hilda Rex Nicholas, H S Power, Penleigh Boyd, W D Knox, Will Ashton, Louis McCubbin, A J Eldershaw, Thea Proctor, James R Jackson, Leslie Wilkie, Harry B Harrison, L. Bernard Hall, A E Newbury, Joan Weigall Lindsay, M J McNally, Norman MacGeorge [President];

  2. ca 1924 exhibition - work by W.B McInnes [President], Charles Wheeler, L Bernard Hall, George Bell, H B Harrison, A Colquhoun, Will Ashton, H B Herbert, M J McNally, J R Eldershaw, Daryl Lindsay, Thea Proctor, Frank Crozier, W D Knox, Victor Zelman, John D Moore, Penleigh Boyd, A E Newbury, W Nicholls Anderson, Miss A ME Bale, Mrs Margaret Preston, Carl Hampel [a flower piece], M Napier Waller, James S MacDonald, C Web Gilbert, L Bernard Hall;

  3. 1925 exhibition - work by W B McInnes, W D Knox, James R Jackson, Leslie Wilkie, Jo Sweatman, Louis McCubbin, A E Newbury, J Rowell, W Rowell, G C Benson, Daryl and Joan Lindsay, M J McNally, Norman MacGeorge, John Eldershaw, Carl Hampel, John D Moore, Thea Proctor, Margaret Preston, A Colquhoun, J J Hilder 52.

East London Group, London; formed 1926 [around Slade-trained John Cooper who taught in a local art school]. Annual exhibitions were held between ca 1929 and 1936 at the Lefévre Gallery, with Slade-style representational painting likely. The membership comprised Cooper, other East Enders, and some Fitzroy Street [nr Slade] and Chelsea artists, including Harold and W J Steggles, and William Coldstream [Coldstream did not exhibit 1934-36]. The group at one time gained Walter Sickert’s attention. Nothing known of them associates directly with Miller 53.

Hibbert Trust, London. A Unitarian fund which provided a divinity scholarship to encourage “cultivated men” to become Unitarian ministers. Annual lectures were organised, rotated around Oxford, the University of London and other provincial universities, and The Hibbert Journal: a Quarterly Review of Religion, Theology and Philosophy published. The Hibbert Lectures begun in 1878 and often subsequently published as books, constitute a comparative study of religions from India, Ancient Egypt, China, the Greeks, Persia and Islam, and European civilisations 54.

John Duthie and Co, Limited, New Zealand; founded Wellington 1880. The Auckland Star, September 1963, recorded the closure of the two Auckland premises of John Duthie and Co, Auckland, Ltd established several years before World War I [subsidiary of Duthie Holdings, Ltd;  the parent company was noted to date from the 1880s]. In that same year, 1963, the head office of John Duthie & Co Ltd was in Wellington with branches at Ahuriri, Napier, Tawa, Porirua, and Palmerston North in New Zealand, while an office was maintained in London, at 23 Lime Street 55.

London Group, London; founded 1913. Amalgamation of the Camden Town, Fitzroy Street and Cumberland Market groups. Purpose, to promote new ideas in art. Memberships ca 1935 [and date joined] included: Slade staff and ex-students Randolph Schwabe [1929 or before], Walter Bayes [1935], William Coldstream [1933], and Rodrigo Moynihan [1933]; other [contemporary Modernists] Vanessa Bell [1929 or before], Mark Gertler [1929 or before], Duncan Grant [1929 or before], John Nash [1929 or before], the Australian John W Power [1929 or before], Eileen Agar [1933], Jacob Epstein [1930], Ivor Hitchens [1931], Henry Moore [1930], Victor Pasmore [1934], and John Piper [1933], and other [“old guard”] Charles Ginner [1929 or before], Bernard Mininsky [1929 or before], Richard Sickert [1929 or before], Matthew Smith [1929 or before], and Albert Thornton [1929 or before]. Early 1930s losses [resignations or death] had included Horace Brodzky, Roger Fry, Barbara Hepworth, and Paul Nash, while among early 1930s non-members exhibitors were Edward Ardizonne [1930], Edward Burra [1930], Frank Medworth [1930, 1932; would head the National Art School, East Sydney Technical College, Darlinghurst 1939-47], Victor Pasmore [1930, 1932], Geoffrey Tibble [1930], Julian Trevalyn [1930, 1933], F Graham Bell [1931], Iain Macnab [1931, 1934], John Piper [1931, 1932], Betty M Rea [1931, 1932], Ceri Richards [1931], the Australian Roland Wakelin [1931], and Graham Sutherland [1932, 1934] 56.

National Art School, East Sydney Technical College, Darlinghurst; founded 1960-61 out of the East Sydney Technical College art school [established 1923], taken over by the Alexander Mackie College of Adult Education, Paddington 1975; nominally the National Art School, 1950-51 and earlier. From as early as 1949, two-year elementary and three-year diploma courses offered.

First NAS principals: L Roy Davies [1960-61], Douglas Dundas [1961-65]. Many well-known Sydney artists comprised the full-time and part-time staff at East Sydney / National Art School between 1948-64, including Harold Abbott [1948-70], Jean Appleton [1948-?55/6], Earle Backen [1960-?1974], Francis Celtlan [1962-63], Lindsay Churchland [1955-76], John Coburn [1959-?66/7], James Cook [ca 1948], Lyndon Dadswell [1937-41, 1945-67], Douglas Dundas [1937-61], Roy Fluke [1961-82], Edmund Harvey [?-1972], John Henshaw [1960-66], Frank Hinder [1948-?58], Margel Hinder [1949-?], Jack Kilgour [1939-70], Peter Laverty [1952-71], Margaret McLennan [née Spratt, 1963-74], Jocelyn Maughan [1960-?], Frank Medworth [1946-61], Godfrey Miller [1948-64], Clem Millward [1961-65], John Passmore [1956-59, 1961-62], Charles Norton [post WW2-1958], Peter Rushforth [1951-79], David Strachan [1945-47, 1960-?65], Tom Thompson [1956-70, Head of School, 1971-76], Dorothy Thornhill [1937-75], Wallace Thornton [ca 1946-60], Margaret Tuckson [1963-65], and Mr Vacchini [1949, jointly responsible with T Gunter for the two-year elementary course], also John Kaplan [librarian ca 1948-75], and Margaret Ingrams [library assistant 1950s] [records for part-time art teachers are no longer readily accessible, if indeed existent still].

Miller students between 1948-64 are numerous; those who have contributed to this thesis include Annette Dixon [1957-61], Lee Howlett, Brenda Humble [graduated 1960], Colin Lanceley [1956-60], Ursula Laverty 1950-52], Ted [Edward] May [graduated 1963], Valerie Olsen [née Strong, 1955-60], Karin Oom [1949-54], Margaret Somerville [née Collas, ca 1957-59], Cameron Sparks [1949-?53/4, 1956], Tom Thompson [1947-50], Susan Tooth [née Wright, 1957-59], Ken Unsworth [1962-64], Chebbie Valkenburg [née Badham, 19?-48], Rose Vickers [1960-64], Lovoni Shaw [née Webb, 1956-59] and Margaret Woodward [1956-60] 57.

National Gallery of Victoria School of Art, Melbourne; established 1870, with a School of Painting and a School of Design [renamed the Drawing School in 1902].  Life class first offered in 1878 [draped figure until 1882].

Staff during Miller’s enrolment: head of school, L Bernard Hall 1892-1935, and teacher of drawing, W B McInnes 1917-39. A curriculum together with admission information for students is provided by MacKenzie. As this document proceeded the roll of The Register of Students in Painting & Drawing Schools, 1886-1925, it may thus date from between 1886-91, and so from before Hall’s appointment as head of the school in 1892. Furthermore, the information MacKenzie gives on Grade 1 students [‘Elementary drawing and design’] having taken life drawing does not accord with the annual prizes instigated by Hall from 1892. An analysis of student lists suggests that after 1892, life drawing prizes were awarded only to those enrolled in the Painting School, and not to students of the School of Design / Drawing School;  those students could win prizes for drawings from casts alone. Helmer confirms this practice for the 1890s following Hall’s appointment, and that students needed to submit six satisfactory drawings to the trustees before they were admitted to the life classes. Kerley observes that the annual prizes awarded after 1892 ‘showed Hall’s pattern of teaching’, and that ‘over fifty years later the curriculum was still almost the same’. Design School students, therefore, were most restricted as to scope of studies 58.

New English Art Club, London; founded 1886. Purpose, the introduction of contemporary French Realism and Impressionism into English art. Started in studio of ex-Slader G P Jacomb-Hood], and remained closely associated with the Slade, both staff and students. First active members, W R Sickert, W J Laidley, George Clausen, La Thangue, Stanhope Forbes, Frederick Brown [last three later joined Slade as staff]. Memberships and date joined included, from the Slade staff Tonks [1895], Wilson Steer [1886], Randolph Schwabe [1917], George Charlton [1926], James Wilkie [1921], and C Koe Child [1927], and others, Sickert [1888], Sweet 59.

Objective Abstractions, London; active ca 1934. Group of painters that held one exhibition, at Zwemmer Gallery, March - April 1934. Abstract painters, with an emphasis on the autonomy of the picture surface. Comprised the South African born Graham Bell, and Englishmen Thomas Carr, Ivor Hitchens, Ceri Richards, Victor Pasmore, Rodrigo Moynihan and Geoffrey Tibble, the last three having trained at the Slade. 1934 catalogue included reproductions, the Rodrigo Moynihan, Geoffrey Tibble and Graham Bell paintings being reproduced again by Laughton. These painters mostly reverted to a more representational style and became better known for their associations with the Euston Road School of Objective Realism after 1937. Tibble, however, remained committed to Abstraction while Richards would become a noted British Surrealist 60.

Otago Boys’ High School, Dunedin, New Zealand; founded 1863. Staff over 1908-1910, the years of Miller’s attendance, included W J Morrell, MA [Oxon], as Rector, previously a scholar at Blundell’s and Balliol College, Oxford, and classics master at Auckland Grammar School, and D Sherriff as art master, while the masters at the Rectory where Miller boarded were Mungo Watson in 1908 with seventeen boys or less, and F H Campbell for 1909-11 with seventeen, twenty one and twenty five boarders each year. Information about Miller’s attendance at the Otago Boys’ High School was derived from several sources. His age, dates of arrival and completion, parents, residence in the school hostel, and subjects studied were from school records. The Otago Boys’ High School fee books for 1908 to 1910 held by the Hocken Library at the University of Otago record his admission on 5 August 1908 on a Junior Scholarship and his parents’ details as T T Miller, Bank of Australasia, Dunedin, while for 1909, “transfer to Palmerston North” is found in the “Remarks Column” [the remark is inconsistent with ANZ records about T T Miller’s career]. Miller is again recorded in Lucas as a pupil of the school from 1908-10. His days at the Otago Boys’ High School were perhaps not fully contented ones since in 1913, two years after finishing, he was not present when the school held jubilee procession of past scholars 61.

Otago School of Art and Design, Dunedin [commonly called either the Dunedin Art School or the Dunedin School of Art and Design]. New Zealand’s first art school, the School of Art, Dunedin, opened in 1870 initially under the control of the Education Board in co-operation with the Technical Classes Association. Saturday morning classes were available for primary school teachers, and both day and evening classes offered otherwise, the first for secondary students and those of sufficient leisure to permit their attendance, and the latter for “artisans”. Students from the Otago Boys’ High School, for instance, attended art classes there with the art school’s opening in 1870; how long the facility operated is unknown. Affiliation with the Art Department of the South Kensington School of Science, London, came in 1894, enabling New Zealanders the opportunity to sit the British Science and Art Examinations noted in the thesis text. A Scot, David Con Hutton, who had been appointed drawing master in 1870, became principal of the renamed Otago School of Art and Design along with this affiliation. Around 1908, pressures for the art school’s incorporation into the Dunedin Technical School were resisted, and the following year Robert Hawcridge, a lithographic artist, was appointed director of the still independent school. The art school retained strong links with the Technical College Board, however, and details of its staff, courses offered and student results appeared in the Dunedin Technical School’s reports and prospectuses. Its independence finally went in 1920 62.

Royal Institute of Philosophy [formerly the British Institute of Philosophy], London. Miller’s membership is recorded for 1935-39 with his profession given as “architect” and his address as “c/- Bank Australia, Cockspur Street, London SW1” [it was actually the Bank of Australasia]. A rather cryptic and unexplained note appears against the address held for September 1941 [Martin Place Sydney NSW], “don’t use address if possible”. The artist in 1940 recalled that he had once belonged to the “rationalist” society in London, but had fallen out with them. This, therefore, was most probably the Royal Institute of Philosophy. The letter implied further that he was then still friendly through correspondence with their “chief support”, probably Viscount Herbert Samuel, at one time president and mentioned elsewhere in letters. Correspondence between the two men is no longer known 63.

Seven and Five Abstract Group [previously the Seven and Five Society], London; founded 1919 [seven painters, five sculptors], last exhibition 1936; purpose, to encourage a ‘more forceful style’ than that of the Bloomsbury Group. The group began ‘oriented towards a poetical and lyrical naturalism in landscape, still life and figure, but without academicism’, but by the close of the 1920s, an increasing tendency towards abstraction was evident, and it was fully abstract by 1935. Members during the early 1930s prior to their last 1936 exhibition included [with joining dates] Christopher Wood, Ben Nicholson [1923], Henry Moore [1930], Barbara Hepworth [1931], Paul Nash, John Piper and Ivon Hitchens, ie, membership was Royal College of the Arts rather than Slade orientated. Osborne [1981] recorded them to have held for the first fully abstract English exhibition in England, at Zwemmer Gallery between 2 - 22 October 1935. Catalogues indicate that in contrast to both the New English Art Club and the London Group, the Seven and Five Group did not invite non-member participation. Furthermore, an examination of manuscript sources in London and enquiries elsewhere has failed to establish any personal link between Miller and members 64.

Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, Gower Street, London; established 1871 independent of the South Kensington government art schools system.

Professors to post WW2: Edward Poynter [1871-75], Vivant Alphonse Legros [1876-92], Frederick Brown [1892-1917], Henry Tonks [1919-30], and Randolfe Schwabe [1930-?48/49]. Staff, 1929 [when Miller began and Tonks retired as Professor]: Visitors, Professor Frederick Brown and W W Russell, RA; Associate Professor and painting instructor, Philip Wilson Steer; Durning-Lawrence Professorship of Art History, Professor Tancred Borenius; lecturer on anatomy, Professor Grafton Elliot Smith [Professor of Anatomy at University College and an Australian]; sculpture instructors, A H Gerrard and George H Thomas [1893-1933]; lecturer on perspective, A T Porter; senior assistant, C. Koe Child; drawing tutors Peter Brooker, George Charlton, Franklin White and James Wilkie [all Slade trained]; lectures on ‘special branches of Art [were] also given by the Professors of Architecture, Archæology, and Egyptology’. Staff alterations, 1930 [with Schwabe’s appointment as Professor]: loss of Wilson Steer as Associate Professor; appointed lecturer on perspective, Walter Bayes, and as assistant for painting, A Gwynne Jones. Schwarbe, Wilkie and Charlton were student of Tonks.

Course: in 1929 [when Miller enrolled as a non-diploma student in the school], the full-time diploma course extended over not less than three sessions, that is, three years. Major studies offered were (a) drawing and painting, and (b) sculpture, and secondaries, (c) architecture and (d) ornamental design. The requirements for diploma students were the achievement of a satisfactory standard in at least one of the principal and one of the subsidiary subjects through these three years [either drawing and painting or sculpture could count as the secondary subject in the event of the other being the student’s major], satisfactory attendances of fine art anatomy lectures for at least three terms, of a course in geometry and perspective for not less than two terms, of art history lectures over the full three years, and the passing of visual art history tests for ‘the various periods of Art’. Less regulated “Short poses” sessions with the nude were offered to both diploma and non-diploma students.

Students during Miller’s first period of 1929-31 with the school included Edward Albert William Scroggie, 1928-31 [diploma 1931], Herbert George Rodrigo Moynihan, 1928-31 [non-diploma student], Frank Evan Charlton, 1929-33 [diploma 1933], the Australian William Dobell, 1929-31 [non-diploma student], Thomas Nicholas Robinson Harris, 1929-33? [non-diploma student], George Ernest Sweet, 1929-32 [diploma 1932], and fellow New Zealander from Dunedin, Peter McIntyre, 1930-34 [diploma, 1934]. Later, when Miller was more casually enrolled for short poses alone, fellow students included Charlton again in 1934, and Moynihan in 1936, and the Australians Roger James, 1935-37 [diploma not recorded], and David Strachan, 1936-38 [diploma not recorded] 65.

Sydney Group, Sydney; formed in 1945 as the Sydney Art Group, initially out of a casual gathering together of four artists, Paul Haefliger, his wife Jean Bellette and David Strachan, who shared a house, and Wallace Thornton, all four of whom had been instrumental in organising the New South Wales branch of the Contemporary Art Society in 1939. The Sydney Art Group’s first exhibition at David Jones’ Art Gallery over 7 - 28 August 1945 comprised paintings by Bellette, Wolf Cardamatis, Geoffrey Graham, Haefliger, Francis Lymburner, Justin O’Brien, Strachan, Thornton and Eric Wilson, with sculptures by G F Lewers. In August 1952, when Miller joined them at the Macquarie Galleries, the group had expanded to include painters Ralph Balson, Bellette, Grace Crowley, Russell Drysdale, Haefliger, Michael Kmit, Lymburner, Miller, Sidney Nolan, Justin O’Brien, Desiderius Orban, John Passmore and Thornton, and the sculptor Lyndon Dadswell. Smith notes that the group formed from among Sydney’s Neo-Romantics of the 1940s, all professionally-trained artists who understood contemporary art, and whose greatest concern was quality. Their standards in turn led their exhibitions of the early 1950s to be the most prestigious in Sydney, by which time the group stylistically encompassed Realist, Expressionist and Abstractionist in addition to the Neo-Romantic. Thornton writes of their desire for a smaller and more intimate exhibiting scene [than the NSW Society of Artists for instance], and of their hopes of inducing a few leading artists, such as Drysdale, Miller and Arthur Boyd, to show together as a smaller group. He continues:

It worked well for a couple of years but some of the artists were controlled by their agents who were not always in favour of alternative galleries controlling sales & there were the dropouts from initially quite stimulating exhibitions 66.

Unit One, London; formed 1933. Secretary Douglas Cooper, the Mayor Gallery’s co-director. Purpose: the expression of the contemporary spirit. One exhibition, Major Gallery, April 1934. Founding members: painters John Armstrong, John Bigge, Edward Burra, Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson, Edward Wadsworth and the New Zealander Francis Hodgkins, sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore and architects Wells Coates and Colin Lucas. Hodgkins resigned before the 1934 exhibition, and was replaced by painter Tristram Hillier. The group’s existence was foreshadowed in an announcement in Catalogue October 1933 at the Mayor Gallery, their headquarters thereafter. The 1934 exhibition also launched Herbert Read’s Unit One. The Modern Movement in English Architecture, Painting and Sculpture [1934] and then toured 67.

Victorian Artists’ Society, Melbourne; established 1888. Welcomes professional and amateur alike. Premises comprising members’ rooms, class rooms and exhibiting galleries, etc, acquired 1892. Presidents included Frederick McCubbin [1905, 1910], Max Meldrum [1918-24], Louis McCubbin [1935-36], Arnold Shore [1962-63] and William Frater [1973-77]. Important in Victorian art life until World War II, although still active. Subscription entries for a “Miller, G” appear in the society’s cashbook for July 1929 and June 1930, with the first of these following a like entry for “Crozier F.R.” [on 2 July 1929, cash receipts for a 10/6d subscription from a “Miller G” and for £1/1/- from “Crozier F.R.”; on 24 June 1930, full subscription of £1/1/- from “Miller, G.”, but not now associated with Crozier’s annual subscription]. Although these entries do not refer conclusively to Godfrey Miller, there is a strong possibility that these are to him since the society published one of his drawings, Figure [Plate 117], in 1948. A complication attends the second Miller subscription of 1930. Miller was then enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. As may be the case with his entry to the New Zealand Academy’s art exhibition of 1918, perhaps a friend kept his membership current  68.

Workers’ Educational Association. An adult education system that operated in Britain and throughout her dominions from at least 1915. Under an arrangement between the universities in conjunction with the WEA, university lectures and tutorial classes [Extension Classes] were offered if warranted by sufficient popular demand  Miller attended WEA lectures and courses in London and Sydney, if not earlier in Melbourne 69.

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