Central to this exhibition drawn from the Cairns Art Gallery Collection is the painting Mother and Child by major Australian artist, Ian Fairweather. The Cairns-based artist Ray Crooke, who admired the work of Fairweather, purchased the painting and donated it to the Gallery in 1999. 

Works in the exhibition by eleven other artists represented in the Gallery’s Collection have been selected based on points of connection to Fairweather and his art. 

Born in Scotland, Fairweather studied at London’s Slade School of Fine Art in the 1920s and pursued further studies in Japanese and Chinese languages. Interested in a non-western approach to art, he travelled through China and Bali before arriving in Melbourne to exhibit in 1934.

Leading an itinerant life, Fairweather went back to Asia and returned to Australia in 1938. Then venturing north he lived in Malaytown on the outskirts of Cairns, home to many Torres Strait, Malay and Aboriginal people. In 1932 Donald Friend also travelled north from Sydney and lived for a time in Malaytown and, like Fairweather developed strong bonds with several Torres Strait Islander families. In 1954 Friend returned to Cairns and introduced Margaret Olley to these families, whose members were the subjects of paintings by all three artists. 

The reclusive Fairweather moved to Bribie Island off the coast of southern Queensland in 1952, where he built a thatched hut and painted until his death in 1974. Meeting Fairweather in 1970, Lawrence Daws settled for a time on Bribie Island and befriended the elder artist. Brett Whiteley visited Daws and Fairweather on Bribie Island and like Fairweather created works that drew upon his travels in Southeast Asia.

Similarly, Fairweather inspired Tony Tuckson and Roy Jackson’s own explorations of Indigenous and Southeast Asian cultures and both artists regarded Fairweather’s work as embodying the modernist spirit.

Queensland’s coastal islands lured other artists including Noel Wood, who settled on Bedarra Island off Mission Beach, while Yvonne Cohen and Valerie Albiston moved to nearby Timana Island. All three had seen Fairweather’s 1934 exhibition in Melbourne, spurring their own travels. Fred Williams met Noel Wood on Bedarra Island in 1973 and at the invitation of Bruce and Johanna Arthur, who had established a tapestry studio on Timana, visited them as well. Deanna Conti and Joseph Brown’s hand-woven tapestry is representative of the Timana Island studio’s output.

Through points of artistic connection with Ian Fairweather, this exhibition acknowledges the enduring importance of Fairweather’s art and life for other artists, and his significance within Australian art.