The Cloister Looking West.
The Principal,
Francis Rolland, in 1938, commissioned
'Miss Cumbrae-Stewart, the well-known Melbourne artist’ , to execute a number of pastel sketches of the College buildings and grounds. Five sketches of the Ivied Tower; Cloister, Quadrangle; House of Music; and the Dining Hall were subsequently reproduced in a booklet entitled
‘The School on the Hill’ . The Booklet was sold for two shillings and sixpence and a series of greeting cards at nine pence each. Four of the original pastel drawings continue to be held by the School and are hung in the Alexander Campbell Room.
Janet Cumbrae-Stewart was well-considered as one of the leading pastel artists of her generation both in Australia and overseas. She was born at Brighton and attended outdoor classes with John Mather and studied at the National Gallery School, Melbourne under Bernard Hall and Frederick McCubbin from 1901 to 1907. In 1905 she was awarded second place in the National Gallery’s Travelling Scholarship competition. In 1922, she left for London and remained in Europe until, in 1939, she returned to the safety of Australia and her family. Her brother, Francis William Sutton Stewart (1865-1938), Queensland lawyer and university administrator, was a student at Melbourne Grammar School from 1877 to 1880 and Geelong Grammar School from 1880.
During a long and prodigiously productive career she exhibited at Galleries throughout the world including the Royal Academy in London, the Old Salon in Paris and the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. Her work is held in many Australian Collections including the State Art Galleries of New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia, the National Gallery, Canberra and the National Library. Although she performed many commissioned works including portraits, buildings and landscapes such as these of the School she was more controversially known for her sensitive drawings of the female nude.
Sources: Pegasus June, 1938: Joan Kerr, The National Women’s Art Book; Janine Burke, Australian Dictionary of Biography Cumbrae Stewart, Janet Agnes; Justin Corfield Geelong Grammarians page 367.
The House of Music.