Adele Boag: It's the 24th November 2013 and I'm talking with artist Thomas Gleghorn OAM in his Adelaide home where he lives with his wife, Elsie.

Tom's career as a dynamic abstract expressionist painter, print maker and educator spans over 65 years. His award winning work is held in corporate and international collections and every state gallery in Australia.

Including over 65 works in the National Gallery. Tom is also a club patron of the Glenelg football team.

Tom, you were born in June 1925 in Thornley, England. But by the time you are three, you are living in Australia.

Tom Gleghorn: Yes, yes. Ah I had ... according to my grandmother, it's a bit confusing, but according to my grandmother, and she was in her nineties when she told me. She said I had my second birthday in Cape Town, so I'm not too sure whether it was two or three.

Nobody seems to know, because my mom died when I was 21, and dad died when...I think I was forty-something. We never talked about it very much, you know? We're just so glad to be here I think, because dad was coming from the North of England. He was just glad to make a new start.

Adele: He was a miner?

Tom: Yes, he worked in the mines in England, but he was a very, very handy man, you know. He built houses...Well, he built some of the houses in the village that we grew up in in Warner's Bay.

I was never very close to the family, you know? Somehow I was... Well, I've always been a bit of a loner, you know? So I missed out on a lot of the history. Although in the end, in later years, I've been back to see, like, my grandmother and dad's sisters. But that was about as close as I've got to being, close to the family unit.

Adele: At that time, you meet a very uncouth yet interesting Glaswegian named Joe Wescott?

Tom: Yes, he was a.. he was a fine man. I suppose he had a big influence on my life. Well, he did have a big influence on my life. I started school when I was six. A one-teacher school in Warner's Bay. A man ... the headmaster was a man called Munro, Mr. Munro. A wonderful gent, but it was his last year before he retired. And he had from first class to sixth class.

And there was no room for us, so there was a group of us, uh, I suppose no more than a half a dozen perhaps at the most nine. And we, we, we're sitting on the veranda and that was our school room.

So I sat there for two or three days with Billy Jones and a man called Baddick. Uh, and then I didn't go back. So I thought, "No, bugger this." I, uh, spent a lot of time in the bush amusing myself, uh, around the lake. I was going the edge of the lake. And Lake Macquarie's a volcanic lake, so lots of fossils, which I enjoyed, fossicing for. And spend a great deal of time away from school.

And I used to pass this man and his wife, they lived in a tent. And uh, he was a, he drank a lot, but those days, of course, there, there, there's was not a great deal of money around. So they manufactured a lot of their drinks with mainly raw alcohol mixed with, uh, powdered milk. "White lady" they called it.

And uh, one day he took me aside and asked me what I was doing and what I intended to do. And I had no idea what I, what I was doing, except collecting fossil. And I had no idea what I was intended to do. Uh, but he read me a book of Aesop's Fables. And it fascinated me. Really fascinated me.

Uh, and I, then he started talking about educa-, about learning. And I never thought about it. So I went back to school. And I never ever wagged school again. So just through meeting that man, uh he was a man that interested me, so a lot of my learning was self, self-taught, you know?

It, my art, I'm a self-taught painter. Mind you, I've had, uh, excellent advice from some of our best known painters. Uh, but he instilled a hunger for knowledge within me. Uh, even as a self-taught painter, I became interested in paint.

Paint to me was the language that I needed. So I researched it, and started making paints, my own paints, very, very early in the piece, with research of waxes and then, of course, the polymers. And uh, well, you know?

Adele: Mm-hmm. So, you obviously went on to become, er, an engineer?

Tom: Well, I...I...that was my grandfather. Er, my dad worked in mines...I was more or less I suppose, living his life. He...My grandfather is a very well known engineer, marine engineer. So, from about, um, eleven or twelve on, that was instilled on me that I was going to emulate my grandfather.

So, those days of course the BHP School, we had what they called Tech Classes. In the third year, you had, er, Tech Classes. Like 3AT, 3BT AND 3CT. So, er, part of the time, you did a...you worked in...you did...you went into the industry.

Er, so, I...I work-, I served a...trade apprenticeship at the BHP Iron and Steel ... engineering apprenticeship. The idea, or the stream of education those days, to be a mechanical engineer or a marine engineer, you did an apprenticeship where you've got that ...

The new course they developed ... this was during the war, the war years, the Second World War, er, was a, er, er, how can I say it? It was only after you've got your...you've fulfilled your apprenticeship, then you can choose. Then you chose. Mechanical engineers did mechanical engineering, and marine engineers took on a marine direction.

Adele: But it didn't fit, did it?

Tom: No, it didn't fit with me. So I got my trade apprenticeship, and I started, but that was it. I thought, "No, I was twenty-one, but no, no. I don't want to..." Although I enjoyed it. I must admit, that we had such opportunity. I worked on the first marine engine built in Australia ... Worked on the first turbine ... marine turbine built in Australia ... I was working on a huge Asquith Borer that did the stern frames of 9000, ton, er, BHP Iron boats, at eighteen years of age. You know, it was a marvelous experience. Er...

Adele: But around that time, you did do your first painting?

Tom: No, I didn't do any painting actually. I didn't...I worked in the drawing office, related again to the building of the marine engines. Uh. So, I didn't do any painting at all really. Er...

Adele: What was the...the moment when you realized that that's...that the vocation that you wanted?

Tom: Well, it was in a funny kind of way forced upon me, because I got married when I was twenty-one, and of course that meant I couldn't go to the pub every night. And so, I...I...that was only then, did I start even thinking about it.

Er, and my wife, Elsie, took me to Sydney, where we went to the Conservatorium of Music, to visit. We went to the Mitchell Library, to peruse. We went to Art Gallery. So, I had all my cultural education over and done with in a fortnight.

Adele: Cultural submersion.

Tom: But, in...What did happen, was that the visit to the art gallery, on the wall, there were two paintings. The Dobell Margaret Olley portrait, and alongside Storm Over Wangi. Now, I grew up at Warner's Bay, which was opposite Wangi. And I'd experienced this southerly busters.

And to see the Dobell, Storm Over Wangi, I thought it was magic, sheer magic. Er, so I went to the front counter, and bought a whole lot of cards of paintings that were in the gallery. The ones that I liked, that I selected. And that's really how I first started to paint.

Adele: And that first painting, was it Swagman on a dog, or...?

Tom: Yeah, yeah. It was at...there was 1947, it was in June, and big floods in Maitland were happening. And I was listening to the, er, evening news. Er, and I was, er, drawing... started ... was doing a little bit of drawing. And, er, the flood damage was getting close to being horrific you know.

You worrying about people that could have been lost. And, er, I did this very calm and peaceful make up picture, because I knew the valley very well, of a swagman walking down this valley with his dog into a very pleasant landscape. And that was the first picture I ever painted.

Adele: And that painting, later didn't ... what happened to that one?

Tom: Well, ah, Elsie ... first of all, Elsie brought it up before that. I was walking down Hunter Street, Newcastle. And there was an advertisement for, ah, an art prize. The judge was a man called Charles Salisbury, and he was a representative of the British Council. And he was going to be the judge.

So I thought, 'Oh, well, I've painted a picture. I'll put this picture in.' And of course, lo and behold, I'd ... I got first prize. I'd won it. So I thought, 'Oh, I'll have some money.' But it wasn't money, it was, ah, a huge amount of art materials from Frederick Ash and Son, the hardware merchants, who also had an art department that was run by, ah, one of my secondary school, ah, mates.

And I don't know whether he was very kind to me or not, but I had this whole host of materials that I really didn't want. I was a bit peeved because I didn't get any money. Ah, and so I didn't want, didn't want the paints, ah, or the brushes, or the materials. So I decided I'll give it to the school.

The local schools wouldn't take them because they said they were poisonous. So then I thought, 'I'll give them to the CWA, the Country Women's Association.' They had hobby classes. And they didn't want them either. So I started fiddling, ah, and became immersed. So I more or less trained myself for six years. And then Elsie and I went to Sydney. From then on it...

Adele: And that award was the first of many.

Tom: Yes, fortunately, yes. Ah, I did, ah ... after that, after I got that award, I ... opposite, as I said Dobell lived opposite in Wangi Wangi and I was at Warners Bay. So I rode my bike around and knocked on his door and said, 'Mr Dobell, I'm Tom Gleghorn and I, I would really love to be a painter,' ah ... or, 'I'm very interested in painting'.

I didn't say I, you know, want to be an artist. I just want to paint some pictures. He was very tolerant and very kind. Ah, and he spent a lot of time with me. Ah, he spoke to me about the technical aspects of painting.

He ... see, Bill Dobell, he was, one of his teachers was Peter Wilson Steer, the English painter, English impressionist. And Peter Wilson Steer had a link to Renoir. So Renoir gave Wilson Steer his ... the vehicle that he used in his paintings, to get that richness of colour.

It was emulsion. A third water, third turps, third linseed oil. You shake it up, looks milky, you mix that with your oil paint. And, and it works beautifully. Ah, it, it's very difficult to make mud using that. Like most painters when they first start, would make a lot of mud, like I did.

But he, he told me about this. And this sort of intrigued me. Ah, then the next time I went round, ah, he was sitting. He always smoked and, ah, spoke and, ah, painted with a cigarette in his mouth. So he was always blinking his eyes, you know, with the smoke drifting. And he was sitting on the corner of the table, and there was a Reeves.

You could get a pastel book, great paper. I remember that. At nine pence per book. Ah, and he was just, we were just talking and I ... through his studio window you ... it was Lake Macquarie. And, ah, it was there that he painted Storm Over Wangi.

And, ah, there was a boat moored out there. And he just wet this brush and was white in a matter of seconds, really. Did this lovely little gouache thing. It was magic, it amazed me. The skill and cleverness, I was in awe. That was perhaps the greatest art lesson I've ever had in my life. That people were capable. There were some, some artist capable of doing that. Just look, think, down. And it was revealed.

And I thought, 'Gee, one day I'd love to do that.' And that was the beginning of myself, sort of, training. But without, without Bill Dobell I would never have painted. Because over the next five years, I'd ride my bike around and I went round to see him with another mate of mine, a young painter, Terry O'Shea, who didn't, didn't ... he never painted again.

And Ross Morrow, who was another aspiring young painter, Newcastle painter. And I went round with Ross Morrow. And we were sitting on Bill's bed, and, ah, Ross. We were talking to Bill. And Ross, ah, kicked something under the side of the bunk that he had in the studio.

And he pulled out this nude. And, ah, Bill said, 'I've wondered ... I was wondering about that picture, where it got to.' He said, 'It used to be in the door.' He used it as a mat, to get into his studio. And it was scratched and scraped. The next time I saw it, it was in the gallery, the Gallery of NSW, where they'd bought it for ninety guineas.

Adele: You set a deadline on your career as an artist, and moved to Sydney with your wife and two small children, Kim and Ann. It's a tough time, but you make that deadline when you win the Rockdale Art Prize.

Tom: Yeah.

Adele: And that's about the time that Hal Missingham comes into your life.

Tom: Hal judged an art, ah, an art, ah, prize, in Newcastle School of Art. Paul Beadle, ah, was a submarine ... a submariner during the war. And he was a sculptor. And he was a teacher at the National Art School. And he was, ah, seconded to run the art school. And Bill Dobell said to me, 'Go and see Paul Beadle' you know?

And I went there, and I found out about the fees and what not. And of course, married with a child, no way could I afford it. But, ah, Ruth Tuck was there. And I had a long conversation with Ruth. And Mervyn Smith was there ... a town planner, Newcastle.

And I went out a couple of times with Mervyn. And, ah, Mervyn would do these full imperial watercolors in a flash. And I thought here again, 'Gee, whiz.' The paint just performed before his eyes.

So then I went back to, ah, just in another conversation with Ruth. So Ruth allowed me into the ... to sit in the back of in her life class, unbeknownst to anybody else, you see. So I did a little bit of drawing with, with Ruth.

Anyhow, there was a Dobell, there was another art award. It was a Dobell, ah, art award. And, ah, Dobell judged it and I got that one, too. He gave it ... I don't know if it was out of kindness or if my work was good or not. But they were the two minor ones. But somehow that ah, that again gave weight to my ambition of perhaps one day, I might be able to paint a picture, you know.

And at the end of the, uh, sixth... eh... thirty, and twenty-nine or thirty, I think it was when we went to Sydney and, uh, entered into,there six months and entered into the Rockdale art prize with a painting called Cockatoo Dock and Hal Missingham as a judge, and I, and I got that.

But Hal, I met Hal ... Oh, didn't meet him. He was ... a judge of this art award in Newcastle, and I went along to that and a ... a girl, the said subject was Adam and Eve, and one of the students won that.

And, of course, after winning the Rockdale, those days winning those art awards you got a lot of publicity. You know, you're in the paper and all sorts of things and from then on I ... a, took myself more seriously.

Adele: Hmm. And you go on to win the Christus Prize?

Tom: Yeah. The "Head of Christ." Yeah, yeah.

Adele: That would have been significant?

Tom: Yes.

Adele: A turning point?

Tom: Yes, that was eh ... yeah that was for me was a, mm, a bit of a turning point, because ... a very funny experience, that one. Uh, there was a lady in Adelaide, a, that bequeathed a sum of money to the, had this all, I had this idea to run in conjunction with the Blake Prize.

The Blake Prize, I started off with the Christus Prize and the Blake Prize in conjunction. So they had five judges, They had Lloyd Rees, who was a, an agnostic. You had Felix Arnott, who was head of the Church of England and then you had Father Kenney, a Jesuit Priest, then you had ah a sculptor,Gerald Lewers, who would all intents and purposes I should group ... I suppose would be an atheist, but a very, very good sculptor.

And I had one more. I think, think it might have been the head of the I don't know. I don't know the other one. I think it has something' [hesitates] well, uh, I think it was Methodist.

Tom: But, anyhow, would be impossible for those five people to give, give, all agree on what was the "Head of Christ." And also, the "Head of Christ" had to be three foot by two foot, that was six square feet -- had to be that size or smaller.

So anyhow, the prize came on and, of course, everyone entered because it meant money if you won it, quite a bit of money those days. And of course, nobody course agree. It was just canceled out. So uh, and I had one in, but mine was terrible. Like uh, I don't know what I was playing at, but I didn't know what Christ looked like.

So, the next year I thought, "Well, I'll go in that group." The year went on, and on, and on, and I couldn't think of anything to put in. I was very busy doing another pro...another painting for the Blake called "Flagellation."

Um, and I was more concerned with that in the Semi-abstract way that I was doing I ... seemed to have a lot the hurt and pain and a vaguely glimpse of the rather tortured, elongated figure. It was about four or five foot high by about two foot six wide.

Uh, right at the very end, uh, Elsie was working, and she was doing her own ironing a on the table. That was the only space I had at the kitchen table was the only space I had to paint.

So I ask her, "Could I use the table?", so she moved the ironing and put this three by two piece of masonite down. And I had a palette knife and very, very quickly, I, I thought something like 4 minutes.

Elsie said it would be, "No, how 'bout half that time?" This "Head of Christ" actually appeared with this, with this knife.

Then for some unknown, for some strange reason, I kind of can never explain, and I was kind of ... But it had something to do with. I don't know what it had, but it had something to do.

Anyhow, I put it in, and everybody agreed that the, so I got, I got the money! Uh, which pleased me no end. Uh, and that was the only, only painting that the Blake Prize Committee own and its now on I think permanent loan at St Pauls in Melbourne. And that was 1958. But that was also a big, that was, of course, then. They've added a great deal of kudos, because Eric Smith was winning prize after prize after prize.

But at the same time, I was runner up on the Blake Prize which Professor Bernard Smith bought for his wife, "The, The Flagellation."

Adele: Great, Um, about that time you befriend, or, or Patrick White becomes your friend?

Tom: Yes, Patrick White was a, a ... I was working at the Blaxland Art Gallery.

Adele: You were director?

Tom: Yeah. Blaxland Gallery ... Art Gallery, a commercial gallery, reopened. And, um, as I was a young painter, and uh, people were taking notice of me mainly for winning these bloody art awards, so I was transferred sideway, sideways.

I was a display designer. We used to design props and things for windows, point of sale merchandising for farmers. Uh, and a, at lunch time I'd go up to Angus & Robertson. I noticed the book there, "Voss", eh that I picked up, started to read, and I had an hour off. I never had a designated meal hour. I'd, I would graze. I ate all day.

So, in my lunch hour, I'd go and read this book. Uh, I'm supposing I could of bought it, but I didn't see much sense in buying it, when it was already there, so I read a great deal of this book.

And in the afternoon while, lack of customers and I already had all of my clerical work taken care of, I started scribbling and drawing about this, this, this this Voss character. And uh, it was based on Leichhardt, of course. Anyhow I, I, in the end I thought I'd ... something happened.

Me, I did a couple of small gouaches, and there was a strange sort of presence of a figure, rather than a figure, and the Musswelbrook Art Award, it was, I think it was the first one.

And I came from Newcastle, and Musswelbrook was very handy. Anyhow I a ... put it in, and it won. Gil Docking, the director of Newcastle Art Gallery gave me the prize.

And, of course, Patrick White was from that area. And, uh, it also had publicity. And the first time I met him is walking into the gallery. And, uh, he introduced himself, and he wanted to know about the "Voss Thing"

Unfortunately, about a week or so before, there was an American man, he knew about ... he knew more about Patrick White than I did, because I just thought he was another Blackwood rogue, you know.

Uh, and he was visiting, and I was entertaining him in the office. We just sat down and were having this conversation, and he noticed my folder of drawings and the gouaches ... a couple of gouaches that I had there.

He was thumbing through them, and he said, "What are you going do with these?" I says, "Oh well, I've used those as a background for a painting that I, I, I did of ... I just called it a "A Voss" for the Musswellbrook Art Award.

He said,"What are you going do with them now?" I said, "Well, I don't know. He said, "Well, I'll buy 'em off you." He said, "How much you want for them?" I said, "Well what do you reckon is a fair price?" So he gave me a fair price which I thought was exorbitant.

So immediately got rid of ... you know, he took the lot. But it was after that Patrick came in, and I thought, " Oh dear, if I I would have only known," you know, because he was very, very interested. He could have had them. You know 'cause I...

Anyhow, he, uh, with his encouragement, and he did encourage me, we visited he and Manolly several times ... Elsie in the family, two, kiddies, we'd go up there, and we became very, very firm friends.

And then the friendship, of course, for some unknown reason just petered ... just disintegrated, yeah. One day we're friends, next day we weren't, yeah.

Adele: The early '6's were defining years for you. You're exhibiting in London after you won the Helena Rubenstein scholarship?

Tom: That, of course, gave me enough money to go overseas. And, uh, I exhibited a...Well, I was overseas for about two years really, and in the meantime, of course, I was working. I'd left already, left the art gallery, the commercial gallery.

And worked at the East Sydney Tech. Because of my design background, uh, I was...They put me in design instead of painting school, kept me well away from the painting school.

But I continued to paint, of course. And then uh ... won this, uh, this scholarship, which as I said, gave me two years overseas.

And overseas I exhibited, I exhibited in Paris and Gallery de Fleur, and the Stone Gallery, and couple of ... it was a commercial gallery. I still can't remember now, a small commercial, gallery in London that showed my work.

Adele: In 1963 you were part of the Australian Exhibition at the Tate?

Tom: Yeah, "The Head of Christ" was in the Tate. Yeah.

Adele: You were meeting British, abstract painters such as Barbara Hepworth, Terry Frost, and Peter Lanyon?

Tom: Yeah. Well, Peter, when I, when I went to uh ... St Ives, we fortunately got a studio on the waterfront. And, uh, the ABC were doing a Four Corner's program.

And uh, anyhow they did this uh Four Corners episode on me. Had me walking around corners, and talking to fishermen, and gazing out to sea, you know, photograph my studio took a whole bloody day and nothing came of it. Wasn't, never ... didn't go to air. But in the, in the St Ives ... wondering what was going on they thought it was a film, you see. And, uh, the sloop, where the painters drank, was the beginning of the St Ives' group, uh, being recognized.

So they're all out the front of the St Ives Sloop pub, and I'm walking along a flat with a camera in front of me and camera in the back of me. So when I went in for the, my afternoon glass of wine, uh, they're all talking to me and talking about me as I had met ... Peter Lanyon, and Terry Frost. And Peter Lanyon worked for, uh, Barbara Hepworth, was an assistant to Barbara.

Uh, and then there was a young jeweler called Breon O'Casey. His father was Sean O'Casey, the Irish playwright. He was assistant there at that time.

So I got to know Barbara Hepworth much better. I spent a bit of time with her. And uh, know ... in her studio, watched her work and helped her a little bit. You know, it came in fairly good friends actually. Over the period ... time I was there.

Adele: It was a prolific time for you ... in the matter of making art. How did it affect you in finally being in Europe amongst all the...?

Tom: Oh, the disc ... the discovery, everything was , you know. Uh also, it's a very belittling experience too. You know, I was winning awards. You..you start thinking to yourself that you could be some sort of a painter, ah.and then it got a little bit embarrassing, because my colleagues called me The Phar Lap of Australian Art, which put a funny taste in my mouth.

I was looked upon as...I felt a bit of a freak you know. It wasn't my fault I was winning them. My paintings weren't the best, by far. Ah..They're just different.

And I think because I was doing a lot of experimenting with paints and the paints looked different, colors were a bit different, uh, probably caught the eye of the judges..ah and I think more luck than anything else g..got the awards.

But the exposure to the masters, the Old Masters of Europe is just, ah, it's the Holy Grail of art. It brings you right down to size, or brought me down to size.

Adele: Well you have continued to exhibit and sell your work across every decade since the 1950's, including an 8th birthday exhibition at the BMG Art Gallery. This must be very gratifying.

Tom: Very gratifying for people to pay money for what you do. Uh, here again, going back to...this luck ... I seem to have... I think the idea of ... is self-taught, I'm not too sure. I think my work looked a bit different. You know?

I remember, there's an article in, "The Nation," the, "Women's Weekly Portrait Prize", and I had a portrait called, "A Fisherman's Wife," with a portrait of my mate's wife, this O'Shea boy I was telling about, June O'Shea. And Robert Hughes called me The White Hope of Australian Art in the criticism.

And later on, he ... he ... I don't know what happened, but he turned...really turned against me. I was one ... one ... I was mannered ... called my work mannered, and then my painting was a fraud, all sorts of things happened. But that's sort of thing that doesn't worry you know, it happens.

Adele: You said, much later, that White was probably your best, most severe critic.

Tom: Patrick is the only person, who I've had in my studio while I've been painting. We were very close. Uh..he tried me a little bit, Patrick. His...I was young, uh, youngish, he did scare me a little bit, a bit too rich for my blood. But in my fashion I loved him. He was...I thought he was...

Adele: He certainly defended you against Hughes.

Tom: Yeah, he went into print. Oh dear, yeah. And of course Patrick with his different sort of sexuality and everyone had a different idea about me too.

Adele: Well, you were the golden boy. You did paint a portrait of Patrick.

Tom: I did, yes, yes. I painted a life-size portrait of Patrick. It was in the Archibald and it was hung in an out-of-the-way place, but it did create a little bit of a, you know, likes and dislikes.

Patrick saw it and didn't like it at all, which upset me, because I didn't show it to him, I didn't show him the finished. He saw the studies and whatnot, but I didn't show him the finished work.

It was done on masonite, and it was, as I said, full-size. It was...Getting back to Voss again, it was Voss ... What I did was an imaginary Voss in the landscape with Patrick's features.

But it was a, a, figure in a landscape, landscape turning into the figure, figure turning into the landscape. If you can follow. But it did have a presence.

But anyhow, when the pictures came back, when the paintings came back, because Patrick didn't like it at all, I didn't want to offend him, so I chopped it up and burned it...Elsie also burned it...We had a fuel copper, so it was burned under the copper.

The irony of it was about a month later, he came and he'd changed his mind. He'd thought about it and had liked it very much. I said, "Well you know, I didn't want to offend you. I burned it." He became very angry actually.

Adele: I can imagine.

Tom: Yeah. Another thing you kow, I've never put a great deal of store in my paintings. To me they're just something I do, you know. They're not something that I think, "Oh, I've created a great work," that's the farthest thing from my mind.

Adele: Well you say that painting is not necessarily an enjoyable occupation. It's a demanding task ... ridding myself of...

Tom: Yes. I have an odd kind of mind. My mind gets cluttered. And, I don't know whether it's the English forebears, but the Australian landscape I find spiritual. You know, I'm always in it. I remember growing in my teen years, I had a horse and I had a dog, and I'd take myself off two or three days, a week at a time, by myself, in the Watagan Mountains, the mountains, the hills behind Lake Macquarie. I found that very, very enjoyable.

And of course in the...Most children draw as children. But my background of course, was one of...during the Depression. The early years was a bag shack, dirt floor, uh, and there was no such thing as pencils and paper lying around.

My step-grandfather gave me a pocketknife that was in the shape of a fish. It was sort of a tin in the shape of a fish and it had, "Made in Japan," on the blade. I'll never forget that. But he had it sharp, really sharp. So, I would find nodules of roots and things, of tea tree roots ... in the bush, and I'd carve.

So I was carving birds and small snakes. My grandmother called it whittling. She used to always yell at me, "Stop that whittling. You're getting shavings all over the place." You know? Because I was getting wood all over the joint.

Adele: So, you've been part of that landscape ever since, though, and painting that landscape, in a sense.

Tom: Yes. I never ever got it right.

Adele: I disagree.

Tom: Well, that's one of the quests, I suppose, is that you ... do this sort of search for something in the landscape. Always I start from reality, and then it gets ... I like to take it further, and further, and further. Most of the...I do lots of drawings and lots of studies and these are burnt or in the early days, sent out as Christmas cards.

So, well, when we were in Sydney we couldn't afford to buy Christmas cards. We were living in one room with a wife and two kids, so all those studies and drawings went out as Christmas cards.

Adele: Sasha Grishin referred to you as, "The artist who introduced New York's abstract expressionism to Australia."

Tom: I didn't know that. I've never...I've heard of Sasha. I never...

Adele: Quite a prolific writer. What is your process when you paint? You do lots of preliminary sketches?

Tom: I walk through a...I walk through a landscape. I'm always walking. A bent tree, a stump, a hillock, a cloud form. I make landscape marks, these small ... and to all intents and purposes they're abstract marks, they're just abstract marks.

Now, the next step of course is to go through all of these, discard the ones I don't want, I mean but just throw ... I burn them, or destroy them. From what I've got remaining, what remains is a skeleton, something about that landscape.

From this skeleton I put these shapes together and it doesn't take much imagination to see where I've been and what the subject is about, and then that's ... reality comes into it. And from...It might be one or two, like the one you see behind me, a great deal of reality, but they're just abstract marks.

If you decipher it and take...There's no such thing as saturated leaves per se, but they are in there, that's a kind of abstract impressionism if you like. But it's my kind of reality. So, what I'm doing it's about a landscape.

It's only when I get stuck with figures, like the ... I have done a lot of figure work within the landscape figures hearkening right back to Patrick coming from the, "Voss," book where you get ... eventually I bought the book and read the whole thing, you know, just out of respect.

Uh, if I remember rightly. I was going to say, "Patrick gave me that," but he gave me the others. He gave me...I forget what he'd given me now, but I know he wrote an inscription on it. I don't know where it is. But it's...Now, I've lost myself.

Adele: So, you're painting, and you're in the landscape and it's over you, it's behind you, it's...

Tom: Yes, you're surrounded by it. I suppose it's...It's a special kind of filter. But that sounds ridiculous. But you are aware of the landscape behind you as you are the one in front of you, and a quick turn of the head and you get, you get a mark, a congestion of marks. And these marks are rapidly placed.

Uh, and then they're contemplated. Then from this contemplation you get a sense of reality and then it's going further and further. The big one that I did, the last big one that I did, before my back really went, was a ten feet by six foot which I did about three years ago.

It was a commission for Stanford Windsor Apartments. It's in the foyer in the rocks, in Sydney, and it's called, "Water Poem." And that...That painting is a culmination of Yellow Waters in Kakadu that I first went in 1964 when I judged an art thing in Darwin, up till...Well, still at it. I go back every year.

I go to that particular place, apart from other places. But Yellow Waters, I've got a lot of memories of Yellow Waters. I made friends with one of the elders, and I met Big Bill Neidje, and Little Dolly Yanmalou, uh, Nick Alderson the elders that I spent time with, and they showed me things. Nick, especially.

Adele: And, you're applying your paint, and initially it was oils. How has your palette changed?

Tom: Well, it changed with materials. I use a lot of different materials. I mean I have...Kim has a friend who ground stones that I collected into dust as fine as talcum powder, just pure stone, that I mix with resins, they're polymers, and they became paint.

A lot of the acrylic paints...I did paint tests in the early days in Sydney for Tom Rowney, the head of Reeves Paints. He was ex-MI5. I worked with him with the polymer paints. It's just some things I've been very, very interested in.

Adele: And different sorts of textures.

Tom: Yes, I'm fascinated with textures.

Adele: Yes, I can see, the sand, and in the early days, tar. Was it...?

Tom: No, I've never ... I use additives...I use...I don't think I've ever ... I might have used sand, I can't remember, but mainly stone, I've always been into the stone dust.

Adele: Stone dust is probably what it is.

Tom: Yes, and a lot of the iron-ore stuff. There's beautiful colors you get in that. The ochres, the natural ochres.

Tom: Yeah, well, I've lost a bit of that. I think I've...

Adele: The middle years.

Tom: As a teenager...No before that. As a child, I lived on a ... as I said, I grew up in this bag shack with the dirt floor, and then eventually had a floor, and Dad built a house around this. But my bedroom was open, it was a lean-to, and so I was always very aware of moonlit nights and moons had a big influence always. I just love the idea of the moon.

A lot of my paintings had the disk in it and that is one particular symbol. But even to this day I'm moved by a moonlit landscape.

Adele: You insert realism into your paintings, such as a kingfisher or an owl. Saying that abstraction is not quite enough.

Tom: I don't know why I do that. There was an owl...I found an owl in our front yard one Saturday morning. I got up and I was wandering in the front yard, and this wounded owl was in the front yard. I put it in a box, and nurse it ... it was there all Saturday night and Sunday morning it was still alive. Then it was badly hurt. The nicest way would have been to have killed it, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that. But anyhow it died.

Being a witness to the struggle, of course the only way you can do it is to just wounded owl, I just painted wounded owl, and the surround is the remains of the cage. Things like that are very important to me.

I remember catching a fish as a child, when I'd probably been about eleven, I might have been a little bit older, but to catch a fish and take it off you ... take the hook out of its mouth where there's blood. And then you decide whether you're going to take it home, is it big enough to take home or throw it back. By the time you've made a decision, it's coughed up its life in your hand. I find that a very disturbing experience, so I never fish. If I fish, I fish without bait.

Adele: You did say your cousins were pretty cruel with the gulls and...

Tom: Oh yeah, the robber gulls.

Adele: The robber gulls.

Tom: The robber gulls.

Adele: ... and Patrick bought that.

Tom: Well, in Lake Macquarie, mouth of Lake Macquarie, you have they used to have a mullet run, and the school of the mullet come down the coast and the fisherman throw their nets and get the mullet.

Well, when they hang their nets to dry they've got fish in them, remnants of fish, and the robber gulls come and get the fish.

And, of course sometimes they get entangled and they tear the net which really angers...I had a cousin who was involved in...Bon, and I saw him wring the gull's neck, just because it was after the fish.

But I did a robber gull, I painted a robber gull and Patrick White had it. It was very interesting. On one corner of his bed, head of his bed, he had a Roy De Maistre, "Crucifixion," and on the other corner he had the, "Robber Gulls," over there. Quite macabre in a way, and yet somehow it worked.

Adele: He had your, "Coast," over his desk when he was writing.

Tom: Yes, yes, "Coast Wind."

Adele: Coast Wind ... and he bought probably sixteen of your works.

Tom: He had heaps of them at one stage.

Adele: In 2001, you said, "I'm seventy six next June and I cannot see an end to painting." You were eighty eight last June. What can you see?

Tom: I can't see an end to painting.

Adele: Good. That's great.

Tom: The only...You know, the only downturn has been physically I find it very difficult. But there's still a hunger there, there's still a hunger. I'm still at it, even though I'm doing, as you see, this memory thing, I've...That's the second...I've never seen...Well, I have...The Paradise kingfisher is not a bird I'm familiar with but seeing one I've never been able to paint it unless I've painted it singly.

And just recently, like this year, I've had a recall of the Daintree, where I spent a bit of time and that sort of context. It was just the...What happened, to put it simply...Yeah, I just felt I encountered this kingfisher, this Paradise kingfisher passing by. Ah ... and it was evening. It was like a colored jewel in the sky, you know? And then, you turn your head and it's not there anymore.

Ah that ... and that's the sort of thing that starts me, you know I got ... then I started recalling the, the, the growth and the round the campfire that I had. Plus I went, went there the last time I went with a botanist and an entomologist. Was a sort of a Queensland University group, small group that I went with, went into the...

Adele: So travel, is very important to you, so obviously feeds your memory.

Tom: Yeah. I'm a great looker, yeah. I've got, gotta see things. I'm not very good with, with, ah, imagination. I have to, have to experience something. There, there's always a start to my painting ...

I, I suppose it's a form of writing. I mean, Jimmy Gleason first picked this up, in a, in a crit, that he gave me. Ah, it talked about my landscape being one of writing, and, ah, suppose, in a way, th-, that's pretty close. Because that's actually what I'm doing, ya know. You, you, your describing a fern. So, you literally describe this fern, and you read it, and I read it. Your impression is completely different than my impression.

So, what I'm trying to do is...show my impression to people, and, some people it makes sense to, and some people it makes reality to. And, they're the people that buy the work.

Because, they're always at a-. I mean people. Very few of my works come on the market, for resale. Most, most of the ones that come on the market are things that I've given away. You know, like demonstrations. I sort of, I taught by demonstrating.

My whole teaching was, ah, based on ah, a-, a philosophy. Um, my philosophy. Ah, then, which we would debate, and in this, this, these debates, in depth debates, the student would include their philosophy, which would be discussed alongside my philosophy.

So, you get this, ah, thinking thing going on. Then, I supply the technical knowledge and the facility for them to portray this.

And that was the basis, simple basis, of my teaching, which worked very, very well, indeed, for the students. Then you talk to ninety-five percent of my students, and you'll find them saying, you know, they got something from my, from me.

Other people couldn't, th-, the percentage, that didn't like me, just didn't like me anyhow. Didn't like me, because, because of what? You know. Yeah.

Adele: But, you have said that, ah, your loves are teaching, painting, and a few beers, in that order.

Tom: Yeah. Wines, I was thinking, should have said. Yes.

Adele: Well, I was about to say, maybe wines, and, or perhaps, whiskey.

Tom: Yeah. Whiskey. Yes. Single malts

Adele: Yes, absolutely. Um, and you, your teaching spanned, from, um, teaching at the Natural Art School, in Sydney ....and then...

Tom: Head of the Art ... Canberra. Then, here.

Adele: And, you've just received, a-, an honorary doctorate for your ... time spent at...

Tom: That was strange, yeah.

Adele: So, your, the years, at, were, initially, Bedford College?

Tom: Yeah. Bedford Park, yeah.

Adele: Which then became...

Tom: Sturt, yeah. See, Bedford, Bedford was attached to Flinders, ah, the head of, ah, Bedford was the, was Prof., ah, Jim Richardson. A marvelous man. Ah, Yorkshire man. Ah, he was, had the Chair of Education at Flinders.

And he, he was very, very good. He didn't interfere. I've been very fortunate, and, ah, the only time I was chastised was in, ah, Sydney, at The National Art School. Because John Coburn and I were the youngest teachers.

I think Peter Laverty, also, was in that category. But, ah, full d, full-time teachers. Ah, and my, and...My teaching, see John was taught, ah, and Laverty was taught, they all came out of, a-, art school background.

I, I didn't. I've never had a formal art lesson, in my life. But I've had, you know, tremendous amount of encouragement and help from Dobell. Lloyd Reeves was another man. Lloyd was, i-, indirectly and directly responsible for about five of my art awards, perhaps more.

He gave me, um, ah, a Bathurst watercolor art award, for something that was painted, as, n-, n-, not as, certainly not a watercolor. It looks like watercolor, but it's not watercolor. It's one of my concoctions. Yeah.

Adele: A concoction.

Tom: Yeah. I've still got it. Yeah. It's still there. You should have a look at it, before you go. Yeah.

Adele: Well, I've really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you so much for your time.

Tom: Hope I made sense. I ramble a bit, yeah.

Adele: No, it's been very, very interesting, so thank you very much.

Tom: Mm-hmm, thank you.

Credits

Interviewer: Adele Boag

Camera, lighting & sound: Anders Wotzke

Video editing: Anders Wotzke

Technical & assembly: Dr. Bob Jansen