A brief history of the gallery
Brian and Marjorie Johnstone's first enterprise, the Marodian Art Gallery, opened in Brisbane's Upper Edward Street in December 1950. The gallery was a joint venture with interior decorator Hugh Hale, and was located at the back of his city shop. It was a tentative start, and the art shown in the early stages was fairly safe and conventional. However, in September 1951, during an exhibition of paintings by Arthur Boyd, Hale described Boyd's artwork as "rubbish", leading to an outburst of Brian Johnstone's legendary temper and an almost instantaneous dissolution of the partnership.
The split was, however, also a symptom of Johnstone's developing interests and increasing confidence that he and Marjorie were ready to take on the world of art and commerce on their own. In February 1952 the Johnstones relaunched their gallery under their own name in an ex-air raid shelter in the basement of the Brisbane Arcade. The Johnstone Gallery had a distinctively modern but inexpensive style, and was a significant development from the conservative and prosaic ambience of the back room Marodian Gallery.
The exhibition program showed a similar leap of faith and confidence. Local talents like Laurence Hope and Margaret Olley were shown with interstate figures such as Sidney Nolan, Grace Cossington Smith and John Passmore. The gallery offered related services - framing, restoring, valuing, art books - together with decorative arts such as ceramics, Persian carpets and later, pottery, enamels, furniture and glass.
While financial rewards were limited in the early years, the Johnstone Gallery quickly developed real momentum, with a loyal group of artists, enthusiastic patrons and a program of style and quality. The Johnstones must have sensed the potential because in 1954 they opened the custom-designed Home Salon at their residence in Cintra Road, Bowen Hills. The Home Salon was designed to complement the Brisbane Arcade gallery.
A few years later, however, the Brisbane Arcade gallery closed. Jon Molvig's "A Farewell Show" (so named because he was leaving Queensland for Melbourne), which opened in December 1957, was the final exhibition. Artistic and personal factors had led to its demise: Molvig's large canvases stretched the gallery's small walls and emphasised its inadequacy to accommodate the large, modern paintings becoming increasingly common. Furthermore, Brian Johnstone had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and hospitalised, and the dank, basement atmosphere in the city gallery was seen as a contributing factor. On 19 December 1957, the gallery closed and was wound up.
It was not until October 1958 that the Johnstone Gallery emerged from the shadow cast by Brian's illness. The Johnstones reopened their gallery at their home in Bowen Hills (now on the city fringe but in the 1950s a firmly suburban location). However, the seeds of its real and wholehearted success were sown when it opened in an annex at the Johnstone's home.
The gallery was extended from the Home Salon at 6 Cintra Road into the cottage next door at 8 Cintra Road, which Marjorie also owned as part of a family inheritance. As Betty Churcher recalls, people responded to the domestic ambience, the gardens and the spectacular and theatrical ways in which the art was presented and launched:
The gallery flourished on this site. It grew "like Topsy", developing multiple characters: Gallery F (to show work of emerging artists), a Collectors Gallery, a Storeroom Gallery and more, all under the Johnstone Gallery umbrella. When it eventually closed in 1972, there was the very real sense that this was the end of an era.The Sunday morning openings were events that few aficionados willingly missed. At that time people could still buy paintings without going into mortgage, and there was a genuine air of excitement and expectation about each new exhibition.
(Churcher, B. (1984). Molvig: The Lost Antipodean. Melbourne: Penguin Books. Page 3)
The final exhibition was of sculpture by Leonard and Kathleen Shillam, but the announcement of the forthcoming closure was delivered in quintessential Johnstone Gallery style: a Christmas card bearing a Max Hurley image of the Johnstones in a Christmas sleigh led by two kangaroos and a haloed Lindy (the gallery dog). From the back of the sleigh Marjorie casts familiar paintings over a landscape littered with artistic references. Inside, the message reads:
After 22 years of blood, sweat and pleasant toil, we have decided to close the Gallery at the end of this year.
We have reached the decision with many regrets, the deepest of which is the knowledge that we will no longer be in such close contact with those many artists and clients who have supported the Gallery so consistently over the years.
We take this opportunity of thanking you personally for all the many kindnesses and considerations you have shown to us both and wish you every future happiness and good fortune.
("A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Brian and Marjorie Johnstone: The Johnstone Gallery Archive: Scrapbook 1972: RBHARC 7/1/15, p.122)
Christmas card 1972
The exhibition the card promoted was "A Time Remembered", and included work by Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd, Ray Crooke, Robert Dickerson, Russell Drysdale, Sidney Nolan and Lloyd Rees.
Last updated: 22nd June 2011
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