Kathleen Shillam
Kathleen O'Neill sculpting white sandstone figure ca. 1937
Everybody wants to understand art, to have it explained to them, but do you ask how to understand the songs of the birds, or the colour of a flower, or the stillness of a night? You are spiritually aware of such things
Kathleen Shillam
(Hartnett, D 1996, Forms entwined : the life story of sculptors Leonard & Kathleen Shillam, Pangeza Studio, Brisbane, Qld, p.80.)
Kathleen Shillam (née O’Neill) believed in art. Born in England on 25 May 1916, she grew up in a creative household. Her father was a successful commercial artist and illustrator, and had an adventurous spirit. He sent Kath and her older sister to Australia from Wales in 1927, following with the rest of the family in 1928. Kath was eleven, her sister Eileen was 21.
The clippings contained in the Len and Kath Shillam Papers: 6015/25 Clippings Folder document her creative correspondence with “For the Young Folk” in Brisbane’s Daily Mail and other newspapers from the time of her arrival in Australia. She sent drawings and correspondence to the editor of “For the Young Folk”, and the Shillam Papers document fourteen published drawings, sometimes with Kath’s accompanying captions. She was a regular winner of the Weekly Award for Seniors, a drawing prize for secondary students, and her drawings depict animals, household objects, buildings, river scenes and landscapes. In the Telegraph from 11 March 1933, the 15 year old Kath’s camel-riding scene on the beach at Sandgate is accompanied by the caption, “School’s out for the crew but not for the camels”. This was the winning entry for the Original Drawing Special.
As an artist, her inspiration was drawn from nature, reflecting her upbringing in coastal Sandgate (outside Brisbane), and it has been through the depiction of animals that some of her most lyrical sculptural works and drawings have emerged.
Kath’s long term interest in animals began early. She related her feelings in an interview with Hazel de Berg in 1965:
My big interest while in Sydney was going out to Taronga Park and drawing the animals there, and this intense interest in animals as well as the drawings from the human figure which I had kept up all along, has been the whole basis of my training as an artist.
This interest which I have always had in animals started when I was quite young. In fact, when I had my first job as a commercial artist wages were only 10/- a week, and I spent my first 10/- in buying a puppy which I kept for many years. We always had cats, and later on when Leonard returned from London and we married and settled on a poultry farm as the only obvious, easy way of making a living, we seized the opportunity of obtaining many more animals and in fact I think we had a horse, two cows, and perhaps an odd calf or two, two goats, two sheep, many many chickens of course and later on we had ducks, and we also used to have extra pets such as a kangaroo or anything else that was available, perhaps a kestrel, and so on.
I used to frequently draw these animals, of course, as I had right from the time when I was down in Sydney, and these drawings were often the starting point for ideas for sculpture, and whenever there was a spare opportunity I would turn to sculpture, and at that period it was mainly carving stone or carving wood.(Interview recorded by Mrs Hazel de Berg, held by National Library of Australia, Canberra, published in Scarlett, K 1980, Australian sculptors, Thomas Nelson, West Melbourne, pp.589-590. Copy in Len and Kath Shillam Papers: 6015/26 vol. 2)
Kath’s father was a painter and commercial artist and art had long been her passion. So for her (unlike Len), art school was a natural progression. She describes her instinctive habit eloquently: “My elders sketched, inevitably I did too.” (Shillam, L & S 2000, Shillam sculpture, CopyRight Publishing, Brisbane 2000, p.1.) In a magazine for schools titled Scene 77, she is quoted: “While other kids at school were dressing dolls I was pulling them apart.” (Len and Kath Shillam Papers: 6015/26 “Carving out a Lifestyle”, Scene 77)
After art school, Kath worked in commercial art studios from 1934 to 1938. When Len returned from England on the outbreak of war, they moved back to Brisbane and their families, starting a poultry farm on family land. Their marriage in 1942 changed their living arrangements, but not their work habits. They continued to fit drawing and making sculpture around the responsibilities of their poultry farm.
Part of Kath’s artistic success is probably due to the fact that she and Len did not have children. While this was the result of circumstances and not choice, it allowed her to focus all her energy into making art. She preferred not to take on commissions, and whenever she could referred these opportunities to Len. This allowed her to pursue her own muse. She made the work she liked and exhibited it for sale.
In Forms Entwined, Kath is quoted as saying, “We hoped to have children – this did not eventuate. In hindsight I realise that to have family responsibilities we would both have had to concentrate more energy generating a steady income. In a sense our sculptures are our children, produced with love and launched into the world to take their chance.” (Hartnett, D 1996, Forms entwined : the life story of sculptors Leonard & Kathleen Shillam, Pangeza Studio, Brisbane, Qld, p.169.)
Len Shillam claims that with Torso, 1937 Kath may have created “the first fully twentieth century sculpture ever done in Australia... It really was tremendously beyond most people’s imagining.” (Len Shillam, Interview for State Library of Queensland, 2005) He confesses to having been quite envious of her achievement at the time. After it was cast in bronze, much later in 1992, it was reproduced in Art and Australia (Len and Kath Shillam Papers: 6015/26, ‘Exhibition Commentary’, Art and Australia, Winter 1992, p.496.)
Between 1961 and 1964 Len and Kath travelled overseas to Greece, Italy and England, a trip they planned in pursuit of stimulation. Len described Kath as “the guiding light” in their three years overseas (Len Shillam, Interview for State Library Of Queensland, 2005). She planned a busy and stimulating itinerary, to allow them to see as much art as possible.
Kathleen Shillam was without doubt an innovator. Throughout her career she experimented with materials, ideas and concepts. She described her own habit of experimenting with unfamiliar materials and her adherence to innovation for its own sake saw her work reach many peaks. About White Abstract, 1970, she wrote, “I seized every opportunity to experiment with new materials and processes as they came to Brisbane. White Abstract, made from styrene foam coated with epoxy reinforced glass, has stood over 20 years exposure. The abstract shape is based on a plant form with some slight reference to the plant series.” (Len and Kath Shillam Papers: 6015/2, p. B22) Len’s view was that, “Kath has done some wonderful things along the line for which no-one has given her much credit – in the abstract for example.” (Len Shillam, Interview for State Library of Queensland, 2005) A totally abstract work made by Kath, Triangles, 1970, remained at the Shillams’ home in Sandgate in 2005. It was a sheet aluminium construction of linked triangles, “originally painted in an attempt to contradict aerial perspective.” (Len and Kath Shillam Papers: 6015/2, p. B23)
During the 1980s she experimented with conceptual art. While many of these works were not necessarily made, they are well documented within the Len and Kath Shillam Papers. One of these proposed works was Pyramid over Brisbane: an invisible healing pyramid over Brisbane. With its ambition, “to make manifest a pyramid of air over inner city Brisbane”, it was to have a 500 square metre base, with equilateral sides, laser beams and/or search lights used to delineate the pyramid, and can be seen in its ephemeral nature and healing qualities to be an antecedent for the work in decades to follow of Wendy Mills and Lyndall Milani. (Len and Kath Shillam Papers: 6015/3, p. C41)
Len and Kath Shillam sold their work through the Johnstone Gallery from 1951 until its closure in 1972. As a partnership and a friendship this was a rewarding relationship all round. The Johnstones hosted many Shillam exhibitions, often combined with changes at the gallery – opening of new galleries, special launches and its ultimate closure. Their work is integral to the public memory of the Johnstones.
Given Len’s heavier involvement with public commissions, commercial shows of work by the Shillams at the Johnstone Gallery routinely include more work by Kath. She made many sculptures of cats, birds, figures, tortoises, horses, foals, seals and in later years, native animals. This followed their involvement in the Queensland Wildlife Artists Society, a new organization they joined in 1983. Her constant search for new artistic horizons is evident in the interest she directed toward native animals and reptiles from that time.
Her notes on Koala, 1986 relate, “Koalas are not at all like the cuddly stuffed animals so loved by children. I delight in the strong facial features and vigorous posture of an adult koala, when he is awake.” (Len and Kath Shillam Papers: 6015/4, p.D11) About Expectant Cat, 1987, she wrote, “Sometimes models were scarce, but we’ve always had cats so chance has nudged me towards making many cat sculptures. The one that is to me totally sculpturally right will be my ultimate cat.” (Len and Kath Shillam Papers: 6015/4, p. D17)
While Len and Kath worked independently, albeit in close proximity to each other throughout their lives, after 1987 when they were both injured in a near fatal car accident, they began to work more collaboratively. Jabirus, 1992, which was commissioned from the Shillams by the Brisbane City Gallery to honour the contribution made by Brian and Marjorie Johnstone was a joint work. Pelicans, 1984, at the Queensland Art Gallery was also a collaborative work.
Kath’s strength and determination is evident in her commitment to art and the published documentation of her own practice which continued up until her death from heart failure on 20 September 2002.
She will be remembered for the inner poetry and lyricism so evident in her work. Her constant experimentation and search for the elusive qualities that make art with longevity ensure her work will live on.
Kath Shillam was appointed a Member in the Order of Australia (AM) in the Australia Day honours in 1986, for services to sculpture and education. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy for services to the arts, notably sculpture, from the University of Queensland in December 2000.
Browse pictures from the Leonard and Kathleen Shillam Papers.
Last updated: 23rd June 2011
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