Review: ‘Alan’s Art Deco’ Exhibition, Alan Baker Art Gallery, Macaria, 37 John Street, Camden. October 2023-April 2024.
Interwar Art Deco style
A new art exhibition at Camden’s Alan Baker Art Gallery highlights the modernity and cosmopolitanism of the interwar period in an exhibition of artist Alan D Baker called ‘Alan’s Art Deco’.
The interwar period was a vibrant time for Australia following the trauma of the First World War. It was a time of hopes and dreams, new ideas and styles, best expressed by the Sydney Harbour Bridge, an exclamation mark in modernism.
In sleepy Camden, cosmopolitanism and modernity appeared in the form of new banking chambers, car dealerships, motor garages and movie palaces that appeared in the town centre from new coal.
Pubs in Camden were modernised. Across the state, the big brewers wanted modernity displayed in their commercial promotions and hired commercial artists like Alan Baker to express this in the Art Deco style.
Art Deco is a style that the exhibition catalogue describes for its
clean shapes and lines, geometric and stylised ornamentation and above all, a celebration of the luxury of modernity, the style influenced every visual medium, from architecture to fine art.
‘Alan’s Art Deco’ exhibition illustrates the artwork of artist Alan D Baker and is spread across four galleries, portraying his work from the 1930s to the 1950s. Baker created a range of artworks that were used as posters, murals, bottle labels, coasters, newspaper and magazine advertising, menus and theatre programs. (Catalogue Notes)
Alan D Baker (1914-1987) left school at 15 and enrolled full-time to study art at JS Watkin Art School in Sydney. Gary Baker, Alan’s son, writes that
Great emphasis was placed on tonal drawing in pencil charcoal , pen and washes and after about 4 years Alan was allowed to paint in oil colour.
a great love of the Australian countryside and enjoyed travelling in his caravan with his family and dog, visiting the Flinders Ranges – South Australia, Central Australia, Queensland – especially Longreach, and Northern and Western New South Wales. On the south coast of New South Wales, at Gerroa, he had a holiday house. This was the source for many of his landscapes and seascapes.
His works are in the New South Wales Art Gallery, the National Gallery – Canberra, Queensland Institute of Technology, the Hinton collection at Armidale, and many private and public collections.
Fittingly, exhibition curator Roger Percy has divided Baker’s career into four galleries, starting with Gallery 1, themed ‘Welcome To The Era’. This gallery displays a series of Baker’s works from the 1930s. These artworks were part of the artist’s life between being a student at JS Watkins Art School and then as an art instructor until 1938 when the school closed on the retirement of John Watkins.
After 1938, Baker turned to commercial art after his return from war service in New Guinea during the Second World War. Themed ‘Black & White’ Gallery 2 displays advertisements that were created using a scratchboard for ‘newspaper image printing’. This fine detail required the artist to use ‘scrap knives to scrape ink off a surface to reveal the white clay beneath’. Originating in 19th century Europe, this was ‘a cheaper and quicker alternative to alternative to other printing methods’ while retaining the fine lines from the artwork. (Catalogue Notes)
‘The Originals’ displayed in Gallery 3 shows work commissioned by one of Australia’s oldest brewers, Tooth & Co, which tied over 600 hotels to sell its products. The company commissioned artists like Baker to advertise beer and link it to sport, health and cultural sophistication. Baker’s contributions were created using self-portraits, while other works depict his father.
One of ‘The Originals’ is ‘And KB on the ice for supper!’ and has been described by the Australian Beer Posters website as
a fantastic Australian brewery poster to compliment any wall [that] are highly collectable and a refreshing way to bring colour and verve onto any wall.
(Australian Beer Posters)
Journalist Stephen Gibbs has written in the Daily Mail Australia that
KB was first brewed in Sydney at Tooth & Co’s Kent Brewery – hence the name – in 1918 and was the dominant packaged beer in New South Wales for much of the 1970s and 1980s.
Gallery 4 is themed as ‘Commercial Print’ and depicts Baker’s original commercial artworks ‘in classic Art Deco scenes with flawless figures, precise draftsmanship and idealised scenes’. (Catalogue Notes)
The exhibition is privileged to be loaned several artworks from the Powerhouse Museum Collection and the Josef Lebovic Gallery in Sydney.
Poster art outdoors
Baker’s poster art for Tooth & Co was often displayed on the outside walls of hotels and is a form of public art.
The exhibition curator, Roger Percy, has followed a similar principle and made some of Baker’s artworks into outdoor posters displayed in prominent locations in and around the Camden town centre, including bus shelters, car park walls, fences and garbage bins.
I think Baker would be pleased that his artwork is on public display for everyone in the general public to view. It is a very democratic approach to public art.
Baker created his artwork for Tooth & Co to be on public display in prominent locations for all to see.
Ringing in the opening
At the official opening, the MC Philippa Percy invited Gary Baker, Alan’s son, to tell his father’s story and then invited Camden Mayor Ashleigh Cagney to ring the gallery bell to officially open the exhibition.
The exhibition is found in Camden’s historic Macaria, a Victorian gentleman’s townhouse designed and built in the Picturesque Gothic Renaissance Revival style in 1860, the Alan Baker Art Gallery home.
The gallery is in the Camden Town Centre’s historic John Street precinct, where you will find next door the former police barracks (1878) adjacent to court house (1857), all opposite the former temperance hall (1867) and school of arts (1866).
This is an enticing exhibition that highlights another aspect of the talent and skill of Alan D Baker as a commercial artist. ‘Alan’s Art Deco’ adds to earlier exhibitions that have demonstrated other aspects of Baker’s art career, for example, the 2021 exhibition FACE to FACE: Live Sittings 1936 – 1972 .
The Alan Baker Art Gallery is located at 37 John Street, Camden. Exhibition entry is free, and the gallery is open Thursday to Sunday from 11am to 4pm. Free off-street is available in Larkin Place, Camden and the Oxley Decked Car Park, Camden, at the rear of the gallery.
On a recent evening in Camden, there was the launch of a new exhibition at the Alan Baker Art Gallery in the heritage-listed building Macaria in John Street.
The exhibition, FACE to FACE: Live Sittings 1936 – 1972, celebrates Alan Baker’s achievement of entering the Archibald Prize 26 times with 35 artworks between 1936 and 1972. Despite his persistence, he never won a prize.
The exhibition programme states that Alan Baker was studying at JS Watkins Art School alongside future Archibald winners Henry Hanke in 1934 with his Self Portrait, William Pidgeon, who won in 1958, 1961 and 1968, and his brother Normand Baker in 1937 with his Self Portrait.
The programme provides a timeline of Baker’s paintings with images that illustrate his works.
the exhibition will feature Baker’s first 1936 Archibald Prize entry painted at the age of 22, a self-portrait study painting by Normand Baker for his 1937 winning Archibald Prize entry, and Baker’s 1951 portrait of Australian Filmmaker Charles Chauvel (courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland).
The Archibald Prize is one of the pre-eminent portraiture prizes in Australia, held yearly at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. First awarded in 1921, this prestigious art prize is a sought-after award by artists generating publicity and public exposure. Traditionally, portraitists were mostly restricted to public or private commissions.
The Art Gallery of NSW states that:
The Archibald Prize is awarded annually to the best portrait, ‘preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in art, letters, science or politics, painted by any artist resident in Australasia’.
The Archibald has never been far from controversy, and turning points were William Dobell’s prize-winning portrait of fellow artist Joshua Smith in 1943 and, in 1976, Brett Whiteley’s winning painting Self portrait in the studio.
Macaria, the gallery building
The Alan Baker Gallery website outlines a short history of the Macaria building.
The website states:
Macaria was originally built in 1859-1860 as a school house by Henry Thompson, the building has since been used for many things; including a private home; the Camden Grammar School; the residence and rooms of doctors and dentists including popular local physician Dr Francis West. In 1965 Macaria was purchased by Camden Council and used as Camden Library and later, offices for the Mayor, Town Clark and staff.
Macaria is a fine example of an early Victorian Gentleman’s Townhouse. Designed and built in the PicturesqueGothic, Renaissance Revival style, Macaria features gabled windows, high chimneys, stone trims and a wooden porch. Sympathetically renovated and restored in 2017, the historical features including the oregon timber flooring, Australian cedar architraves and mahogany skirting boards have been retained.
Camden’s main street was transformed into a ‘Live and Local Beat Street’, or so said the publicity for the festival. And it was.
The publicity flyer promised Live and Local was a ‘unique experience’ and explored ‘new places and spaces’. And it delivered in spades.
An experience
The 2018 Live and Local Camden music festival is in its second year. The crowds were up and so were the number of gigs.
There were over 50 musos across 15 venues. This was up from 2017 with 27 artists across 14 venues.
The amount of raw talent was frightening and a little overwhelming. There must be something in the local water around the Camden area.
The crowds enjoyed the music on offer from professional and emerging artists. It is great to see local support for live gigs.
Eclectic Venues
This year the festival grew to include Friday night across a range of venues. This was a good introduction to the festival.
There were also the Saturday afternoon gigs similar to 2017 between 2 and 6 with a full program of artists.
The music festival used a range of eclectic local venues from cafes, fashion outlets, galleries, local hotels, restaurants, a shoe shop, professional premises and a local arcade.
A new venue in an old space
The festival succeeded in uncovering a music local venue in an unlikely venue. It is a space with the wow factor at the Alan Baker Art Gallery.
The acoustics are to be experienced to be believed with a wooden floor, high ceiling and little echo.
What a venue with lots of atmosphere.
This is a natural music venue for a small intimate acoustic gig.
Help for lots of tastes
All the venues had lots of Local and Live helpers to smooth over any hiccups and guide and help out lost fans. They made sure that all gigs went smoothly.
There was music for all tastes from classical to blues, country, jazz as well as a rockabilly. Some good old rock and roll with a funky twist was popular with young fans.
It is great to see how Live and Local contributes to the creation of an arts precinct in Camden for a day and a half. All this live music is good for the local economy, job creation and helps build local tourism.
Importance of live music
Live music is central to the Live and Local music festival and acknowledges how live performance is an important part of our culture. Performances are authentic and artists provide a screen-time in 3-D without much assistance from tech-gadgets.
Performers at Live and Local provided a form of engagement of the imagination which is sadly lacking with recordings or tech-devices. Live performances at Live and Local are fresh. It is not canned music.
There was an awesome array of talent on display for all to see – warts and all. Performers were in the moment and provided a physical and emotional experience with their audiences.
Live performance is a shared experience between performer and audience. There is an immediacy that provides an element of surprise and risk, perhaps even the unexpected.
Place making and storytelling
All Live and Local artists are part of the creative industries. They create stories which are expressed in song and music. Musicians, poets, raconteurs, performers and writers are all storytellers. All cultures have story tellers.
Storytelling as song allows the musicians to connect with their audience. Their stories are captivating, and full of emotion and meaning. These stories are one element in the process of place making and construction of community identity.
Stories as songwriting can connect people with memories of the past in the present. Music can tell the stories of place and the history of a community. Music can create a connection with the landscape and create an attachment to place.
Songs are one form of storytelling that can take a successful part of marketing and branding for a locality and community. In this way they help the local economy and local businesses.
Support for music festival
The Live and Local project is a partnership between the Live Music Office and Camden Council. Funding was provided by Create NSW as part of the Western Sydney Live and Local Strategic initiative.
Camden mayor Lara Symkowiak stated
I encourage you to take the time and visit each venue to hear the diversity of the music and let our talented local artists entertain you for hours.
The director of the NSW government Live Music Office John Wardle stated that it
has been truly inspirational and we once again very much look forward to a day that will be a highlight of the broader cultural program in Western Sydney.
Musicians succeed in gig economy
Camden’s Live and Local festival demonstrated how musicians are part of the gig economy. All trying to make a living. These issues were explored in a recent article in The Conversation.
Musicians identified that they did meaningful work according article author Alana Blackburn, a lecturer in Music at the University of New England. She maintained that
Their intrinsic success lies not in what others expect of them, but in achieving personal freedom and being true to their beliefs. It’s about meeting personal and professional needs.
Musicians can survive under these circumstances by developing important overarching and transferable skills.
This type of career is called a ‘portfolio career’ where musicians have lots of jobs. A mix of paid and unpaid, and mostly short term work and projects. Musicians state that the prefer to be in-charge of their own career, despite the financial challenges. They feel that they can control their creative efforts and their music related activities.
Musicians, like other creative arts types, are mostly self-directed and driven by a passion for their artistic work. Musicians often work across industries and are not locked into the music industry. They consider that they are continually learning and are not afraid of failure.
Blackburn maintains that the success of musicians in the gig economy is down to a number of characteristics that they develop: life-long learning, adaptability, flexibility, social networking, entrepreneurial skills, planning, organisation, collaboration, confidence, self-directed, multi-tasking, independence, risk-taking, promotion and others.
Many of the artists at Camden 2018 Live and Local fitted into this category. Some are in the early career stage while others are more successful. The gig economy is here to stay and provides many challenges. It is not for the fainthearted. Live and Local provided a sound platform for the exposure of these artists in a tough industry.
The opening of Macaria and the Alan Baker Art Collection
An enthusiastic crowd gathered on a balmy evening in Camden’s John Street historic precinct anticipating the opening a new art gallery. The twilight evening event provided just the right atmosphere for this once-in-a-generation event for the town centre.
The event was the opening of the Alan Baker Art Collection, which is housed in the fully restored grand Gothic-inspired town residence of Henry Thompson (1860) called Macaria. Even today, after 150 years, Macaria is still an important architectural statement as part of Camden’s John Street colonial streetscape and historic precinct. The precinct includes the police barracks, the old school of arts building and temperance hall, the commercial bank building, and the Tiffin cottage, all topped off by the magnificent vista of St John’s Church rising above the town centre.
Alan Baker, the artist and a life story
Alan Baker was a true local identity, and he, his wife Majorie and the family profoundly influenced the art scene in the Camden district in the second half of the 20th century. Alan Baker helped shape the lives of Camden artists, including Patricia Johnson, Nola Tegel, Olive McAleer and Gary Baker. Baker contributed to the broader art world through his vice-presidency at the Royal Art Society of New South Wales.
Baker’s artwork and ‘the collection tells the story of life…and the artist’s journey, according to his son Gary. The exhibition highlights the two identifiable periods in Alan’s artistic career. Divided by the tragic drowning death of Alan and Marjorie’s two sons in a Georges River boating accident in 1961.
Alan’s work after the tragedy has a more contemplative approach. According to Gary, the paintings have a ‘zen’ quality and reflect the ‘stories of love, family, community, war, beauty, darkness and tragedy’.
The literal meaning of zen is a Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism emphasizing the value of meditation and intuition. Applied to artwork, it might mean that Alan Baker was inspired by the contemplative aesthetic of the house garden and bush surroundings at his home at The Oaks.
Gary Baker maintains that there is a ‘purity’ to Alan’s work, which was centred on Alan’s studio and the way the light played with it. Gary explains the process his father used to create his artworks:
My father’s studio was located under his house at Belimba Park. It had one south window and it was cool dark and silent. There was a large sandstone rock over which dripped water. The water seeped from underground and was all around where he sat to work. The light was pure without any other sources and then went to total darkness further into the room, which was rather like a cellar.
In the morning he would pick fresh flowers that he grew with my mother’s help. He would choose them from their extensive garden. Hundreds of camellias, roses, Japonica, peaches and all sorts blossom trees, annuals and perennials. He would arrange them with great care. Aware he only had time to paint them for the life of the flower. Sometimes one or two days.
The flowers would move to the light as the day passed. They were truly living. Some would fall to the table. They constantly changed. After arranging them he would cut a board that fitted the composition. Not being restricted to stock size he made his own frames.
During the process of painting, I felt he was in a state of meditation. He often with classical music playing. There was a rhythm to his work leading to this state of mind. His technical skill learned over decades enabled him to get to this heightened state.
He didn’t have to focus on the difficulties of drawing colour tone, instead used his intuition. Sitting in an upright position close to his board he would spend hours or days completing the painting until done. He never over painted and rarely moved away from his easels to view his work during the painting stage.
The flowers had a stability and calmness. They are asymmetric in design. The reflections on the glass table show a sort of purity calmness. The delicate flowers capture a purity or truthfulness. The flowers were almost textured, the way the paint is applied.
His brush strokes are simplified. Directly confident. Almost abstract. I see a likeness to Chinese ink painting techniques. The designs with the vase in the middle. Most art teachers say that it should not be done this way.
I see some of his paintings as being perfect! I see how they are living, not still. I see the air flow around them. Even viewing at different angles the texture of the paint changes the look of each painting. They are so complex and yet so simple. The brush strokes are very pronounced on board enhancing a textured feel. He did not use canvas.
Flowers themselves are universal symbols of remembrance love. I feel that he was chasing perfection in beauty. His paintings of flowers seem to speak to people with this. Many a man has said to me that they do not look like flower paintings. His are different. You can appreciate that! His floral work is from the heart not intellectual. I feel it’s spiritual.
Alan and Marjorie made The Oaks their home after the 1961 tragedy, and maybe Baker was searching for the truth through the subject material he chose for his work. Indeed, Alan’s still-life paintings absorbed much of his artistic effort and possibly account for Gary labelling his work as a form of ‘realism’.
Realism was an artistic movement in France in the mid-19th century when Realists rejected Romanticism and its exotic subject matters and emotional influences. Romanticism had dominated French art from the mid-18th century. As an art movement, realism sought to portray the truth and accuracy of daily life and grew in parallel with the new visual source of photography.
Alan Baker certainly does not pander to sentimentalism or heroic depiction of subjects as 19th century Romantic might have done. As Alan’s work represents, the Realists rejected the sentimental and heroic, and they the later tradition of the moderne. Alan was not a fan of modernist abstract and avant-garde styles of painting. Alan was a technician, which was the basis of his commercial art commissions during the Interwar period for Tooths Hotels and others.
Gary goes on about his father’s artwork:
This is the other side of his work. When you walk back and see his work from a distance. It comes into focus. You see a realist painting, the simple brush strokes disappear. He was so well trained in the art skills of tone, drawing and colour. He found modern art to be “the refuse of the incompetent”.
Alan learnt his trade at the J.S. Watkins Art School, where he studied drawing at 13. Watkins had set up his art school after returning to Australia after studying in Paris in 1898 above Julian Ashton’s art school in King Street. By 1927 when Alan Baker was attending, it had moved to 56 Margaret Street, Sydney.
At the Watkins art school, Alan was trained in tonal drawing in pencil, charcoal, pen and washes and later oils, according to Gary’s biography of his father. The art school provided a competitive environment, and Alan thrived in it. His mentors included Henry Hanke, Normand Baker (his brother ) and William Pidgen; Alan later became a teacher at the school.
In 1936 at 22, Alan had a self-portrait accepted in the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Alan’s brother Normand won the Archibald Prize in 1937 with his Self Portrait and the travelling scholarship in 1939. Between 1932 and 1972, according to Gary Baker, Alan entered the Archibald Prize with 35 separate paintings and made the finals 26 times. In 1969 he submitted a portrait of Camden surgeon Gordon Clowes which made the final selection that year.
Art genres
The Alan Baker Art Collection is representative of the art genres that Alan practised during his career. They are portraiture, still life, landscape, seascape, life drawing and life painting. These artistic genres have a long history in Western art, and Alan drew on these traditions.
The exhibition has several examples of Baker’s commercial hotel posters, pencil drawings and portraits. Some were completed during his war service in New Guinea and the Pacific, where he painted Papuans, fellow diggers and others. Alan enlisted in 1942 in the Australian Army with the rank of private and served in New Guinea. On discharge in 1945, he was with the 2 Australian Watercraft Workshop AEME (Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers).
After the war, he met Marjorie Whitchurch (formerly Kingsell), who had taken art classes at the Watkins art school. Alan worked as an instructor at the school after being demobbed by the army. Marjorie fled Singapore in 1942 when the Japanese invaded the city, and in the process, she lost her husband, who died on the Burma Railway, her home and her possessions.
After Alan dated Marjorie for a year, they married in 1946. They lived in primitive accommodation at Moorebank with few facilities. Their first child was born in 1947. Alan’s career started to prosper, and he had a painting of his wife Marjorie accepted in the 1953 Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and was one of the finalists with his Artists Wife.
After the tragic loss of their sons, Alan and Marjorie suffered profound grief and moved to the isolation of The Oaks. They established a house and garden here, and Alan established a studio in a bush setting. The garden might have provided some light in these dark days. Alan used many of the garden flowers for Still Life paintings. Some of these are in the exhibition. Baker maintained that
An artist must arrange his own composition by any means…the value of the shadow being thrown from one flower thrown from one flower to the other…I spend hours arranging till I am satisfied the result will be successful.
Alan was a fan of plein air painting, a tradition that goes back to the French Impressionists in the mid-19th century by introducing paints in tubes. Before this, artists made their own paints by grinding and mixing dry pigment powder with linseed oils. This genre is illustrated by several landscape paintings in the exhibition, some of the local areas which capture Alan’s ‘commitment to the natural and man-made environment’. Baker’s landscapes reflect naturalism and the avoidance of stylisation.
Baker lived at The Oaks until he died in 1987 and, across those years, had a prolific output of work. The Australian Art Sales Digest lists 708 works by Baker across his lifetime, of which 77 are on display at the new gallery. Alan’s artwork is exhibited in numerous galleries and private collections, and he held many shows across Australia,
Gallery opening
Camden Mayor Lara Symkowiak gave the keynote address at the gallery opening. She outlined the gestation of the project and those who supported it along the way. She was full of praise and said that she had been a strong supporter of the project.
Others who spoke at the opening included local Camden MLA Chris Patterson, Alan’s son Gary Baker and philanthropist Max Tegel. These speakers explained how the project required patience and perseverance and that the initial inspiration came from Gary Baker and Max Tegel.
The conservation and re-adaptation of the building were supervised by Sydney architect Ashley Dunn of the firm Dunn and Hillan Architects. The original interior joinery has been highlighted with Australian red cedar architraves, skirtings and window frames. Wide original floor boards of Baltic Pine have been polished and provide a warm ambience to the gallery rooms.
Dunn has designed bespoke gallery furniture in a mid-20th modernism style that works well with the gallery aesthetic. Dunn drew his inspiration from several sources, and he has stated:
We wanted to ensure that the furniture was readily identifiable as a contemporary addition. I have always admired the work of artist and architect Max Bill who practiced in Switzerland during the mid 20th century and was educated at the Bauhaus. We are also inspired by the work of artists such as Donald Judd, Richard Serra, Joseph Beuys and Gordon Matta-Clarke, all of whom worked during the later part of the mid 20th C.
Modern joinery is treated differently to highlight the contemporary phase in the life of the building and, in the process, creates a distinct separation from the joinery of the colonial period. Dunn has stated:
Our approach to the building was to use a consistent material for all new additions that was sympathetic to but different from the original fabric. We chose 40mm Blackbutt which is much blonder with a tighter grain than the reds and browns of the Australian Cedar and Baltic Pine. The new openings are framed in 40mm Blackbutt and the furniture has 40mm Blackbutt tops. The carcasses all have Blackbutt veneer and are edged in solid Blackbutt. The leather upholstery was chosen to mediate between the different browns and work with the floor colour.
After the official proceedings had finished, the crowd of 180 milled around under the marques that lined the exterior front lawns of the gallery. Appetizers, canapes, hors d’oeuvres and other delicacies were served to the guests.
The town residence of Macaria is representative of the Picturesque Tudor Gothic style. It is a brick town residence of the colonial Victorian period and originally had a shingle roof. For a house of its scale, it is one of the best examples of the architectural style in Australia. Originally, similarly designed cottages and stables around the house were demolished long ago.
Natural and man-made things were attractive to look at – houses, gardens, open spaces…gazebos…-were seen as elements in a huge, three-dimensional picture which needed to be artfully composed by a designer possessed of finely tuned judgement.(p.90)
Macaria is representative of some of the design characteristics of the Picturesque movement, including ‘prettiness, quaintness and old-world charm’. Expatriate Englishmen in the colony of New South Wales, according to Apperly, were seeking the known similarities with a home in England that provided a degree of comfort in the strange environment of the antipodes. JC Loudon (1833) and Calvert Vaux (1857) published Pattern books of these types of designs.
In New South Wales, one adaptation from Victorian English designs was the addition of a verandah, as illustrated by Macaria. There are several other residences across Australia of a similar style. One can be found in Vaucluse, where Sydney architect John Hilly designed Greycliffe House in Neilsen Park in 1852.
Macaria the history
The Macaria building can be treated as a historical document and primary source. The story of the building can be revealed by the diligent researcher. The layers of its history can be peeled back to reveal previous uses and stories of people who lived and worked within it.
Macaria was originally built by Sydney Congregationalist businessman Henry Thompson who came to Camden with his brother Samuel in the early 1840s. They established a general store and a steam flour mill. Thompson was part of a Sydney-based retailing family which set up a chain of stores, including Yass and Camden.
The land that Macaria was built on was originally purchased in 1846 by Sarah Tiffin who was a housekeeper for the Macarthur family of Camden Park. Henry Thompson purchased the land from the estate of Sarah Tiffin in 1854. Tiffin constructed a small Georgian brick cottage on the site in the 1840s, now 39 John Street.
Henry Thompson, who had several school-age sons, became a patron of William Gordon’s Classical and Commercial Academy in 1857. Thompson built Gordon ‘a very handsome house of elegant design’ as a schoolhouse known as Macaria. In 1861 Gordon moved his school to Macquarie Grove, which had been vacated by the Hassalls, where he took a seven-year lease. The school closed before the end of the lease. (Atkinson, Camden: 188-189)
Macaria was a substantial town residence and was stated by Thompson to demonstrate his status and importance as a local businessman. Henry Thompson’s large family of sixteen children lived in Macaria until 1870. Henry died in 1871 after falling from his horse.
Macaria was a residence for the Milford family, after which the house was leased by Dr George Goode in 1875, an outspoken Irishman of ill temper. GB Crabbe leased the house in 1886 and converted it to the Camden Grammar School for young boys. The school closed in 1894.
Dr FW West used the house as the surgery for his medical practice and a home for his family from 1901 to 1932, when Francis West died. A series of medical practitioners occupied the house: LB Heath (1932 1938); RE & JT Jefferis (1938-1955); GF Lumley (1955-1975)
Macaria was purchased by Camden Municipal Council from Dr Lumley, and the building was used as the Camden Library and then the Camden mayor’s offices.
The restoration of Macaria is part of Council’s strategy to invest in the historical Camden Town Centre and create a landmark tourist attraction for residents and visitors to enjoy.
This creative vision was made a reality by Camden Council, which showed its support and commitment to the promotion of arts in the region, by investing in and restoring historical Macaria as Camden’s revitalised home of the arts the community.
So what does all this mean?
The opening of Macaria and the Alan Baker Art Gallery is ground-breaking for the Camden Local Government Area.
It is the first time a substantial historic town residence has been conserved and re-adapted by Camden Council and opened to the public.
It is the first time a major art gallery in the Camden Local Government Area has been supported by public funds.
It is the first time private philanthropic interests have donated an art collection to create a public art space and gallery.
It is the first time that a notable local identity has been acknowledged in a public space in this fashion.
According to his son Gary Baker, it is one of the few collections across the global art community that embraces ‘the complete life of the artist, their family and their place with the community’.
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