Menzies Art Brands

41. GARRY SHEAD

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Queen Elizabeth II visited Australia for the first time on 3 February 1954, when Garry Shead was just twelve years old: she was the first reigning monarch to ever visit Australia. At the time, there was a massive outpouring of nationalism and it was estimated that seventy percent of the population flocked to see Her Majesty in person during her two month national tour. Shead was a pre-pubescent Sydney schoolboy when he had his royal encounter and his memories of that day are vivid:

I remember seeing her and feeling the eye contact as she passed. I also remember dreaming about her (sometimes sexual dreams) - there was possibly nothing sexy about her, she was like a Walt Disney Cinderella, but I encountered her at the dawning of my own pubescence. There was something unearthly and untouchable in her beautyso that even a prime minister could not touch her elbow. She passed like an incarnate spirit. 1

This encounter was to stay with Shead past adolescence and into adulthood - it become the theme for his Royal Suite paintings which are some of the best and most well-known paintings in his vast and memorable oeuvre. The artist uses the metaphor of the monarchs 1954 visit to express a range of themes and to recall the Australia of the 1950s and the impact of the Menzies government.

Shead began creating images of the Queen as early as 1962 in the form of cartoons for Oz, the underground satirical magazine which famously became the subject of two obscenity trials.2 He struggled with depicting her dual role - as both the very public head of state and also the beautiful, vulnerable human behind the royal facade. He began the Royal Suite paintings in 1995 and although Shead could be described a republicanthe timing saw these works become involved in the republican debates of the late 1990s - this however, was not Sheads intention for the series. Sasha Grishin describes the Royal Suite series as historical paintingslooking back to the Australia of the 1950s when the omnipresent figure of Menzies dominated. 4

The present work, Royal Visitation, is a joyful reminiscence painted with the characteristic hallmarks of Sheads Royal Suite works. The artist wryly contrasts the delicacy of the fair-skinned Queen against the harsh, alien landscape of central Australia. The juxtaposition of the superior Royal figure alongside the sleepy country town emphasises the authority of Queen Elizabeth II and the influence which she had on the population at that time. Here, Her Majesty parades down a red carpet, laid down to prevent the rich red soil staining her shoes. She appears as an apparition, adorned with Royal regalia; a hovering crown, blue sash, and golden orb to assert her sovereignty. A large kangaroo stands beside the monarch while a young couple, possibly a young Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, stand behind kissing and holding the her train. The towns residents gather in front of their local pub, taking in the spectacle of their reigning monarch in person. The small, cheerful crowd wave flags and hold posies of golden wattle. Amongst them stand a group of Merino sheep and a solitary magpie, perched atop the main street, looking down.

In Royal Visitation, Shead paints a scene of cheerful optimism; the Queens first visit to Australia as the reigning monarch.  As with the best of Sheads Royal Suite paintings, Royal Visitation is graced with a lyrical charm and gentle sensousness.5 He is painting an allegory, that of the naive belief in the white goddess from a foreign land. Perhaps on the simplest level, the series is about a quest for beauty and a lost innocence6

Footnotes

  1. Garry Shead, taped interview with the author, Canberra, 16 March 1996, cited in Grishin, S., Garry Shead - Encounters with Royalty, Craftsman House, Sydney 1998, p.28
  2. Wikipedia, accessed 16 August 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oz_(magazine)
  1. Grishin, S., Garry Shead Amazed and Amused, Australian Art Collector, issue 14, October December 2000, p.81
  2. Grishin, S., Garry Shead - Encounters with Royalty, Craftsman House, Sydney 1998, p.28
  3. Grishin, S., Garry Shead Amazed and Amused, Australian Art Collector, issue 14, October December 2000, p.81
  4. Grishin, S., Garry Shead - Encounters with Royalty, Craftsman House, Sydney 1998, p.29

Caroline Jones BA MArtAdmin

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