The creators of the infamous Ern Malley literary hoax imbued their fictional character with the haunting poetic expression, ‘the black swan of trespass on alien waters.’ In October 1943, the young poets James McAuley and Harold Stewart, stationed at Victoria Barracks Sydney, sent a package of poems with a letter to Max Harris, the editor of Angry Penguins in Adelaide. The poems made a great impression on Harris and were soon published. Not long after, a statement by the two poets appeared in the press claiming the poems were written as a hoax with the express purpose of debunking the modern literary movement. The press applauded the hoax but gave scant consideration to the poems.

To achieve the hoax, the perpetrators concocted an elaborate background story. In the editorial of the December 1944 Angry Penguins, Max Harris explained: ‘The poems were originally sent to us by ‘Ethel Malley’ who purported to be the sister of Ern Malley, whom she stated had recently died of Graves’ Disease at the age of twenty-five and had left behind an MS. of sixteen poems, his only work.’¹ Regardless of the humiliating consequences, Harris remained convinced of the substantial correctness of his judgement.  He was not alone: by the 1970s, the Ern Malley poems became celebrated as accomplished examples of surrealist poetry. As critic Robert Hughes pointed out: ‘The basic case made by Ern’s defenders was that his creation proved the validity of surrealist procedures that, in letting down their guard, they opened themselves to free association and chance.’² As Max Harris aptly concluded: ‘Sometimes the myth is greater than its creators.’

Garry Shead had been aware of the Ern Malley poems after reading The Darkening Ecliptic as a 19-year-old in 1961. In the mid-1990s, having further immersed himself in a full set of the Angry Penguins journals, Shead was inspired to create a compelling cycle of works that included paintings, prints, publications, and a suite of ceramic vessels produced in collaboration with La Paloma Pottery in Hill End in 2003.

Shead’s obsession with the players in the hoax is revealed in the painting Black Swan of Trespass. The poets McAuley and Stewart, in army uniforms, arrive on the scene to be confronted by a creation they no longer control. The sleek Black Swan embodies the notion of unfettered creativity and sensuality. The nude female sitting on the iron bed (possibly the artist’s wife and muse) cautiously prepares to embrace and perpetuate the myth.

Footnotes:

1. Harris, M. Angry Penguins Journal, editorial, December 1944
2. Hughes, R. ‘Introduction’, in Heyward, M., The Ern Malley Affair, QUP, Brisbane, 1993

Gavin Wilson 
Gavin Wilson is an independent curator, landscape architect and author. His wide-ranging projects probe the interconnected themes of landscape and culture in the Australian experience.