| Sarah Chinnery, image of Eric Thake at Brighton Beach, c1955, State Library of Victoria |

Sketching away.

| David Corke, image of Eric Thake sketching in street, 1959 |

There is something about people looking in windows. This is the best.

| Rob Meers, image of Eric Thake looking in a shop window, 1964 |

Here is Eric in a beautiful self portrait from the 1970s. Those socks twenty years later. The bird book lovingly at his side.

He loved birds.

| Eric Thake, We saw the Orange Chat, 1974 |

Julia Ritson

A bright and breezy juxtaposition of images and ideas.

Eric wrote on the reverse of this painting “the sort of stuff the early Italians worked on, so George (Bell) told me.”

| Eric Thake, High and drying, 1934, image from Classical Modernism: The George Bell Circle |

I imagine his tongue planted firmly in cheek with this one. The title was found in a dictionary under the definition for Nirvana.

| Eric Thake, Salvation from the evils of earthly existence, 1940, image from Classical Modernism: The George Bell Circle |

Historian Mary Eagle got to interview Thake a year before he died in 1982 and found out that the propellers represent the twists of glass inside marbles.

Julia Ritson

| Eric Thake, Night time, Alice Springs, 1945-47 |

It’s an unusual work for Thake. Grim Thake. Dark Thake. No humorous intent here. Long shadows of an artist sitting quietly in a dark room.

Thoughts of war.

It’s a beautiful linear work.

Same year we see the more quirky Thake.

Thake was friends with artist George Bell. George described this drawing. “Intensely personal, exquisite in refined colour and powerful in suggestion of grim reality, these pictures show him as the best war artist Australia has commissioned”.

| Eric Thake, Self portrait in a broken shaving mirror, 1945, image from Classical Modernism: The George Bell Circle |

Julia Ritson

Three wonderful sketchbooks document his journeys. At the end of the sketchbook, he writes a descriptions of his drawings for his children.

“The dead kangaroo sleeps in the mulga scrub on the plains in the Harts Range country, the spots in the sky are a flock of galahs or may be cockatiels.”

| Eric Thake, Dead Kangaroo in the Mulga, 1945, Sketchbook 3, State Library of Victoria |

“The picture of Alice was drawn on Anzac Hill looking south to the gap in the Macdonnell ranges. The birds are forked tailed kites: they soar and ascend in great sweeping circles.”

| Eric Thake, Alice Springs, 1945, Sketchbook 3, State Library of Victoria |

“After leaving Alice we passed Central Mt Stuart, a very smooth and symmetrical mountain set in a sea of spinifex, and that night arrived in the wide and dusty main street of Tennant’s Creek. Next morning sitting on the verandah of a café I asked Harry Ziggenborne, an old drover well known in these parts, if he’d let me do a sketch of him. “Go ahead” says he, “I’ve been through the mill”.

| Eric Thake, Central Mt Stuart across Spinifex Plain, 1945, Sketchbook 3, State Library of Victoria |

“That afternoon we arrived at Daly Waters, there is a big swamp here, a great place for birds; egrets, pelicans, ducks, cranes and eagles, and the black cockatoos looking like pieces of burnt wood perched in the trees. I only stayed here a couple of days and then went on to Gorrie, a few miles beyond Birdum, the southern terminus of the Darwin railway.”

| Eric Thake, Black Cockatoos in flight and at rest, 1945, Sketchbook 3, State Library of Victoria |

“There were some marvellous red anthills here, some looking like fat old men with beards, one like a Toby jug version of Queen Victoria, and several like a mother holding her baby. There was one about 10 feet high that looked like a tower of whispering children. I saw Jen (daughter) in quite a number of groups, but it was a still and silent Jenny.”

| Eric Thake, The Little Queen of the Anthills, 1945, Sketchbook 3, State Library of Victoria |

Lovely.

Julia Ritson

Including the multi-talented Melbourne artist Eric Thake. He had previously visited the Northern Territory on one of his trips as an Official War Artist (1944 to 1946).

Back on a holiday visit in 1952, he took these light-hearted images.

| Eric Thake, Australian Summer-time, 1952, State Library of Victoria |

Before Brett Whitely painted his million dollar painting, The Olgas For Ernest Giles, Thake snapped this image at Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and titled it the Five Kneeling Pink Elephants of Ernest Giles. 

Both artists are referring to the Australian explorer Ernest Giles’ description of the monoliths in his book, Australia twice traversed: the romance of exploration, being a narrative compiled from the journals of five exploring expeditions into and through central South Australia and Western Australia from 1872 to 1876.

Don’t judge a book by its title because it looks like a really good read.

| Eric Thake, Five Kneeling Pink Elephants of Ernest Giles, 1952, State Library of Victoria |

Julia Ritson

This is what the practical Violet and Una did when they arrived at Hermannsburg.

Money was raised. The water pipe was laid and connected (it took 40 weeks), and a three acre vegetable garden was created at the Hermannsburg Mission.

A personal connection was also made with Namatjira and he had so much admiration for Violet Teague that he named one of his children after her.

| Image by either Violet or Una Teague of the Finke River, 1933 |

And the Namatjira legacy lives on.

Peter Tjutjatja Taylor, Along the Finke River, 2007 |

Julia Ritson

Watercolour seems to suit the desert. You can’t imagine using something heavy like oil paint in this environment.

| Violet Teague,Untitled Desert Vista, Hermannsburg Sketchbook, 1933, State Library of Victoria |

| Violet Teague, Untitled Desert Landscape, Hermannsburg Sketchbook, 1933, State Library of Victoria |

| Violet Teague, Untitled Dead Mulga Trees, Hermannsburg Sketchbook, 1933, State Library of Victoria |

Julia Ritson

| Violet Teague, Near Tieyon, 12th Camp, 1933, Hermannsburg sketchbook, State Library of Victoria |

| Violet Teague, Near Tieyon, 1933, Hermannsburg sketchbook, State Library of Victoria |

This photo comes from the Teague photographic albums at the State Library of Victoria. Unknown photographer but I think we can presume it was taken by either Una or Violet.

What a road trip.

| Car, 1933, photographed during Violet Teague’s trip to Central Australia, State Library of Australia |

Julia Ritson

Una Teague and artist Jessie Trail had visited Hermannsburg in 1932 and reported back to Violet about the deadly drought at the Lutheran Mission.

The sisters then planned a road trip and that’s the story of how they became advocates and fundraisers for the Kaporilya pipeline project to get water from the Kaporilya underground springs to the Hermannsburg Mission. The drought had taken the lives of almost a third of the indigenous people from around Hermannsburg. Some say the drought came about because the Mission shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

But either way the sisters raised more than two thousand pounds.

Una and Violet hired a car, a Studebaker, complete with a driver from a taxi firm in nearby Frankson and set out. Camping all the way.

| Violet Teague, 1st Camp Sea Lake, 1933, Hermannsburg sketchbook, State Library of Victoria |

It’s a long way to Alice Springs. Here they are in Brachina.

| Violet Teague, Branchina, 1933, Hermannsburg sketchbook, State Library of Victoria |

| Violet Teague, Flinders Rangers, 1933, Hermannsburg sketchbook, State Library of Victoria |

Violet was known for her oil portraits but I think I prefer the watercolours.

Julia Ritson

I enjoy checking out artist portraits so as an introduction to the well travelled and philanthropic lady here are three lovely photos from The State Library of Victoria.

Love this jaunty one.

| Violet Teague, Raising the flag at Trawalla, Mt Eliza, 1940, State Library of Victoria |

Looks like the beret was her thing.

| Violet Teague, undated but circa 1929-1950, State Library of Victoria |

This photo is undated but looks like Violet is probably in her 70s.

| Violet Teague, Trawalla, Mt Eliza, undated but circa 1929-1950, State Library of Victoria |

Violet was renowned for her portraits and I particularly like this early self portrait.

| Violet Teague, Self Portrait, c1899, oil on canvas, from the Violet Teague catalogue |

Julia Ritson