This exhibition highlights the work of beloved Montsalvat artist and teacher, Lesley Sinclair, through a selection of landscape and still life paintings drawn from the Montsalvat Permanent Collection.
Lesley Sinclair
Landscape and Still Life from the Montsalvat Collection
The Residents Gallery
18th August - 4th September 2022
Crosswords - Lesley Sinclair, Artist and Gatekeeper at Montsalvat by Angela Abbott
This artwork was generously donated by the artist, Angela Abbott, to the Montsalvat Permanent Collection
“Lesley was one of 7 children, whose parents George and Isabella lived in country Victoria and in Melbourne. She was born at Dookie, Victoria, in 1904 and died in 1999, after having celebrated her 95th birthday with family (at the Austin Hospital). Her father had been principal of Longrenong Agricultural College and a writer for the Australasian on agricultural matters.
Lesley was an artist and a teacher and had been part of Montsalvat since its inception in 1934. She lived there as “gate keeper” for the final 30 years of her life.
She never married, but it would be fair to say she loved life, people and art. Although she came from a conventional family, she was in no way conventional, having given up her life as an artist for the Melbourne paper, The Argus, to become involved with Justus Jorgensen’s art studio in Melbourne, where he taught tonal painting in the Meldrum manner. While at The Argus, she attended night classes in commercial art at Swinburne and later went to the National Gallery School. She lived on the corner of William and Bourke Streets, in a building called St James, in a large studio where she painted and also taught painting. Once she joined the Jorgensen studio, she showed her talents as an artist and later as Jorgensen’s studio manager. Jorgensen persuaded her to take a job as a cleaner in the city so she could devote much of her day to her art. Many of her early works are of inner Melbourne areas such as Clifton Hill, North Melbourne and the Maribyrnong River.
When she joined the Montsalvat crew, her life took on a different meaning. Each weekend, she would buy food at the Vic Market and then take the train to Eltham and walk the 3 km up to Montsalvat. She would spend the weekend working on the buildings. The students would at first gather around a camp fire in the evenings but once the Great Hall was finished, they would sit around the dining table discussing matters of the day with their mentor Justus Jorgensen. Over the years Lesley never waivered in her loyalty to Jorgensen.
In the words of Sigmund Jorgensen (son of JJ), “one of Lesley’s great attributes was to make friends with people of all ages. She was a shy person but with immense energy, passion and imagination.” He also made the point that “Lesley never appeared to have a burning ambition to set the world on fire, but was knowledgeable about her favourite subjects of art and literature, which she would happily discuss over a glass of red wine”.
In her mid 1960’s, Lesley came to live at Montsalvat permanently, as a result of her building in the city being demolished, and set up a studio in the old white weatherboard house where she would teach several nights each week. In return for her house, she looked after the Montsalvat entry gate welcoming visitors with her warm smile.
When she was 80, Lesley embarked on her first solo exhibition (of 60 of her paintings) at the Victorian Artists Society in East Melbourne in April 1985. In the 12 years prior to this exhibition, Lesley had won six first prizes for paintings she entered in different regional art shows and various exhibitions in Eltham. In 1973, she won the Glen Waverley Art Prize which included a trip to Singapore. She never went overseas, not even this time, but travelled a lot in the Western District where she held painting classes and to San Remo (I think Montsalvat might have had a property there) where she often painted.”
Source of Sigmund Jorgensen quotes: Art Streams, Vol 4, No 5, Sept/Oct 1999.
Andrew Sinclair, nephew of Lesley Sinclair Tuesday, 2 June 2020