Rayner Hoff : The Life of a Sculptor [1 ed.] 9781742248080, 9781742235325

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Deborah Beck

RAynEr HOFF The life of a sculptor

DEBORAH BECK is a historian, writer and artist who has exhibited her work widely. She is currently lecturer, archivist and collections manager at the National Art School. She is the author of Hope in Hell: A history of Darlinghurst Gaol and the National A rt School and Set in Stone: The Cell Block Theatre, which won a NSW Premier’s History Award in 2012.

RAynEr HOFF The life of a sculptor

A NewSouth book Published by NewSouth Publishing University of New South Wales Press Ltd University of New South Wales Sydney NSW 2052 AUSTRALIA newsouthpublishing.com © Deborah Beck 2017 First published 2017 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Creator: Beck, Deborah, author. Title: Rayner Hoff: The life of a sculptor / Deborah Beck. ISBN: 9781742235325 (paperback) 9781742248080 (ePDF) Notes: Includes index. Subjects: Hoff, Rayner, 1894–1937. Sculptors – Australia – Biography. Sculpture – Australia. Dewey Number: 730.92 Design Louise Cornwall Images Front cover: Harold Cazneaux, Rayner Hoff with his sculpture Sacrifice, Hoff studio, National Art School, c1934. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. Page ii: Sacrifice in the studio in plaster. Courtesy McGrath family. Page iv: Rayner Hoff with Deluge, National Art School, 1927. National Art Archive, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Back cover: Tom, Sandra and Rayner Hoff, c1924. Hoff family archive. Printer Everbest, China

All photographs courtesy of the Hoff family archive unless otherwise credited.

All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright could not be traced. The author welcomes information in this regard. This book is printed on paper using fibre supplied from plantation or sustainably managed forests.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Contents

Foreword Introduction

8 10

10 Shaping the future

105

11 The test of time

143

12 Under the skin

167

1 Manx magic

15

13 In the public eye

191

2 New horizons

21

14 Burning the candle

203

3 Turning point

29

15 Gone too soon

235

4 From the heart

35

Epilogue

245

5 The first sacrifice

41

6 The world at his feet

47

Notes

256

7 Past masters

63

Bibliography

266

8 The other side of the world

77

Rayner Hoff’s students

268

9 On the beach

85

Acknowledgements

269

Index

272

Foreword Rayner Hoff, who arrived in Sydney from England in 1923 to take up a teaching position, became the most successful public sculptor of his era. Both progressive and prolific, Hoff dominated sculptural production in Australia throughout the 1920s and ’30s. He also became perhaps the most influential sculpture teacher we have seen in this country: certainly Hoff was responsible for the only instance (within our non-Indigenous tradition) of a coherent Australian school of sculptural production. Based at Sydney’s National Art School, Australia’s pre-eminent art school of the period, Hoff and his group of extremely proficient (largely female) students created works that were united in style, in subject matter and in a sense of the vital role of sculpture in modern life. In a visual arts culture long dominated by themes associated with the extraordinary presence of the landscape, Rayner Hoff became a very significant force with works firmly based in the traditions of the human figure. In his work the meeting of art and architecture found exceptional local form. Hoff created sculptures in the decades between the two world wars which were organised socially, politically and culturally around the development of modernity. With an art linked in its essentials to ideals of post-war reconstruction, he sought to create forms appropriate to the modern era by reformulating sculpture’s classical canon via the stylised devices of Art Deco. The resulting sculptures were unprecedented in Australia in terms of their vitality, their sensuousness and, increasingly, their encapsulation of Hoff’s ideas concerning Australian national identity. I initially found my way to Rayner Hoff through broader research on 20th-century Australian sculpture, and more specifically through the extraordinary impact of Hoff’s sculptures for the Anzac Memorial, Sydney – a monument which is a unique expression of architectural and sculptural unity in this country. To this day I still find the energy, sensuality and power of Hoff’s Anzac Memorial sculptures remarkable.

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This book by Deborah Beck focuses on the life of this outstanding artist and contains revelation after revelation concerning Rayner Hoff’s early life in Britain and the artistic associations and opportunities which shaped his life in Australia – all of which informed his sculptural oeuvre. Sculptors have long been faced with neglect by Australian historians and biographers, and it is therefore with even greater pleasure that I can commend an exceptional biography written on such an exceptional artist.

Deborah Edwards

Consultant curator, Art Gallery of New South Wales

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Introduction Every day at 11 am at the Anzac War Memorial in Hyde Park, Sydney, visitors and staff stop for a minute of silence. They are asked to stand and face the sculpture Sacrifice in the centre of the Memorial, while a Service of Remembrance takes place. This includes the playing of the ‘Last Post’ and ‘Reveille’. Over many years, thousands have stood contemplating this now iconic sculpture while remembering the many who sacrificed their lives at war. The Anzac Memorial stands as a testament to the talents of two extraordinary men who were responsible for its design and construction: architect Charles Bruce Dellit and sculptor George Rayner Hoff. Sadly both men died in their forties knowing that this magnificent monument was incomplete. Rayner Hoff, who was at the peak of his career when he died, was born on the Isle of Man in 1894. He spent the first 28 years of his life in the United Kingdom and Europe. In 1923, he moved to Australia, and it was here that he made his name in the art world. Although Hoff’s work was often regarded as controversial in this country, he was accepted into the then insular art world of Sydney and soon became a highly visible figure. During the 14 years he spent in Sydney, he was one of Australia’s first ‘art celebrities’, and was regularly called upon for his opinions in the press, causing sensational headlines when many of his works, including the Anzac Memorial sculptures, were revealed to the public. Arriving in a nation with seemingly little regard for the arts, he energetically promoted his imaginative vision for a new art in Australia. Hoff can be seen as a romantic realist, whose figurative work came to represent the modernist trend in Australia in the 1930s. His legacy in his adopted country is evident in the monumental public works that he and his students completed during the interwar decades, and also in his sensual and often moving sculptures that have been on view in public and private collections for over 80 years. My aim in writing this book is to flesh out the enigmatic man behind the artworks he created, and to fill the gaps in the brief biographical accounts available to date. Writing the story of another person’s life, particularly when

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that person died eight decades ago, carries a deep sense of responsibility – first to Hoff himself, and also to his family and friends. The task has been hampered by the fact that I have found only three people alive who met him, and they were children at the time. So I have chosen to write the story of Rayner Hoff’s life based on the revealing photographs that he and his wife Annis gathered throughout their lives. I was first shown the family photographs by Hoff’s grandson and namesake, Rayner Henstock. It was fascinating to discover through these tiny images that Hoff’s life could be traced back to his childhood on the Isle of Man, his studies at the Nottingham School of Art, his three years of service in France during the Great War, his travels in Europe and then finally to Australia. Hoff’s two grandsons are now the custodians of all that is left of his personal possessions. Sadly, they never knew him, and their grandmother Annis rarely talked to them about him. Despite this they have kept many items belonging to him, including the art deco–style, Queensland maple cabinets that Hoff commissioned to hold his library.1 The cabinets still hold Hoff’s collection of over 1000 rare books, and they give an insight into his extraordinary breadth of knowledge. There are books on Australian surfing, an album of Harold Cazneaux’s photos of the Sydney Harbour Bridge being constructed, and bound volumes of works by authors and artists whom Hoff admired, such as Jacob Epstein, Frank Brangwyn, Auguste Rodin and Michelangelo. Among them are books on aesthetics, and a folder full of original anatomical studies. These are Hoff’s hand-drawn teaching aids, and they can be seen replicated in various forms in anatomy sketchbooks by countless numbers of students at the National Art School in Sydney where he taught. Many of Hoff’s books have passages underlined, with notes written in the margins, and some are inscribed by the authors or are gifts from his students. There is also a comprehensive catalogue of the library in the cabinets – typed, but with many handwritten additions – some in Hoff’s own script, and some written by Annis. It is obvious that Hoff’s astounding output and skill as an artist was fuelled by his love of reading and research. Books meant so much to him that he packed many of them to bring with him from England, and he continued to collect them avidly in Australia. His obsession with books also resulted in two exquisite hand-printed books that he produced himself: one

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documenting the work of his talented student Eileen McGrath; the other about his own work, Sculpture of Rayner Hoff, printed by Sunnybrook Press in 1934. Unfortunately Hoff did not write a diary, although his voice can be heard in his letters to friends such as writer Mary Gilmore, sculptor Eileen McGrath and artist Norman Lindsay, and in a few articles he wrote for magazines and gazettes in Australia. Apart from these, there are accounts by his former students, who remember him with great affection. These accounts mention that Hoff could appear gruff and preoccupied. But he also had a sardonic and often whimsical sense of humour and would soon let down his barriers among friends, enjoying long nights of conversation, music and drinking. When reading descriptions of Hoff by his students and friends, there are many conflicting views about his personality. Some believe he was a heavy drinker who had numerous affairs with his students. Others remember him as a gentle family man who loved his children. At times he has been described as a bohemian, with strong views on vitalism, paganism and free love. This is borne out in his close ties with the Lindsay family, his articles espousing nude sunbathing, and the erotic and mythical subject matter he encouraged his predominately female students to pursue. Hoff’s laissez-faire attitude to sex was well ahead of his time, and his erotic sculptures show a passion that was not always obvious in his English demeanour. His many depictions of pagan images and mythological beings gave him a vehicle to demonstrate the underlying eroticism in his work. Hoff believed that women could be equal to men in many respects, and particularly encouraged his female students to work as teachers, exhibit their sculptures and work alongside him on his commissions. He commanded huge respect among the students, teaching by example and expecting them to be as absorbed in their art as he was. He was ambitious and hard working, with a prodigious talent and enormous skill base. Yet he had an unpretentious manner, and was passionate and enthusiastic about imparting his knowledge to his students and to the public. Despite his excessive workload, visitors to his studio in Sydney were constantly impressed by his generosity in taking time to show them around and talk about his work. There are no coloured photographs of Rayner Hoff. Even so, much can

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Rayner Hoff, aged 34, 1928

be gathered from the many black and white images and descriptions of him that have survived. He had thick dark hair, which started to go grey in his thirties. He had olive skin and enjoyed sunbaking and swimming. He smoked constantly, drank beer and whisky, attended concerts and the theatre when he could, and enjoyed the company of his many friends. Although not tall, he had a strong physique and heavy shoulders, and large hands with long fingers. Hoff’s most distinctive features were his intense dark eyes, eyebrows and moustache. When he arrived in Australia, his moustache was full and thick, but around 1928 he shaved it back to the more fashionable narrow one, later made infamous by Adolf Hitler. He generally wore formal clothes, although he was known for abhorring ties and collars, preferring a soft opennecked shirt. He delighted in flouting convention, even attending the official opening of the Anzac Memorial without a collar and tie. This complex and talented artist completed approximately 150 sculptures and many exquisite drawings in his lifetime. He also lived a full, rich and passionate life, and his outstanding contribution to Australian art and culture should be celebrated. I hope that this book establishes Hoff’s rightful place in the development of Australian art, and pays tribute to the man who played such a crucial role in creating the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park, Sydney.

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1

Manx magic The Isle of Man

Hoff family with Rayner on left, Braddan, Isle of Man, 1896

A sense of timelessness dominates the Isle of Man, and there are many stories of mythical creatures and characters inhabiting it. One legend describes the formation of the island by two giants, one Irish and one English, who were fighting over a woman. In the dark of the night the English giant stole the woman, and the Irish giant, Finn MacCool, was so furious he tore up a chunk of land and threw it at his rival. He missed his mark, and the earth fell in the middle of the sea, creating the island.1 Situated in the Irish Sea, almost equidistant from Ireland, England and Scotland, the Isle of Man is a wild place, with a strong Celtic tradition that can be traced back hundreds of years. Manx people are fiercely independent, boasting a parliament, Tynwald, that is said to be the oldest continuously existing ruling body in the world. Folklore and superstition are woven deep into the fabric of everyday life. To the Manx, many of the stories of fairies, bugganes (goblins), giants and other creatures that supposedly inhabit the island – stories passed down from generation to generation – hold more than a grain of truth. It was on this island that George Rayner Hoff was born. The place of his birth matters deeply in the formation of his independent nature, his abiding interest in mythology and paganism, and his ready acceptance of a hands-on approach to the art he created. This fertile and dramatic landscape, often shrouded in mist, was where he spent the first eight years of his life, where all his siblings were born, and the place he thought of as his home. Later drawings in his sketchbook contain ideas for a letterhead using his name, date of birth and the ancient symbol of the Isle of Man: the three legs. The circuitous path that led the Hoff family to the Isle of Man is difficult to follow. Family members believe the name Hoff is Dutch, and that their ancestors came to England when King Charles I commissioned Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden to drain The Fens, a huge area of marshland in Lincolnshire, in the 1620s. Many workers on this project had travelled from Holland and Belgium and some chose to stay afterwards. The earliest

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family member found in Lincolnshire with a direct line to Rayner Hoff’s family is Thomas Hoof (an original spelling of Hoff) of Stickney, who was buried in 1730. He could well have arrived from Holland in the late 1600s, and his will shows that he became a well-established farmer, who owned a cottage, farmland, two boats and livestock.2 Rayner’s grandfather Richard Hoff was also an agricultural labourer and wagoner. He worked on the estate of Habertoft House at Willoughby in Lincolnshire in the 1860s. He and his wife Hannah raised six children – the fifth child George, born in 1866, was Rayner’s father. A bright boy, keen to learn, young George was permitted to join a woodcarving class organised for the daughter of the estate owner.3 By the time he turned 15, these classes resulted in him being offered a stonemason’s apprenticeship. George’s older brother Joseph was the first of the Hoffs to move out of Lincolnshire. He was a skilled steam ploughman and had decided to take the opportunity of a job building the new steam railway system on the Isle of

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Saddle Road, near St Helena Cottage, Braddan, Isle of Man, 1890s Manx National Museum

Man.4 Joseph suggested to George that he move there as well, as work was available in the capital, Douglas, for stonemasons and bricklayers. By 1891, both brothers had married women from long-established Manx families. George’s wife, Elizabeth Amy Coole, had grown up in Cronkbourne Village, Tromode, an industrial area on the edge of Douglas. Elizabeth and her family worked as handloom weavers, millwrights and flax spinners at the nearby flax mill. Her mother’s family was Irish, but the Coole family name has been traced back to the 14th century on the Isle of Man, and has been linked to the legend of the giant Finn MacCool, in the folk tale about the formation of the island. Cronkbourne is also where the acclaimed art nouveau artist and designer for Liberty’s of London, Archibald Knox, was born.5 By the time Rayner’s parents, George and Elizabeth, were married, Knox was already teaching at Douglas School of Art and studying the Manx Runic Crosses which had a profound influence on his later work. One can only speculate about whether Knox and George Hoff ever met, but it is certainly possible considering the very small artistic community in Douglas in the 1890s. After their marriage, George and Elizabeth Hoff lived in St Helena Cottage6 near Woolf’s Brewery and Mineral Water Works, where George was employed as a bricklayer. Their home was approximately two kilometres from the centre of Douglas and was linked to Kirk Braddan Church by Saddle Road, which takes its name from the saddle-shaped stones that project out of the walls. Kirk Braddan was where George and Elizabeth were married and all the Hoff children would be baptised. The Hoffs’ first child Alice was born in January 1893. St Helena Cottage was a two-storey building that lay between the River Dhoo and the mill race of the brewery. On the lower end of the garden was a small plank bridge across the waterwheel and mill race that led to the brewery. George made a removable wooden gate across the bridge as he realised the site would be dangerous – in fact, a young boy had drowned there eight years previously. When Alice was just 17 months old, she wandered off while George and Elizabeth were in the cottage, and George went to work thinking Elizabeth was looking after Alice. Meanwhile Elizabeth, who thought George was with Alice, had gone inside the house to get her hat before taking Alice for a walk. When she returned and found

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the child gone, she searched frantically, and then ran to find George at work. The brewery workers stopped the waterwheel and helped look for Alice. She was found in the weeds in the race below the wheel, after having been struck in the head by the powerful mill wheel.7 Sadly, the gate George had made was not in place on the day. Elizabeth was so distraught she could not attend the inquest. By then she was four months pregnant with her first son, George Rayner Hoff. Born on 27 November 1894, Rayner was named after his father, but was known by his middle name to avoid confusion. The name had come from George’s maternal grandfather, Richard Rayner,8 who was still alive when Rayner Hoff was born. It was the first time Rayner was used by the family as a Christian name, but it continues to be chosen by family members in the United Kingdom and Australia to this day. In adulthood, Hoff signed his name as G. Rayner Hoff on letters and on his artworks, but his preferred name Rayner would be constantly misspelled as ‘Raynor’ in newspapers, in magazines and even by his friends. After Rayner’s birth, his father continued to work as a bricklayer at Woolf’s Brewery and he was also teaching woodcarving in Douglas. The Isle of Man Fine Art and Industrial Guild’s annual craft exhibition newspaper report mentions the work of the carving class held in Derby Square, Douglas, in 1892 by four teachers, including Mr George Hoff.9 George and Elizabeth’s second son, Thomas, was born in December 1896 while they were still living at St Helena Cottage. It was a beautiful spot near the river, and the first photograph that has been found of the Hoff family was probably taken in the garden at St Helena in 1896 (page 14). Even at the tender age of two, Rayner’s intense eyes stare at the camera, while Thomas sits nonplussed on Elizabeth’s lap. The inevitable scraggy dog is at her side and George, aged 30, stands in his three-piece mason’s garb at the back. By the time their third son Sydney was born in 1898 the family had moved into a more modern and expanding part of the town of Douglas. George may have been employed to work on the row of turreted yellow brick terraces where they lived in Malvern Terrace (now called Malvern Road). This distinctive row of 27 terrace houses is built in an elevated location overlooking the valley at the top of the hill. George was becoming a respected man about town, working on

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public buildings, such as the Market Place and St Matthew’s Church, and continuing to teach. By 1900, Douglas had a population of over 20,000. The handsome Loch Promenade, which boasted large hotels and boarding houses overlooking Douglas Bay, was a popular tourist destination in the summer months. In time, the Hoff family grew again with two more children – Margaret Dorothy (known as Dorrie) in 1900, and Amy in 1901. Although Rayner was nearly seven years old by the time his youngest sister was born, it appears that he and his siblings did not attend school until the family left the island. Despite the small population, there was a shortage of over 3000 school places in Douglas in 1894, and places in infant schools were in great demand, with school halls being used as temporary classrooms. It seems likely that Elizabeth may have chosen to home school her children when educational conditions were so poor.10 The family had been prospering until a banking crisis hit the island when Dumbell’s Banking Co Ltd collapsed in February 1900. This caused a suspension of trade, extensive bankruptcies and a drop in the market value of speculative buildings, as well as great suffering in the building industry. In later years Rayner Hoff indicated in a letter that the bank’s failure was the catalyst for the Hoff family’s fairly sudden departure from the Isle of Man: I still take a great interest in the island although it is a long time since we left. However as I have never lived very long in any other place I cannot help but regard it as my home … We left the island soon after the Dumbell’s bank crashed. I have had a number of holidays on the island since then. The Hoffs near Castletown are relatives.11

It was his uncle Joseph Hoff who lived in Ballabeg near Castletown, and he did so until his early death in 1905. His aunt Elizabeth and her three daughters Elizabeth (Lily), Annie Ethel and Bertha stayed on in the house and Rayner would stay with them on his visits. As the daughters did not marry, there are no direct Hoff descendants left on the island. George Hoff was offered work in England in 1902. He and Elizabeth, with their five young children, crossed the wild Irish Sea on a steampacket to Liverpool, which took over four hours. After they left, none of them lived on the Isle of Man again. They moved to Cumbria, thus starting a pattern that involved George relocating to wherever he could find work as a stonemason.

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2

New horizons Lanercost and Nottingham

Hoff family, Brampton, 1903 Photograph by JS Farrer

The first photograph of the whole Hoff family, an outstanding studio shot taken in Brampton, dates from 1903. Elizabeth, having borne six children by the age of 34, looks resilient and dignified. On her lap is her youngest daughter Amy, 18 months, and George is standing at the back looking slightly off camera. The rest of the family stare straight at the lens, but it is Rayner’s piercing gaze that dominates the photograph. Standing next to his mother, with his hand on her shoulder, he appears calm and confident at nine years of age. Sporting an elaborate lace and ribbon collar – like the rest of the family he is dressed up for the occasion – but his ‘otherworldliness’, described by his descendants is already apparent. The family settled in Lanercost in Cumbria for three years, and it is probable that George found work at Naworth Castle or on the Boothby estate, which belonged to the daughter of Lord Carlisle. Not far from the Scottish border, the area is renowned for its beautiful Cumbrian red sandstone. George’s granddaughter remembers being shown hand-carved fireplaces that George had made out of this stone for houses in Nottingham.1 Rayner attended primary school from 1902 to 1905 at Cumberland Burtholme Lanercost Church of England School. Not many students attended this small brick and slate school in Burtholme, a township east of Lanercost Priory. A photograph from 1902 shows all the 23 students, aged 4 to 14, dressed in their everyday clothes looking pensively at the camera (page 23). Rayner looks small and serious on the left of the back row, while his brother Tom is the only one looking away from the camera. Rayner proved to be a bright student, winning the County Education Prize in November 1905. He also participated in the Band of Hope concerts, which provided music and recitations at the school in April 1904.2 In 1906 the family moved again when George was employed as a stonemason on the magnificent Wollaton Hall on the western outskirts of Nottingham. This job would remain a regular source of employment for George for the next 30 years, and provided him with a six-room cottage

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on the estate grounds for the family of seven. In later years George and Elizabeth would move temporarily to other estates for work, but Nottingham became the family home where the Hoff children grew up and met their respective partners. After expanding rapidly in the 19th century, Nottingham became a city in 1897. When the Hoff family arrived in 1906, it was densely populated with many handsome Georgian- and Victorian-style buildings, but it also had areas of appalling slums, the result of an earlier rapid expansion. The principal industries were lacemaking, hosiery and knitwear, which had sustained the town well and were still the basis of its prosperity. Newer industries were starting up, such as Jesse Boot’s drug company, which was developed from his father’s herbalist shop to become a national pharmacy chain bearing his surname. Player’s tobacco company had also built an extensive manufacturing space, and Raleigh Bicycle Company was already producing its famous bicycles.3 With a population of 240,000, and many more in the surrounding suburbs, it was the largest city the Hoffs had lived in, and it had the advantages of a new electric tram system and a recently built second railway station. There were four major theatres, a substantial university college, where DH Lawrence was a student at the time, and a Natural History Museum. Standing high on a sandstone rock was the legendary Nottingham Castle, rebuilt as a ducal mansion in the 17th century and later a municipal art gallery. The centre of the city was dominated by the five-acre Great Market Place, where stallholders would sell their wares on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and where the famous Goose Fair took place at the beginning of October each year.4 For Rayner, the move provided him with opportunities that he could never have realised on the Isle of Man or at Lanercost. With his brothers Tom and Sydney, he attended Nether Street School in Beeston, a suburb just to the west of the city boundary and close to Wollaton Hall, where the family lived for a short time when they first arrived in the area. After this, they attended the boys’ school of Lenton Church School for approximately one year.5 In later years, when Rayner was filling in his application for the Royal College of Art in London, he listed ‘Nottingham Beeston Church Street School’ as his primary school. There is some confusion around this, as there

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Rayner (back row, left) at primary school, c1902 Courtesy Nancy Simpson, Lanercost

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are no existing records to say he went to Church Street School in Beeston, the second of two schools built by the Beeston School Board.6 It is possible that he used a combination of the two that he did attend to simplify the entry. When Rayner finished his schooling at the age of 14, he had had only six years of formal education. In 1908 he began his apprenticeship as a stonemason and carver at Wollaton Hall. He had already been working with his father well before this time, learning to draw and carve on many of George’s restoration jobs. At Wollaton Rayner had an opportunity to work regularly on the estate, and by the 1911 census, at age 17, he is listed as an apprentice stonemason, part-time estate worker and a part-time student. Through his early work on this building, Rayner was introduced to the idea of sculpture as an integral part of the architecture – something he would develop in his later work in Australia. Many former accounts of Rayner’s life say he was apprenticed to an architect in Nottingham during this period, but there is no substantial evidence of this. The most likely possibility is that he worked with a firm of architectural modellers called Lazzerini & Company Ltd – Italian immigrants who were active in Nottingham working on public buildings and exhibiting at Nottingham Castle Museum.7 Wollaton Hall must have made quite an impression on the Hoff family when they first arrived. Sitting on the crest of a hill on 200 hectares overlooking Nottingham, it dominated the landscape with its turreted elevations and ornate carved decorations and busts. In 1902, Lady Middleton, wife of the then owner, Digby Wentworth Bayard Willoughby, 9th Baron of Middleton, described the sculptures on the exterior: A young architect, Mr. Allen, counted the masks, heads, etc., occurring in the detail of sculptured decoration on the outside of the Hall. There are 32 busts, 20 full-length figures, 4 smaller figures, 14 skulls, 30 heads on ground floor, 104 on first floor, 64 on second floor: total of heads, 198. On the shields on second floor there are 16 owls’ and 16 lions’ heads, and on the strapwork finish to the towers there are 32 heads.8

The Hall was originally designed by Robert Smythson and built for Sir Francis Willoughby, and completed in 1588 following eight years of construction. Many of the original busts and portraits had deteriorated over

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the years. The honey-coloured limestone on the exterior of the building was original and had never been replaced. George Hoff was employed to repair the damaged sculptures. He was given a workshop under one of the four massive towers. His grandson Philip visited him there: The workshop was at the base of one of the towers. You went down two steps and that’s where he did the carving of the figures he was replacing on the hall. He was the only stonemason there – he had an assistant, but was quite modest about the work he did there. I remember he always wore a brown trilby hat – you could tell when he’d finished work for the day because he left it on during the day to keep the stone dust out of his hair.9

In later years George took photos of the restoration work he did, and it is still possible to see the carvings he completed, such as ‘Cleopatra’ in a niche on the southern wall. Despite his modesty, he was proud of his work, and he also ran carving classes for local students in his workshop at the Hall. Philip still has some of George’s prized tools, including a large clamp and a chisel with his mason’s mark – an H – stamped on it. Another item that has survived from this period is an old wooden chest that George Hoff had made. His granddaughter Margaret inherited the chest and has recently had it restored. Two secret drawers were discovered underneath, which had not been opened for at least 70 years. In these, she found some of his tools and his notebook from the carving classes he held on the Wollaton estate. Dated from September 1908 to December 1910, it contains lists of expenditures, sales of objects, such as stools and photo frames from exhibitions, and student names. He ran weekly classes for boys, and separate classes for men. Rayner is listed as a student in the boys carving class from September 1908 to October 1909, aged 13 to 14 years. Also in this extraordinary find is a torn and creased drawing on fragile paper labelled ‘Wollaton Hall 1911’. It is a scale drawing of a pointing machine, a type of measuring machine, that Rayner used many times in his later career. It is possibly the earliest drawing by Rayner to be found.10 Other examples of the Hoffs’ exquisite carving skills can be seen in the intricate boxes and frames still held by the family in England. One of Rayner’s first reliefs was a profile portrait of Lady Middleton.

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Although he was only 16, he was already mastering the difficult skill of making a face look three-dimensional on a relatively flat surface. Although some photographs of the 65-year-old Lady Middleton exist from this period, it is likely that Rayner sculpted the portrait from life. In later years he certainly made a point of working from life and rarely used photographs as references. The crest on the top left of the portrait contains many elements of the Cumming family crest – her maiden name was Eliza Maria GordonCumming. It was probably made during his apprenticeship and the plaster relief, encased in a stained oak frame, has remained in the Hoff/Riley family since approximately 1910.

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Rayner Hoff, Lady Middleton, c1910 Plaster, 28 x 19 cm Courtesy Michael Riley

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3

Turning point Nottingham School of Art

Rayner Hoff at Nottingham School of Art, c1914

At the age of 15 Rayner decided to go to art school. It was an auspicious decision, and gives a hint of his ambitious nature even at this young age. He continued to work with his father at Wollaton Hall, but his enrolment at the Nottingham School of Art gave him the extra skills he needed to become an artist rather than a craftsman. He was fortunate to have the opportunity, as art schools were a rarity in the United Kingdom – in fact, the Waverley building where he studied was one of the first purpose-built art schools in the country. Founded in 1843, it was originally a school of design and then it expanded to cover fine arts, including modelling, around 1873. The Waverley Building, designed by Nottingham architect Frederick Bakewell, opened in January 1865. It was a fine sandstone building complete with a clock tower with views across the cemetery opposite and elaborate exterior decorations, comprising portraits of artists such as Holbein, Titian and Rembrandt. The beautiful glass and wooden-framed conservatory built in 1881 was later divided on the east side to form a modelling studio, and a studio for advanced modelling and sculpture was added in the south-east corner of the building before 1914.1 When Rayner enrolled on 12 September 1910, he described his occupation as ‘stonemason’. His principal teacher was renowned sculptor Joseph Else, who taught anatomical drawing and modelling. Else had been a student at Nottingham School of Art and then studied at the Royal College of Art in London for a year before beginning his teaching career in Belfast and then returning to Nottingham. Students could choose from a variety of subjects and Rayner joined the wood and stone carving classes, as well as completing the modelling course. He received a Corporation Scholarship, which helped pay for his fees. Although there were not many students studying sculpture during this period, a few like Hoff went on to develop substantial careers as sculptors. A fellow student, James Arthur Woodford, followed a similar career path to Rayner until Rayner left for Australia in 1923. Both served in the Great War

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and then trained at the Royal College of Art and became Rome Scholars in 1923.2 At Nottingham, Rayner developed a healthy rivalry with Woodford. In 1914 Woodford came first in Modelling Design, and Rayner second. The positions reversed in 1915 and 1916, with Rayner gaining first both years and Woodford achieving third. Students were encouraged to enter competitions, and in 1913 Rayner won a book prize in the British Board of Education National Competition for a strongly modelled copy of a figure from the antique. It was an established practice in art schools for students to make copies of plaster casts before working directly from the life model, and the cast he used was from an original by the Italian master Giambologna. It was an extremely difficult cast to copy. At 20 years of age, Rayner also won a gold medal in the British Board of Education National Competition in 1915. In what was his first major public recognition, the win was noted in the Building News and Engineering Journal: A gold medal is well won by Mr G. Rayner Hoff of Nottingham, for a modelled design for a plaster panel over a theatre or opera-house proscenium. The work is rhythmic in the progression of the low-relief figures, with an exquisite reserve and power of grouping flatly handled, with horses at the tail end of the procession.3

The principal of the Nottingham School of Art, Joseph Harrison, established the school library in a large room on the ground floor of the Waverley building. It was said to be the finest art school library of its time.4 Rayner used the library extensively. It was here that he cultivated his practice of self-education, and this period was vital in his intellectual development. With no formal art theory classes available, students were expected to do their own research, and this is something he later demanded of his own students in Australia. Many of Rayner’s books have survived from his student days. One, Morris’s Geometrical Drawing for Art Students, has his signature with the date November 1910 written inside the cover, and was possibly his 16th birthday present. Another is a catalogue from an exhibition of student works from Nottingham School of Art held at the Nottingham Castle Museum in 1917. The inside sleeve is covered in his handwritten quotes from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Knowing he would be serving in France by

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the time the exhibition was held may have prompted his choice of these particularly poignant extracts: For some we loved, the loveliest and the best That from this vintage rolling time has prest, Have drunk their cup a round or two before And one by one crept silently to rest. Strange is it not? That the myriads who Before us pass’d the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the road Which to discover we must travel too.5

Rayner attended Nottingham School of Art for six years, gaining a thorough grounding in the basic principles and techniques of drawing, painting, architecture and sculpture. Students exhibited regularly in the magnificent long gallery of the Nottingham Castle Museum. Nottingham School of Art was aligned with the museum through the Castle Museum and School of Art Committee from 1888 to 1940. The Castle still has a large collection and museum, which includes work by many Nottingham luminaries such as Joseph Else and Laura Knight. Tom Hoff, Rayner’s brother, would also attend Nottingham School of Art between 1921 and 1923. Always in his older brother’s shadow, he did not enrol until Rayner left and was studying at the Royal College of Art in London. The family later described Tom as a ‘wild one’ after he returned from the war, but by 1923 Tom is listed as a stone carver by profession. It is likely he worked with his father as Rayner had done until he was encouraged to follow Rayner to Australia in 1924. The influences of close contemporaries, such as acclaimed Nottingham author DH Lawrence, during Hoff’s early years is a difficult one to gauge, but Hoff certainly would have been aware of Lawrence’s writing and perhaps that of other progressive authors of the period. As Deborah Edwards, consultant curator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, has noted: Nottingham, where Hoff spent his formative years, became an important centre of vitalist-influenced literary and political activity well into the 1920s – with vitalist theories disseminated by its nationally renowned resident, Edward Carpenter, who promoted modern sexuality as the key to the creation of a new British society.6

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Although much older than Hoff and Lawrence, Edward Carpenter was involved in some of the earliest socialist groups in the United Kingdom, actively supporting workers in struggle. He was a leading proponent of utopian communes, a pioneer of the environmental movement, and interested in paganism and Eastern transcendentalism. He also campaigned for women’s equality and sexual emancipation.7 DH Lawrence was certainly influenced by Edward Carpenter’s circle of critics, poets and feminists in Nottingham, and it can be assumed that Hoff had some knowledge of this controversial group, and would later impart their belief in vitalism when he met Norman Lindsay and his peers in Sydney.

Modelling class, Nottingham School of Art, c1931 Inspire Nottingham archives, DD/5A/4/1/5/1

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4

FROM THE HEART Annis Briggs

Madge Knight and Annis Briggs, Highfields, c1912 Courtesy Robert Briggs

During his time at Nottingham School of Art Rayner met his future wife, Annis Mary Briggs. A talented designer and illustrator, Annis enrolled at Nottingham School of Art in September 1911 and studied there for eight years. She was born in nearby Sutton-in-Ashfield, where her father, George William Briggs, was a respected pharmacist. George married her diminutive mother, Ellen Borebanks, and they had three children; Annis was their second child. Annis had a privileged childhood, attending Queen Elizabeth’s School for Girls in Mansfield until she was 18 years old. Photographs from a school album from 1905 show her, aged 13, dressed up for a role in Rumpelstiltskin (page 36). Other photos from the album depict teachers and students in long skirts, hats and white shirts enjoying a sports carnival in the expansive school grounds. The contrast with the crowded Church Street School that Rayner attended at the same time is palpable. Despite this, his family encouragement and enquiring mind were more than enough to enable Rayner to bridge the gap in their respective educations. Sutton-in-Ashfield was named after the large number of ash trees that grew in the area and originally formed part of the famous forest of Sherwood. The Briggs family had been established in Sutton-in-Ashfield for many years. Annis’s grandfather, John Briggs, was a framework knitter as was her great-grandfather George. John married Mary Ann Wragg and made his fortune as a hosiery manufacturer, employing over 300 staff at Messrs. J Briggs & Sons in Kirkby Road. An astute businessman, his wide influence in Sutton extended to his position as chairman of the Sutton Urban District Council in the 1890s, parish church warden, president of the local Rotary Club and a member of the school board.1 Annis’s elder brother, George Isaac Oswald, known as Oswald, studied law and moved to London to work as a solicitor. Her younger brother John Reginald Stuart, known as Jack, took over their father’s chemist shop. Annis was very close to Jack, and there are many photos taken of the two of them

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Annis (second row, second from right) at primary school with classmates, 1905 Inspire Nottinghamshire archives, S/BX117/109/7

in the garden at the family house, Highfields. The extended Briggs family lived in a number of the residences on Kirkby Road for over 50 years. The security of living in one area surrounded by her grandparents and uncles and aunts families was the antithesis of Rayner’s nomadic childhood. Annis continued to live in the seven-roomed Highfields during her training at Nottingham School of Art, and it is also the address given on her marriage certificate in 1920. Surrounded by orchards and croquet lawn, it was a pleasant place to grow up. Annis’s aptitude for drawing and design was rewarded at her school in Mansfield when she received the top award for design in July 1910. She was already proficient in watercolours, lettering and illustration when she first attended Nottingham School of Art, and she brought many of her works on paper from this period with her when she moved to Australia in 1923. It also seems that Annis’s love of photography was sparked at this time. Photography was generally only practised by professionals so family photographs were not common. Annis’s father George supplied photographic equipment from his chemist shop in Portland Square, so she and her brother Jack took advantage of this and became the family photographers. Operating with a bellows camera on a large wooden tripod, Annis was photographed by Jack in a field surrounded by dogs preparing for an assignment in Nottingham (page 38). Annis also recorded her classmates, their excursions and fancy dress costumes, and later she photographed Rayner in his military attire at the art school. There are many photographs of Annis and her close friend Madge Knight, who was also a talented student at Nottingham School of Art. Jack Briggs took an informal photograph of Madge and Annis reading in the front room of Highfields around 1912, showing family photos and paintings in the wallpapered room of the house (page 34). Madge’s father Adam Knight was also a hosiery manufacturer and he was a prominent Nottingham amateur watercolourist, and a long-time member of the Nottingham Society of Artists. No doubt he would have encouraged his daughter to attend the art school. As well as photographing her fellow students, Annis drew most of them. An excellent portrait she did of Madge illustrates her considerable skills and ability to capture a likeness (page 39).2 Annis was an outstanding student at the Nottingham School of Art,

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Left Annis Briggs, photographer, Nottingham, c1912. Her friend Madge Knight is in the background Courtesy Robert Briggs

Below Annis Briggs, Madge Knight, c1912 Graphite on paper

and from 1913 to 1916 records show her receiving top marks in the yearly examination results in drawing from life, book illustration, costume studies and design, as well as winning many local art prizes.3 Along with her medals and drawings, Annis’s grandchildren have kept her well-used and immaculate drawing kit. Encased in a small wooden box are the sharpened quills, a brass plumb bob, a wooden mannequin, and pencils with a chip sliced off the end and her maiden name printed on them. The use of this name indicates that it is the kit she used at Nottingham School of Art over 95 years ago. Classes were small and intimate at the art school at the beginning of the 20th century, and with students like Annis and Rayner attending for periods of five to eight years, it is no surprise that many long-term relationships were formed there. Two years younger than Annis, when they met Rayner was a confident and talented young man. It wasn’t long until they developed a close relationship that would last beyond the looming war years.

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5

The first sacrifice The Great War

Rayner Hoff in Amiens, France, 1917

Rayner Hoff was almost 20 years old when Britain entered the war in August 1914, and he was into his fourth year of study at Nottingham School of Art. During that time he had been boarding in a small house with a Mrs Gibbs at 6 Cloister Street, Old Lenton, about 3 kilometres from the school. By the end of 1915 he and his family had moved into a freestanding house in the same street. The two-storey house is still there, with its brick fence posts topped with lettering on stone blocks, probably carved by George Hoff, displaying the name of the house, Cloister Cottage. A photo taken in 1916 shows the three Hoff boys, their father George and Roy Riley, a close friend of Tom and Sydney who would marry Amy in years to come (page 42). The three brothers in the front row are smiling for the camera; George and his future son-in-law are more serious behind them. It wasn’t long before all four boys would be enlisted in the British Army, and more than three years until they were together again. All young British men were required to register for service in the army by 1915. Hoff was accepted into the Army Reserve in December 1915, but it wasn’t until April 1916 that he and his brother Tom enlisted. Both hoped to join the Army Cycling Corps. Rayner’s medical history certificate describes him as a sculptor of good physical development, with a scar on the back of his right hand.1 The family has photographs taken in 1916 in the back garden of Cloister Cottage, showing Tom and Rayner looking relaxed and proud in their new khaki woollen serge uniforms. Annis’s brother Oswald, aged 24 in 1914, became a Second Lieutenant and was sent to France in July 1915. He was lucky to survive as the casualty rate for junior officers was very high. Her younger brother Jack served first in Dublin, where the Army was sent to put down the 1916 Easter Rising, then with the South Staffordshire Regiment, and later with the Notts and Derby Regiment. Presumably he was able to take his camera with him, as there are numerous photos of him during his service in Egypt, Palestine, Turkey and South Russia.2

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Rayner Hoff was posted to the 18th (Service) Battalion of the Kings Liverpool Regiment. Brad Manera, Senior Historian and Curator at the Anzac Memorial, describes the training Hoff would have undertaken: the young artist had a little over 20 weeks to learn service regulations, platoon, company and battalion drill and acquire all of the other arcane knowledge required of a soldier. He was taught basic first aid and field craft. He had to become proficient in the use of his weapons. It was a life that must have been very hard for the free-spirited young artist who had led a reasonably sheltered existence. He found himself thrown in with dozens of other men from all walks of life, subjected to impersonal treatment and rigorous training and suffering the tasteless monotony of British Army food and the general discomfort and lack of privacy of life in barracks. Private Hoff appears to have accepted the harsh conditions and drudgery without complaint. The only misdemeanour on his service record occurred at the end of his basic training when the independently minded artist decided to award himself a 24-hour leave pass for his 22nd birthday. He went missing on the afternoon of 26 November, spent his birthday absent without leave and turned himself in at 3pm the following day. Private Hoff must have been reasonably popular with his officers as the punishment he

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Roy Riley, George Hoff (back, left to right) and brothers Thomas, Rayner and Sydney (front, left to right), c1916

received for this offence was, by the British Army standards of the time, relatively light. He forfeited two days pay and spent six days confined to barracks.3

Hoff crossed the channel to France on 11 December 1916 to join the British Expeditionary Force, and on arrival he was sent to the No. 24 Infantry Base Depot at Étaples in the Pas-de-Calais area of northern France. This British camp was one of the most hated training bases in France, with primitive facilities and drill instructors with a reputation for brutality and savagery. Hoff was there for only a week before joining his battalion. It is hard to believe that Hoff would not have known of the artists’ colony that had been established at Étaples in 1880. Broadly made up of international artists, Australian artists Rupert Bunny, Iso Rae, E. Phillips Fox and Hilda Rix (later Hilda Rix Nicholas) also established studios there up until the war began. Iso Rae was one of the few artists to remain during the war, and she painted scenes of the town and army camp, worked for the Voluntary Aid Detachment of the British Cross and helped set up a cinema for soldiers in the camp.4 During the cold and wet winter of 1916–17 Hoff’s battalion was in a reserve position behind the front in Picardy, and he was put to work building shelters and maintaining the roads and trenches. Although he did not participate in any frontline fighting, he saw the results of the terrible slaughter of trench warfare. It was at this time that Hoff got the opportunity to demonstrate his drawing ability, impressing his superiors with his artistic skills and literacy. The British Army was in need of these abilities for mapmaking, and Hoff was chosen to join a special branch of the Corps of Royal Engineers (RE) that had been raised for the task, called Field Survey Companies. After one month serving with his battalion in reserve, on 27 January 1917 Hoff was seconded to No. 3 Field Survey Company, one of the specialist units required to gather and collate data from aerial photographs and from infantry patrols in the Somme region of France. They used this data to create modern military topographical maps. Within three months Hoff was permanently transferred from the infantry into the small band of specialists in the RE who made the trench maps and, in April 1917, his military trade was redefined as ‘Sapper Draftsman

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(Topographical) – Skilled’. With the new rank came an increase in pay and a safer and warmer billet. On 13 December 1917 he received further recognition by having his military trade rating increased to that of superior draughtsman. Hoff and his colleagues worked using existing maps, with some operating in the field, and others interpreting aerial photographs. Hoff’s draughting skills equipped him to bring all this information together and make extraordinarily fine maps. Earlier in the war, just as the Somme offensive was about to be launched, the Field Survey Company Engineers produced an invaluable 1:20,000 scale map, and this was the standard when Hoff joined the No. 3 Field Survey Company. From mid 1916 there were five Field Survey Companies, one for each army, who were printing in the field using hand-operated lithographic presses. From early 1917 these were upgraded to powered lithographic presses in the field for map printing.5 After transforming the information from the field into trench maps, Hoff would then give his work to the publishers who printed out thousands of maps that were a great resource during battles, such as Passchendaele in 1917. He was proud of his work, and with many long hours to kill he carved ‘GR Hoff, 3rd FSC’ into his well-used scaled protractor. One of the skills he had learned with his father was immaculate lettering. A poignant photograph was taken of him in Amiens around this time (page 40). Gone is the cheeky grin of his first photo in uniform, as he stares at the camera with haunted eyes. In later years he stated that he had seen too much of war to glorify it, and this photograph gives an indication of how he felt in 1917. He is wearing an RE badge on his trench cap, what was colloquially known as a ‘cor blimey’ cap. By the summer of 1918 US troops were arriving in France in massive numbers, and the balance of power on the Western Front had swung in favour of Britain, France and their allies. The war entered a new phase, and the British war effort became more dependent on technical innovations. Hoff’s Field Survey Company became a Field Survey Battalion, providing maps for the massive army that launched an offensive against the Germans in the August, which broke through the German lines on the Somme. With defeat imminent, the German high command surrendered, and at 11 am on 11 November 1918 the war ended on the Western Front. Most of the

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Hoff (second from left) and army friends, c1919

British Army servicemen were eligible for discharge, but not Hoff. As he had not gone to the front until the end of 1916, his discharge was given a low priority, and his specialist skills were still needed by the army after the war. In December, now aged 24, he was granted 14 days leave to Britain so he was able to have Christmas and New Year with his family. In January 1919, Hoff re-joined his unit in France, but was soon transferred to the 4th Field Survey Battalion and sent to Germany as part of the British occupation army. Based in Cologne, it must have been a welcome relief to spend some time in this medieval city untouched by the war.6 A photograph taken of him relaxing with army friends appears to have been taken during his seven months in Cologne, and it can be assumed that many of the German books in Hoff’s library were collected during this period. He was finally sent to the dispersal unit at the Crystal Palace in London in September, demobilised and discharged from the ‘Rhine Army’ in October 1919.7

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6

The world at his feet The Royal College of Art

Rayner Hoff, London, August 1922

Hoff returned to Nottingham physically unscathed and keen to get back to art school. Throughout the war, Annis had continued her studies and by 1919 she was describing herself as a designer by trade and had started doing book illustrations and satirical cartoons in watercolour and pen. Rayner and Annis’s plans for a summer wedding in her home town were put in place, but not before Hoff applied to transfer his ex-service award from Nottingham School of Art to the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London. He had received this welcome award on his discharge in October 1919. The award, which covered tuition fees and a maintenance allowance for three years, was raised from £9 to £25 for tuition, and from £150 to £160 per annum for maintenance when he moved to London five months later and rented rooms in West Kensington in April 1920. Arriving in the capital two years after the end of the war, and at the start of the roaring twenties, would have been a heady experience for Hoff. The population of inner London was almost four and a half million, quite a change from the comparatively small town of Nottingham. Having lost over three years to the war, he was determined to get as much out of the art course as possible and threw himself into work and life in London with enthusiasm. The Great War had paved the way for some liberating social changes, with the status and confidence of women growing after they had played such a large part in the war effort. Once wartime restrictions were lifted, entrepreneurs opened new clubs and dance halls, and ‘wireless’ radio was the technological marvel of the decade. It was the time of jazz, swing, bobbed hair and artists’ balls, and Hoff embraced the sense of determined enjoyment that was evident around him. He also had to draw on his confidence and ambition to restart his education in an art school with such a long and distinguished history. When Hoff began his studies there, the RCA had been the centre of art and design education in the United Kingdom for over 80 years, having been established in 1837 as the Government School of Design. The school and

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its accommodation had grown in an ad hoc manner and had undergone a number of place changes. Its first incarnation was at Somerset House on the Strand, moving to Marlborough House in St James after five years, and then Brompton Park House for seven years. It finally moved to its more permanent home at the rear of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in South Kensington in 1864. At this time it was renamed the National Art Training School, and accommodation was designed specifically for the art school by a Royal Engineer, Captain Francis Fowke. The entrance was on Exhibition Road, opposite the Science Museum. The building was a two-storey, L-shaped block to the north of the V&A, with exceptionally large windows and no interior walls.1 Although it had a new name when Hoff arrived – becoming the Royal College of Art in 1896 – it was still using the same rooms built in 1863. These rooms had originally accommodated all the fine art classes, but by the 1880s they were cramped and packed with plaster casts with nowhere to store them. Around 1900 the School of Sculpture and Modelling was physically separated from the rest of the college and moved to some ‘temporary’ iron huts, about a ten-minute walk from the V&A. The huts were surrounded by large trees in an open space behind the Science Museum and were entered via Queen’s Gate. These buildings were basically simple sheds that were intolerably hot and uncomfortable in the summer months, while in winter the inadequate heating meant it was impossible to pose a nude model.2 Despite these shortcomings, they still had the much soughtafter space and a certain charm. The conditions did not curtail the enthusiasm of the sculpture department which had been thriving since the arrival from France of sculptor Aime-Jules Dalou, a refugee from the Paris Commune of 1871. Dalou was employed as a teacher of modelling in 1877 and gave an extraordinary impetus to sculpture in the two years he was there. He was followed by his former student, Edward Lanteri, who was to become the most respected teacher of sculpture and modelling of his generation. Lanteri’s studio assistant in 1911 was Charles Sargeant Jagger, who received the British School at Rome Prix de Rome in 1914 but, instead of going to Rome, he enlisted with 21 fellow RCA students in the British Army. Lanteri continued at the RCA until the end of the war and was succeeded by Francis Derwent Wood as Professor

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of Sculpture in 1918. When Hoff arrived at the RCA, he did so alongside many other students and teachers who, like him, had served in the war and returned keen to get on with their lives. There were various ways that students could apply to the RCA in 1920. One was by a rigorous examination, another by recommendation from a teacher from a provincial art school, and the other was to enter with a scholarship. Hoff’s ex-service award and a recommendation from his sculpture teacher at Nottingham, Joseph Else, assured he gained admission. There were four schools – architecture, painting, sculpture and design – and the aim was to provide three-year, full-time courses for students who had done at least three years training elsewhere.3 In effect, it was a postgraduate course and, unlike its competitor, the Slade School of Fine Art, the RCA also offered a diploma, which was required for teaching. At the end of 1919 there were 72 male students and 35 female students enrolled at the RCA. It is common in most art schools that women outnumber the men studying. The unusual gender balance at the RCA was due to the large number of men who held ex-service awards and chose to study art after of the war. The college was still much affected by the trauma of those years – 23 RCA students had died during the Great War, and the majority of the male students and staff had served. By 1920, Principal Augustus Spencer had retired aged 60. After much discussion and some protest from the National Society of Art Masters, distinguished artist and critic William Rothenstein was appointed to the role in September 1920. He had a special interest in the application of art to craft and industry and advocated the employment of part-time teachers. He began some major reforms and by 1922 the RCA was recognised as being at the pinnacle of art education, and was attracting more students.4 Hoff was fortunate to enrol at the beginning of Rothenstein’s tenure, when the school and the sculpture department under Wood was establishing such a strong reputation. After only a few months studying at the RCA, Hoff returned to Nottingham to marry Annis on 30 June 1920 at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sutton-in-Ashfield. This 750-year-old church was set on four acres of a rambling cemetery, surrounded by a low stone wall, where Annis’s grandparents and great-grandparents are buried. The Briggs family had long

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been supporters of the church, donating some of the church bells and serving as church wardens as well. Rayner was the first of the Hoff children to marry, with the other four following closely behind – Sydney in 1921, Amy in 1924, Dorrie in 1925 and Thomas in 1926. On the wedding certificate, signed by Rayner’s sister Dorrie and Annis’s parents George William and Ellen Briggs, Rayner listed his profession as ‘sculptor’, and Annis as ‘artist’. This must have been quite a rarity in a small rural town in the Midlands in 1920. Sadly there are no photographs surviving of Rayner and Annis’s wedding. In fact there is only one photograph of them together in the United Kingdom, and that is at his youngest brother Sydney’s wedding in Lincolnshire in 1921. On the left of the photo, Annis, as is often the case, appears uncomfortable in front of the camera, and she stares off into the distance. Rayner is beside her, but is partly obscured by her thick and unruly hair. The photograph is

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Sydney and Lilian Hoff’s wedding, Lincolnshire, 1921. Left to right, foreground: Rayner (obscured), Annis, Elizabeth, Thomas, Lilian, Sydney and Dorrie Hoff (other guests unknown)

an interior shot of the wedding party sitting down to enjoy the wedding banquet in what looks like a country hall. The wine has been served, and the guests have hung their coats and hats on the racks near the door. Not many are smiling at the camera. It looks like a serious affair, but Sydney has a half grin on his face, and his mother Elizabeth looks bemused. Sydney Hoff’s war records are not available, but the family recalls that he was wounded during a battle on the Somme and had small black pellets of shrapnel in his left side, which occasionally came to the surface well after the war.5 He married Lilian Strickland in Grantham, Lincolnshire. His first son, Sydney Donovan Hoff, was born the following year, three months before Donovan’s cousin Sandra Hoff, Rayner and Annis’s daughter, was born. After Rayner and Annis were married they moved to London together, taking lodgings in West Kensington until they found a place to rent in Seymour Place, South Kensington, in October 1920, which was closer to the art school. Due to his now married status, Hoff was granted an increase in his maintenance allowance to £180 per annum.6 Nearby, he had the invaluable collection and reference library at the V&A, and he could visit the British Museum and National Gallery regularly, where he had ready access to the works by many of the artists he had been admiring in books for years. Hoff studied under the scholarly academic sculptor Francis Derwent Wood (page 53). Wood was an outstanding sculptor who had designed many figurative works for public buildings in Glasgow during the time he taught modelling at Glasgow School of Art between 1897 and 1901. Wood had strong Australian connections as he had married the expatriate Australian opera singer Florence Schmidt. One of his closest friends was the Australian painter and sculptor George Lambert and, through the Chelsea Arts Club, Wood also met Will Dyson, Fred Leist and Tom Roberts. Roberts sculpted a portrait of Wood in 1910, now held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It is likely that these close relationships with artists would have given Wood an insight into the antipodean art scene when he later encouraged Hoff to accept a position in Australia. Hoff’s first reports from his professors were not overly enthusiastic. In July 1920, Wood wrote, ‘This student does not show any improvement in his life work. His design is better.’ Despite this, a year later, Hoff won a £10 prize in the School of Modelling, and the comments had changed: ‘Shows

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great promise – is hard working – his life work is excellent and his design is equally good.’ There were similar remarks by Wood in July 1922, just before Hoff’s graduation.7 The mandatory course in architecture was taught by the elderly Beresford Pite, and Hoff’s interest in architecture continued to grow during his student years. The prospectus shows the subjects covered included modelling of architectural ornament, figure and ornamental composition, the study of osteology and myology, modelled studies of drapery, studies in the round and in relief of the head and figure from life, drawing from life, stone carving and pointing, and wood carving.8 Hoff’s fellow students included 17-year-old Barbara Hepworth and 23-year-old Henry Moore, who was also at the RCA on an ex-service award. Both sculptors had come from Leeds School of Art – Hepworth arrived in autumn 1920, just after Hoff had begun his course, and Moore came a year later in 1921. James Woodford had also returned from his war service and, along with Hoff, transferred from Nottingham School of Art to the RCA on an ex-service award. Principal Rothenstein’s aim was to provide students with ‘the best possible general education through the arts’.9 He was generous with his time and invited RCA students to his house in Airlie Gardens in Kensington on Sunday evenings. Henry Moore recalled meeting many of Rothenstein’s friends at these gatherings, such as writers Arnold Bennett, TE Lawrence, Max Beerbohm, Walter de la Mare and GK Chesterton, society hostess Lady Cunard, and even Ramsay MacDonald, who would later become prime minister.10 On Saturday evenings, Wood and Schmidt held musical parties, which also became a feature of London’s artistic life. The Woods knew the poet Ezra Pound, who introduced them to former Nottingham student DH Lawrence in London in 1910, and Lawrence had attended concerts by Schmidt before the war.11 In 1921 there were only six or seven students working in the studios in the Sculpture School, including Hoff, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and James Woodford. An early photograph of Hoff at the RCA shows him having tea and cake on the grass outside the sculpture huts (pages 56–57). Surrounded by his fellow students, he looks happy and at ease, in fact almost bohemian, with his wild hair and full moustache.

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The drawing tutor at the RCA was the engaging and enthusiastic Leon Underwood, who was also a sculptor. Only four years older than Hoff, his belief in the value of drawing saw him open his own school in 1921. Underwood’s method of teaching ‘the science of drawing – of expressing solid form on a flat surface’ proved invaluable to the sculpture students at the RCA.12 Also on staff was Barry Hart, a tall red-haired instructor in stone carving who, like Hoff, had come from a family of professional stonemasons and carvers (page 54). Also like Hoff, he had learned to enlarge clay and plaster maquettes with a pointing machine. These machines have calibrated arms that enable measurements to be transferred from the maquettes to larger works in stone with great accuracy, and have been used by stonemasons for many centuries.13 Some students, including Henry Moore,

George Charles Beresford, Francis Derwent Wood, 1922 National Portrait Gallery, London

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believed that these machines created soulless sculptures and preferred to carve directly into the stone. But Hoff was to use the pointing machine to great affect all of his life, especially when he worked on his large war memorials later in Australia. Adjacent to the Sculpture Studio was the Queens’s Gate Common Room, which became the hub of the art school, a place to meet and discuss art with fellow students and teachers. All the recreational and social activities of the RCA took place in this building until at least the 1940s. Here many parties, revues and balls that became a part of art school life were planned, particularly the preparations for the Chelsea Arts Ball, which by 1920 had become a fixture in the London social calendar and was led by art school students from the Slade School of Fine Art and the RCA. Held on New Year’s

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Henry Moore and Barry Hart, London, 1922 Reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation

Eve in the Royal Albert Hall since 1910, the ball was given a new theme each year and became known for its bohemian excesses. Elaborately dressed art students represented their schools with extravagantly decorated floats that were driven directly into the Albert Hall, only to be destroyed by the revellers at the stroke of midnight.14 Australian expat artist Fred Leist, later to teach with Hoff in Sydney, was heavily involved with the Chelsea Arts Balls, making posters and often designing some of the vast backdrops in the Albert Hall during the time that Hoff was attending them. It is quite likely these balls encouraged Hoff to be so keenly involved in the Artists’ Balls as soon as he arrived in Sydney in 1923. A few photographs of Hoff have survived from this period. When he entered the course in 1920 he was 25 years old, already with a wealth of life and practical experience behind him (page 46). A dashing young man with dark hair and full moustache, he showed some signs of stress from the war years, but he must have felt the world was at his feet at this point in his life. And in many ways it was. He was happily married to Annis, living an exciting and enriching life in London, with the prospect of a long career as a sculptor or teacher ahead of him. He had very little money, but the scholarship helped pay for fees and a living allowance, and he had begun to exhibit and was able to gain a few small commissions to supplement his income. Having worked with his father George on so many reliefs for public buildings, and also on the carved wooden boxes at Wollaton Hall, Hoff was already adept at making extremely fine relief sculptures when he arrived at the RCA. In fact his first works to be exhibited in London were two low relief sculptures: Renascence and Portrait, exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1920. The prestige associated with exhibiting at the Royal Academy is well illustrated by the names of the artists considered the best of their generation and who exhibited alongside Hoff in the 1920s. The members included Hoff’s sculpture instructor Wood as well as Sir George Frampton, John Singer Sargent, Augustus John, Sir William Orpen and the Australian sculptor Sir Bertram Mackennal.15 It appears likely that it was through the Royal Academy exhibitions that Hoff met Mackennal and Frampton, who would later recommend Hoff for a teaching position in Australia. Rayner Hoff was accepted to exhibit again in 1922 with XOPOZ, a sculpture of a group of dancers around a circular pole, designed as a garden ornament.

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Sculpture students outside the RCA studios, c1921, with Rayner fifth from left

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A small sketchbook started in London in 1921 has survived in the Hoff family papers, and it gives a remarkable insight into Hoff’s approach to his work. Measuring only 16 x 12 centimetres, there are 140 pages, and every one is covered in pencil drawings and notes detailing his designs for memorials, medallions and sculptures, and also recording other artists’ work. His fluid and confident sketches were his personal visual diary of ideas – not ones to be shown, but for his own use. He continued to draw in the book in Australia. The intimate nature of the sketchbook is beautifully illustrated on a double page that contains an early sketch of his sculpture Sacrifice, a few drawings of musicians, and a handwritten shopping list: shipping, timber, wool, meat, cereal, fruit. The third page in the sketchbook has drawings of Hoff’s first commission for a medallion. In 1921 the president of the National Federation of Fruit and Potato Trades Association commissioned him to design a medal. Hoff chose to depict farm workers digging the ground and a woman picking apples from a tree (page 60). Only 5.7 centimetres in diameter, this was the first of the many exquisite medals he made. Once again, his skill at representing three dimensions in very low relief is remarkable and this became one of his greatest strengths as a sculptor. In 1922, the president of the Association, George Swift, donated the silver-plated bronze proof of this medal to the V&A.16 It remains the only Rayner Hoff work to be represented in a major museum in the United Kingdom. Another commission Hoff completed while still a student was his first war memorial. Drawings for this are also in his sketchbook. Many sculptors, including Wood, were heavily involved in commissions for war memorials during this period, and as a former soldier it seems appropriate that Hoff was asked to make a personal memorial for a lost airman. Captain Francis Mond was on a photographic mission over France when he and his Canadian observer were shot down in May 1918. Mond was 22 at the time, one year younger than Hoff. The memorial was commissioned in 1921 by Mond’s parents, who lived in Storrington, and it is still on display in Storrington Parish Church in West Sussex. The bronze relief set in marble depicts a mother holding her dead son, and is called Sacrifice. It’s a poignant link to Hoff’s major work in Australia 12 years later.

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Annis Briggs, 1920 Courtesy Robert Briggs

Rayner Hoff, London, 1922

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Hoff’s first design for a medallion, London, 1921

Hoff also completed a portrait bust of Francis Mond’s only sister, May Constance Viola Mond.17 All that has survived of this work is a photograph, but it is one of many busts that Hoff made during his student years. Some, like one assumed to be of his father, were not cast, but show an unusually assured touch for student works. At the end of 1921, Annis and Rayner Hoff moved from their rented lodgings in Seymour Place to a flat at 37 Finborough Road, Kensington, near Earl’s Court. Although it was a 2.5-kilometre walk to the art school, it was in a quiet area not far from the park-like Brompton Cemetery. Annis was pregnant with their first child when Hoff was awarded his diploma at the end of the 1921 session. In his graduation robes he stands with his fellow students in the group photo taken in the V&A courtyard on 21 July 1922, the day before Sandra Margaret Rayner Hoff was born. The diploma, the equivalent to a degree today, meant that Hoff received an Associateship of the Royal College of Art (ARCA), which he proudly displayed in his letterhead in Australia. To top it off, he was awarded a prestigious Travelling Scholarship in Modelling in July 1922. Awarded by the Board of Education, the £65 meant that Hoff would stay on as a student at the RCA after the summer break, and he hoped to travel overseas at a later date.

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RCA graduation photograph (detail), 1922, with Rayner in the centre row, third from left Royal College of Art Archive and Panora Studio

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7

Past masters ROME SCHOLAR

Jack Briggs, Rayner Hoff, January 1923 Courtesy Robert Briggs

In 1921 Rayner Hoff was given the unique opportunity to apply for a Rome Scholarship, also known at the time as the Prix de Rome, granted only to British citizens. Applicants had to submit to a rigorous examination process, with severe culling involving two shortlists. The principal of the Royal College of Arts, William Rothenstein, was influential in the selection of top RCA students who could apply. Hoff sent in his application for the Open Competition in July, and had to submit many prescribed works, including a half life–sized sculpture of a nude model, a bas-relief composition, four life drawings and photographs of earlier works, including architectural designs.1 The three primary subjects in the competition were architecture, sculpture and decorative painting. Between 1913 and 1930, there were 61 offers of scholarships, and of these 53 per cent came from the RCA, 15 per cent from the Slade, 13 per cent from the Royal Academy and 11 per cent from the rest of the nation.2 The protracted competition lasted for eight weeks, beginning on 24 July. Five candidates had submitted work in the Open Examination, and only three were selected for the Final Competition by mid 1922: James Arthur Woodford, George Rayner Hoff and Margaret Edith Rachel Waite.3 To encourage the finalists to concentrate their time on their work, candidates were granted a maintenance allowance of £3 a week as well as an allowance for models. Fortunately for Hoff, the competition was held in the familiar territory of the Modelling School at the RCA. The three competitors were not told the subject matter until the first day of competition. They were all asked to create a relief of similar size and proportions (197 x 122 centimetres) on the theme of ‘labour’. Hoff completed his piece by 16 September. Executed in clay and then cast in plaster, this major work became a precursor to the huge reliefs he later made for the Anzac Memorial in Sydney. It shows a group of 17 builders in a complex lyrical composition, all with distinctive faces, including some resembling Hoff’s family members (page 64).

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By 20 October, Hoff was informed that he had won a Rome Scholarship in Sculpture. A slight irritant to the elation he must have felt was that James Woodford had also been awarded a second sculpture scholarship. It was the first time two prizes had been offered in this subject in the same year, although there was none offered in 1921, and only one given in 1923 – to David Evans, who had graduated from the RCA with Hoff but received his scholarship a year later. The announcement for the 1922 scholarships read: As a result of the Final Competition for the Rome Scholarship in Sculpture for 1922, the Faculty of Sculpture of the British School at Rome have recommended, and the Commissioners of 1851 have approved, the award of the first Rome Scholarship to Mr George Rayner Hoff and of a second Rome Scholarship to Mr James Arthur Woodford … The Scholarship is of the value of £250 per annum and is tenable for three years at the British School at Rome. Both Mr Hoff and Mr Woodford received their art training at the Nottingham School of Art and after an interval of nearly four years military service completed their studies at the Royal College of Art.4

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Rayner Hoff, Labour, 1922 (Rome Scholarship examination piece) Plaster, 197 x 122 cm

This hugely prestigious award presented Hoff with a dilemma. It was an opportunity to live at the British School at Rome for three years, with his own studio and a stipend to live on, and the chance to visit works by artists he had been keen to see for many years. But he also had a wife and child to support in London, and he couldn’t afford to take them with him. Spouses were expected to ‘live out’ if they accompanied their partners to Rome, and the £250 per annum would not cover this extra expense.5 For the rest of the year, Hoff stayed at the RCA on a slightly reduced timetable while he contemplated his predicament. This was further compounded when he was asked to apply for a position as a teacher of Antique Drawing and Sculpture in Sydney, Australia. The art department of Sydney Technical College had moved to the converted site of Darlinghurst Gaol in January 1922, and they did not have a sculpture school. Strongly aligned to the National Art Gallery of New South Wales (later the Art Gallery of New South Wales), the department had called for applicants worldwide. The Royal Academy in London held a pre-eminent position in the art world in the 1920s, and it was often consulted when positions overseas needed to be filled. In April, the Royal Academy was approached for applicant suggestions and, in June, Royal Academician and sculptor Sir George Frampton and council member Derwent Wood met to discuss who would be suitable. At least two names were put forward. Hoff was approached in July, while he was working on his Rome Scholarship entry, and he expressed interest in applying. By now, correspondence regarding this position was being conducted between the Director of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Gother VF Mann, and the London agent for the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, F Graham Lloyd.6 In October, Lloyd wrote to Mann that the ‘committee unhesitatingly recommend Mr G Rayner Hoff’, and he also informed him that Hoff had been awarded the Prix de Rome. Lloyd arranged for some of Hoff’s drawings and photos of his work to be sent to Sydney for the committee appointed by the Public Service Board to view, which they did on 15 December 1922. They also viewed the letter of nomination from Frampton and Wood, and concluded: We unanimously endorse the recommendation of Mr Hoff, whom we are of opinion, judging by his practical experience, his training and

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his artistic achievements, to be eminently qualified to fill the position above mentioned. The work submitted to us is of a very high quality and marks Mr Hoff as a man of both practical achievement and artistic merit. He has had the very desirable training in masonry, architecture and modelling and sculpture, which are the branches specially applicable to the position to be filled.7

Rayner Hoff was appointed on 31 January 1923, but by then he was already in Rome. The decision to go to Rome had been made more difficult, as he did not know if he was being offered the position in Australia by the time he was due to go, and he did not want to forgo the opportunity of the scholarship. Sandra had also been ill and the doctor had advised against taking her to Italy, so he made the decision to go on his own for as long as possible, leaving Annis and Sandra in the United Kingdom. There was also the complication of the travelling scholarship he had received in July 1922, which caused some misunderstanding between Hoff and the RCA. On 12 January 1923, Hoff drew £25 from the Board of Education for this scholarship. At the time he signed a form that confirmed he did not hold any other scholarships, but he did – the Rome Scholarship – and the first instalment of that second scholarship had already been sent to him. With so much going on in his life it is certainly possible he misread the form, as he stated in a letter of explanation in April, but the board took a dim view of the situation and accused him of false pretence.8 Interestingly, the registrar at the RCA defended Hoff when questioned about the details and said that, although Hoff was unsure about when he could go to Rome, he believed ‘he was urged to go to Italy for a short time even if he could not remain for the whole period of the scholarship’.9 With Hoff in Rome and not able to defend himself, the case against him escalated and the possibility of prosecution was raised. The slow wheels of the justice system in England meant that he had left for Australia before the matter was resolved, with Sir Hugh Orange concluding that there was inadequate evidence to support a prosecution because: The evidence depends to a great extent upon a conversation that took place on 5th January as to the nature of which there is likely to be some disagreement. Apart from this any jury would be extremely unwilling to convict of fraud a brilliant artist at the outset of his career unless the

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evidence was of an overwhelming and conclusive nature. I am therefore to request Their Lordships’ authority not to send the case to the Public Prosecutor with a view to criminal proceedings.10

It seems a small matter in the scheme of things, but as a result Hoff was sent a letter to say that, if he could not offer a satisfactory explanation, the Board of Education would be unable to recognise him as a teacher in England and Wales for a period of two years.11 It was sent to his last address in England, Edge Hill in Banbury. If his parents ever sent it on to him, he would have been relieved that he had taken the post in Australia, and no doubt this unfortunate incident would have discouraged him from ever returning to England. While all this paperwork was flying back and forth, Hoff was trying to sort out his personal affairs. Just before he left for Rome, Annis and Sandra were able to move in with Annis’s two brothers, Oswald and Jack, who were living in Berners Street, Marylebone, which solved one of his problems. Jack took a photo of Hoff not long before he left (page 62). Although it is out of focus, this moody shot shows a rare profile of Hoff, with his thick dark hair longer than he normally wore it. Hoff took a photo of Jack on the same day (page 68). It is a lovely study of light and shadow, with Jack’s face turned downwards towards the pipe he holds in his hand. When Rayner Hoff set off for Rome on 22 January 1923 he was determined to see as much as he could in the short time he had. En route, he spent a few days in Paris. In 1923, Paris was a vibrant mecca for artists and writers, and Hoff spent most of his time visiting museums and galleries. Whether he met any of the artists working in that city is unknown, but he saw the work of contemporary sculptors, including Aristide Maillol and Constantin Brancusi, who completed his minimal work Bird in Space during 1923. Although Hoff’s training had been based on the academic formalism of the RCA, his students in Australia believed he was interested in nontraditional work, and had kept in touch with new trends in Europe.12 He possibly also saw the works of Matisse, Rodin, Picasso, Soutine and Man Ray that were exhibited in Paris in 1923. Hoff arrived at the British School at Rome (BSR) on 27 January, after travelling by train from Paris. The imposing building of the school had originally been designed by Edwin Lutyens as the British Pavilion for the

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Rayner Hoff, Jack Briggs, January 1923 Courtesy Robert Briggs

1911 International Exhibition. Foreign pavilions were erected in the area of the Valle Giulia, then a secluded and wooded area on a hill towards the north of the city. After the International Exhibition was over, it was decided that the British Pavilion should be adapted to construct a permanent institution for the BSR. Since this time, it has fulfilled its role as a national cultural centre for the study and practice of fine art, and the study of the archaeology, history and literature of Rome and Italy. The then director of the BSR, Thomas Ashby, had held the position since 1906 and seen the school move from its original site in the Palazzo Odescalchi, closer to the centre of Rome, to the Via Gramsci in 1916. When Hoff arrived, the conversion was largely completed. There were seven purpose-built studios in the northern wing, as well as an ever-expanding library, a tennis court and a shady courtyard (the Cornille) and a garden in the centre of the buildings. The sky-lit studios had large windows overlooking the rear garden, with sleeping lofts built above. The centre’s three studios had double doors opening onto the garden, and these were used by sculptors. No doubt Hoff was allocated one of these studios, as James Woodford would have been. Ashby had a reputation as an energetic and visionary leader. Hoff was immediately thrown in with a tight-knit group of like-minded people, as academic and author Andrew Wallace-Hadrill explained in his history of the school, ‘the mixture of artists and archaeologists flourished. The artists of the early 1920s were an extraordinarily rich crop, with Colin Gill, Winifred Knights, Tom Monnington and John Nixon, and even with Barbara Hepworth modestly tagging along as the wife of John Skeaping.’13 With meals and accommodation provided, Hoff had plenty of time to make use of the extensive and beautiful library at the BSR, and he spent most of his evenings between dark and dinner drawing from life at the British Academy in the centre of Rome. He attended the regular evening lectures at the BSR, and during the day he made studies of the works he visited in museums and churches.14 Another Rome Scholar in Sculpture who was living at the BSR was Alfred Hardiman, who had won the 1920 Rome Scholarship and had some major sculptures underway in his studio. He had studied at the Royal College of Art before Hoff, and also at the Royal Academy Schools in London.15

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A photograph shows Hardiman in his studio, working on his 2.13-metre sculpture Peace, which he later cast in bronze. The image also illustrates an interior of one of the studios, with the upper sleeping loft separated from the studio by a wooden handrail. It must have been a source of frustration for Hoff that he could not take advantage of this ideal opportunity to spend time working on large-scale sculptures, but he had other plans for the future. Hoff was able to visit Michelangelo’s tomb for Pope Julius II, and produced many intricate drawings and extensive notes about it. He also gained access to the Bibliotheca Hertziana for research. In the five weeks he stayed in Rome, he often explored Roman architecture with fellow student, archaeologist and classical scholar Paul Kenneth (PK) Baillie Reynolds and

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Alfred Hardiman in his studio at the British School at Rome, 1920 BSR Photographic Archive, BS Collection, bs-0030

collected hundreds of photographs for reference and some books.16 The BSR was located next to the National Gallery of Modern Art, and opposite the large gardens of the Villa Borghese. Hoff could walk through the gardens to the Piazza del Popolo, where he made drawings of the surrounding buildings, while sitting on the steps surrounding the Egyptian obelisk in the centre of the piazza. One ink drawing he brought to Australia of the church of Santa Maria di Montesanto shows his confident line, and he appears to capture the complex architecture with ease. For three weeks Hoff travelled extensively in Italy, visiting the new excavations at Pompeii, Siena, the Greek temples at Paestum, and spent a week sketching in the National Museum in Naples. Here he met a former Rome Scholar, the Australian architect William Hardy Wilson whom he later contacted in Sydney.17 Hoff particularly enjoyed Florence, and one outstanding watercolour of the Duomo has survived from this period (page 72). Hoff’s immaculate draughtsmanship is evident in this detailed but unsentimental view across the rooftops of Florence, drawn from the rooftop balcony of his pensione next to the river Arno. It was from the Pensione Rigatti that he wrote to the BSR London office on 23 March to inform them he would take the position in Sydney and resign the Prix de Rome on 15 April.18 He had heard that he had been offered the position in Australia a few days after he arrived in Rome in January, but no doubt left his resignation until the last minute. One can only speculate on what would have happened to Hoff’s artistic career if he had decided to stay on in Rome and return to England without accepting the post in Australia. The careers of his fellow students Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore certainly proved that it was possible to thrive as a sculptor in the United Kingdom, despite them both having to struggle throughout the years between the wars. Perhaps Hoff already knew of the trouble brewing and consequences likely over his acceptance of two concurrent scholarships the year before. In later years one of his students in Australia, Barbara Tribe, was still mystified as to why he made the decision to leave England: ‘When Hoff came out here I don’t think it was what he wanted. Something went wrong in the beginning. Why he came to Australia, God knows, because he had everything going [for] him – a brilliant student, equally as good as Jagger.’19

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Rayner Hoff, Florence, March 1923 Watercolour, 40 x 51 cm Courtesy Hoff family archive

Hoff was back in London by 5 April. On his way home, he had revisited some of Michelangelo’s drawings in Paris, and also went to Chartres Cathedral. He had spent only two months in Italy, but was obviously thrilled to see Annis and Sandra again, and excited by the prospect of setting up a sculpture department in the art school in Sydney. The family moved in with Hoff’s parents while they prepared for the trip. George and Elizabeth Hoff had moved from Cloister Cottage in Nottingham to Banbury near Oxford at the end of 1922 as George had work in the area. It appears that they lived at The Grange, Radway, as this was the address given by George on his daughter Amy’s wedding certificate in June 1924. The beautiful stone house was originally built in 1600, but extensively rebuilt by the architect Sanderson Miller in the early 18th century. It had been occupied by Douglas Haig before he became Commander in Chief on the Western Front of the Great War.

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Rayner Hoff, Atalanta, 1923 Plaster Photo: National Art School Archive

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Rayner Hoff, Mother and Child, 1923 Plaster, 35.5 x 19 x 19.5 cm Photo: National Art Archive, Art Gallery of New South Wales

The office of the BSR in London had asked to see examples of the work that Hoff had completed in Rome in February 1923 and, after viewing them, asked to keep two drawings as a record of his work. These drawings, and the relief Labour that he completed for the scholarship, are now lost, despite Hoff’s requests to have them sent to him in Australia in later years. James Woodford also requested to have his scholarship relief returned, and was informed that it was the property of the BSR. However, it was sent to him by the fine art agents James Bourlet & Sons Pty Ltd in February 1929, possibly on loan for an exhibition.20 Bourlet’s was responsible for storing the Rome Scholarship entries in their warehouse in London, and it is likely that Hoff’s winning work was also stored there. Fortunately two or three smaller sculptures by Hoff from the Rome Scholarship Open Examination competition have survived in Australia. One is Hercules, Achelous and Deianeira, and the bronze of this relief is now in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In fact, quite a few of Hoff’s works bear the date 1923 but it is hard to know if these were made in the United Kingdom or Australia. One beautiful small work, Atalanta, was made and cast in the United Kingdom before the move to Australia, as there is a photo of it in plaster before being cast in Jack Briggs’ photograph album, dated 1923 (page 73). A very personal work was made around this time. Mother and Child, created in 1923, is the only known portrait of Annis made by Hoff. It is an interesting reversal of the common mother and child theme, in that the mother is naked and the child is clothed. In later years Annis told her friend Nessie Stephens that she had posed for this artwork. This tender sculpture was made in the year of the greatest upheaval of their lives, and it is a record of Hoff’s love of his wife and child. When Rayner Hoff left England in 1923, it seems he was forgotten by the art world there. His move to Australia before making his major works meant that he was virtually unknown as an artist in the United Kingdom, with none of his works held on the Isle of Man where he was born, none in Nottingham where he studied, and none in London where he made some fine works as a student at the Royal College of Art. England’s loss was Australia’s gain, as he went on to influence the Australian art world in a profound way.

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8

The other side of the world Australia

Sandra and Rayner Hoff, London, May 1923 Courtesy Robert Briggs

Before the Hoff family left, Annis’s brother Jack Briggs was on hand to photograph the family. Jack’s photo albums and some of his negatives have survived and are still kept by his son in England. One remarkable photo of Rayner Hoff holding Sandra, probably taken in Berners Street, Marylebone, shows Sandra aged ten months waving farewell, with Hoff dressed in a three-piece suit, smiling proudly at her. His large sculptor’s hands and long fingers are seen clearly accentuated against the baby’s pale rug. The day before they sailed, Jack took some superb portrait shots of Rayner and Annis. This was the last time Jack would ever see Rayner, and it would be another four years before he would see his sister and niece again. These precious photographs became a way of recording the family who had left, a way of keeping them secure in the memories of their loved ones in England. The practicalities of the move to Australia were enormous. While any permanent move to another country involves the transportation of quite a few personal effects, it is hard to imagine what was needed for a sculptor to take. Hoff wanted his extensive library and many of his artworks to be transported with him, and he also called on Jack to help him photograph reference material in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Two weeks before leaving, Rayner and Jack applied for permission to ‘photograph in the Woodwork Galleries’.1 It is unknown exactly what items they photographed, but it’s very likely that Hoff was preparing for his new teaching post, knowing he would not have access to such material in Australia. Among the books he brought to Australia, there were dozens of 20 x 25-centimetre, black and white photographs of architecture, sculptures and interiors, still carefully labelled on the reverse and categorised into their countries of origin. Many were collected during Hoff’s travels in Italy, France and Germany. He supplemented these with more photos after he arrived in Australia. A series from the Paris Exposition of 1925 are also among his books, possibly given to him by new friends in Australia, Leslie Wilkinson and Ernest Wunderlich, both of whom visited the 1925 exhibition.2

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Hoff’s salary for his new job was £605 per annum, a huge increase on his Rome Scholarship of £250 pounds per annum. In his communications with the Board of Education in Australia, Hoff had also asked for the passage for himself and family to Australia to be paid, for a studio to be provided at the art school on his arrival and that he be given the freedom to accept outside commissions. These unusual conditions were granted, and the National Art Gallery of New South Wales’s agent, FG Lloyd, booked a passage for Annis and Rayner Hoff on the P&O liner SS Ballarat for 24 May 1923. Although the board had agreed to pay Annis’s fare as well as Hoff’s, they retracted and only paid for one fare (£150). The cost of this was more than double the average fare at the time, due to the many extra items Hoff brought with him to Australia. Because of the difficulties caused by the refusal to pay Annis’s fare, it was agreed that Hoff’s salary would be paid to him from the date of embarkation.3 Rayner, Annis and Sandra left for Australia on the 13,300-ton ship with 967 other passengers, most of whom were tradespeople and migrants on their way to a country so many miles from their homes. Even before they had left England, an article appeared in Perth’s daily newspaper with a list of new settlers who would be arriving in July, so that Australian citizens requiring domestic and farm workers could apply to the New Settlers’ League before their arrival.4 The passenger list indicated the wide range of professions represented onboard: there were wool buyers, metalworkers, farmers, blacksmiths, housekeepers, milliners, miners and clergymen, but only one sculptor. It took five weeks to sail from London to Fremantle via Cape Town and, although they encountered stormy weather soon after leaving South Africa, the rest of the trip appears to have been calm. The welfare superintendent on board, Captain Thompson, described the food, accommodation and social life on board as excellent and said he had been on all sorts of immigrant ships, but had never seen such quantities of food allowed the people as on the Ballarat.5 On arrival a street photographer took a picture from the pier of the passengers on deck. Hoff and Sandra, aged 11 months and sporting a white hat, can be seen on the right-hand side of the image. Sent back to the family in England, the reassuring message reads, ‘Happy and well on SS Ballarat at Fremantle, West. Aust. 4.7.1923’.6

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Postcard from Fremantle, July 1923

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In Fremantle, 222 government migrants disembarked and were given a welcoming concert and dance at the Caledonian Hall, with musicians drawn from the passengers and ship’s company.7 This pattern continued in Adelaide and Melbourne until the Hoff family finally arrived in Sydney on Monday, 23 July, after the last leg of their journey. The sight of the sparkling harbour in Sydney in winter 1923 must have relieved the family’s anxieties about their decision to immigrate. Sailing through the sandstone cliffs of Sydney Heads is an uplifting feeling at any time, but for the Hoffs, arriving in a strange country where they had decided to make new lives, the excitement must have been palpable. The population of the city was just over 1 million, and although it had been progressively expanding since white settlement 135 years before, Sydney was then relatively low-rise (pages 82–83). One of the tallest buildings in the city was the Australia Hotel, at just ten storeys high.8 Artist Lloyd Rees described his first impressions of Sydney when he arrived from Brisbane a few years earlier: From the harbour, city towers dominated the skyline – St Mary’s Cathedral, the Queen Victoria Building dome, the Town Hall, post office, and near the Quay the Lands Office Tower, still to me one of the most beautiful in Australia … I think my first impression on entering the city proper was of its beautiful brown tone and its sense of enclosure. Most buildings in the area between Martin Place and the Quay were of beautiful Sydney sandstone, and in Italian and French Renaissance styles.9

In 1923, there was no Harbour Bridge and no Opera House. Circular Quay was full of warehouses and shipping companies, and the future site of the Opera House was occupied by the Fort Bennelong Tram Terminus. Plans for a bridge to cross the harbour were underway, but when the Hoffs arrived the only way to reach the north shore was via a ferry service, or a long road trip to the Gladesville Bridge, which had opened in 1881. Vehicular ferries also carried horse-drawn passenger and freight vehicles across the harbour, and the cars and trucks that were becoming more common in the early 1920s. The port of the city was a hive of activity, but the dominant modes of transport were the electric tram and train lines, and underground railway excavations had begun in the city in February 1922.

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Culturally, the interwar years were bleak. The Archibald Prize had just been awarded for the first time in 1921 – William McInnes won it for his portrait of H Desbrowe Annear. Artists had difficulty making a living from their work, and many were employed by graphic art studios like Smith and Julius, and by newspapers and magazines requiring illustrations, such as The Bulletin. The Hoff family didn’t have long to find somewhere to live and settle in. As he had effectively started his job in May, Hoff was expected at the art school as soon as possible and was given a warm welcome on Wednesday 25 July, two days after they arrived, by the Minister for Education, the president and director of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales and architects BJ Waterhouse and Professor Leslie Wilkinson. Mr SH Smith, Director of Education, outlined Hoff’s achievements to date, and the Sydney Morning Herald described the event and Hoff’s reaction to it below: Architects, artists, and educationists assembled at the East Sydney Technical College yesterday afternoon to welcome Mr. G. Rayner Hoff, A.R.C.A., who has been selected to take up the position of instructor in sculpture and modelling in the applied art department of the college ... Mr. Victor Mann, director of the National Art Gallery, said he had received a letter from Mr. Bertram Mackennal, the famous Australian sculptor in England, in which he expressed his pleasure at the news of the appointment of Mr. Hoff ... In the course of a brief, modest reply Mr. Hoff said that he and his wife were quite embarrassed by the heartiness of their greeting. He thought the British School of Sculpture was the finest in the world. It could not be long before Australia was better represented in that branch of art to which he belonged.10

This article was the first of many hundreds dedicated to Hoff’s art and life over the next 14 years in his newly adopted country.

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EW Searle, Sydney – Circular Quay, c1920 National Library of Australia

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On the beach Family life

Sandra, Rayner and Tom, Coogee Beach, c1925

Hoff revelled in the sunny, warm climate of Sydney and was a keen surfer and swimmer. His close family life, and love of the Australian beaches and climate can be seen in the many family photos from his personal albums. They show a relaxed and happy man, assured of his future in a new country. Many of these shots were sent back to the family in England, and must have been some recompense for the now almost impossible distance between them. For a short while they lived opposite the beach but by 1925 they had moved to a flat in Smithfield Grange, a magnificent Italianate mansion at Brook Street, Coogee.1 This grand house, built by the famous soft drink manufacturer John Starkey in 1883, is still much the same as it was in the 1920s, complete with tessellated tiles, etched glass, and friezes of birds and classical portraits in the hallway. The small flat at the back of the house, where the Hoffs lived for approximately two years, is still there, with views across the park behind the house. Annis and Sandra had long days to fill when Hoff was working extended hours in his new position. Annis did intend to continue her career as an artist in Sydney, and she exhibited work in the Society of Artists exhibition in 1924. There is a mention of her work in Country Life: ‘Annis M. Hoff shows some clever child studies.’2 She was still an excellent draughtswoman, and her illustrations for children’s books done during the war also show her subtle approach to watercolour. Although it appears that Annis was keen to continue working in Australia, according to her friends and children, she did not pursue her career as an artist after this. She did, however, work with Hoff at times, often colouring his sketches for him. Their daughter Sandra later remembered seeing Annis at home working on Hoff’s drawings with watercolour when he was busy. She believed that Annis was a better colourist than Hoff, no doubt due to her many years studying design and illustration.3 The family grew when, a year after their arrival in Australia, Rayner’s

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Annis, Rayner and Sandra, Sydney, c1924

brother Tom also decided to move to Australia, and he lived with them for two years in Coogee.4 This decision would have been difficult, and George and Elizabeth must have felt the loss of their two eldest sons sorely. Later, his wife Be discussed the move: He was a delicate child, and had TB. Before the war, Tom studied engineering at Hemsleys in England. He joined the Artists’ Rifles during the war, and saw more fighting than Rayner did. Tom studied at Nottingham School of Art, where he took a crash course in modelling and casting so he could come to Australia and help Rayner. He was an excellent model maker. Tom and Rayner never went back to the UK after they moved to Australia. They both loved it here.5

It appears that Tom had been at a bit of a loss after the war, particularly after Rayner left for London in 1920. Amy Hoff’s daughter Margaret Riley recalled that when her Uncle Tom came back from the war he got in with a bad lot, getting into ‘scrapes’ in Nottingham. She believed that her grandmother Elizabeth sent him to Australia to join Rayner and get away from these problems.6 Tom thrived in Australia, working with Hoff at the art school and enjoying a close family life with Annis, Rayner and Sandra as well. There are many casual beach photographs showing Tom, Rayner and Sandra. In one the brothers are wearing one-piece bathing costumes, smoking and laughing on a sunny weekend at the beach (page 84). The contrast with the intense and posed photographs that Jack Briggs took of Hoff in London is evident, and this is one of the few photographs where we can see him really happy and totally enjoying himself. Hoff did not drive, and so he caught the electric tram to the art school in Darlinghurst each day, a journey that went via Darley Road in Randwick and took about half an hour. There was a tram stop right outside the art school in Burton Street, and it terminated on a looped line in Dolphin Street, Coogee Beach, very close to where the Hoffs were living. Despite Hoff not having a licence or owning a car, the family managed to have quite a few trips to the countryside, exploring their new country with friends, and usually a driver. Hoff’s student Treasure Conlon recalled that Hoff had a part-time ‘roustabout’, Bill Lanigan, working with him in the studio, who would also work as Hoff’s chauffeur when needed.7 During the 1920s, the car became a

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Diane and George Bunting with Nereida Hoff, Bondi Beach, c1932

feature of everyday life for a large proportion of the population for the first time. In 1920 there was one car for every 55 people in Australia; by 1929 this had increased to one for every 11.8 With improvements in design and the opening of the Holden and Ford plants in Australia, car prices dropped to half what they had been in 1920, but the average car still cost between £200 and £600 to buy.9 One of the first excursions the Hoff family went on was to a guesthouse called Winbourne at Mulgoa, about 30 kilometres from Sydney. This gracious Georgian house was built by George Cox in 1824. In 1914 it was converted to a guesthouse but tragically it burned down in August 1920. The then owner, Tom Campbell, keen to continue his successful business, converted the two-storey stone stables, built by William Wardell in 1881, into a beautiful guesthouse. There is a series of photographs taken on this trip – not by Annis, as she is in the photos – with notes on the reverse of the shots that are frustratingly enigmatic. The first one, a group photo taken next to a Buick, the guesthouse service car, says, ‘We, us and co, Winbourne’. So sadly we don’t know the identity of the three women standing with Annis, Rayner and Sandra, or who took the photograph, but the chauffeur employed by Tom Campbell to pick up guests from the railway station, Bob Fincher, is seen, resplendent in his

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Family trip to Winbourne, c1925

hat, dustcoat and long leather boots.10 Sandra is about three, so it is possible that the date is winter 1925. It’s a sunny day, and Sandra and Annis have been picking flowers or ferns. Rayner smiles obligingly for the photographer, who may have been Tom Hoff, while Annis, as usual, looks away. Part of a building can be seen in the background, perhaps in the grounds of Winbourne. A photograph of Rayner and Sandra was taken around 1926 by one of Hoff’s colleagues at the art school, commercial art teacher Edgar C Walters. Known as ‘Pop’ Walters, he was a keen photographer and watercolourist and students remember him photographing in Hoff’s studio. The shot is a lovely gentle study of father and daughter, showing Sandra holding a doll, with her arm around Rayner’s neck (page 90). When Tom Hoff was working at the art school with Rayner he met his future wife, the model Rosamund Beatrice (Elizabeth) Williams, known as Be (pronounced ‘Bay’). She was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, but

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EC Walters, Sandra and Rayner, c1926 National Art School Archives

her family moved to Sydney when her mother was offered a job as secretary to politician Billy Hughes, who had been prime minister. Be recalled that she met Tom Hoff on a blind date when she was going out with Hoff’s student Victoria Cowdroy and her partner George Bunting. No doubt she would also have seen Tom working at the art school with Hoff. Eleven years Tom’s junior, Be was 19 when they married in March 1926. They moved to Kings Cross, but Tom would often forget this, automatically catching the tram back from the art school to Coogee, where he had lived with Rayner and Annis. He’d get halfway there and have to come back. It was expected that women would stop working after they were married, but Be was asked to return to the art school so some of the students could finish their sculptures of her. She finally left after another teacher, Edward Smith, complained that Hoff was employing his sister-in-law.11 Be did continue to model after she left the tech at other art schools in Sydney, such as JS Watkins, Julian Ashton’s and the Society of Women Painters. In 1926 Lawson Balfour painted her for the Archibald Prize. The painting, called A Spanish Girl, was later bought by the Art Gallery of New South Wales for their collection (page 92). This beautiful portrait gives a glimpse of Be’s sultry beauty. By 1927, the Hoff family was starting to save some money. Hoff’s salary, which had risen slightly to £613 per year, was more than adequate to give them a comfortable lifestyle, and he was also earning an extra income from commissions. Annis was missing her family in England, so it was decided that she would return for a visit with Sandra. It is fairly likely that the Briggs family paid her fare, which at approximately £80 return for Annis alone would have been a fair chunk of Hoff’s annual salary. It must have been tempting for him to accompany them, but impossible due to his huge commitments in Australia. Not only was he reorganising the art school and running the painting and sculpture departments, he was also working on a design for the City Masonic Lodge and had started a large commission for the war memorial sculptures for Adelaide. Annis, at age 34, and Sandra, aged four, set off on the Esperance Bay in March 1927. When they arrived in Hull on 25 May, they had just missed Annis’s brother Oswald’s wedding to Marjorie Valentine in Hampstead, Middlesex, in March. But they enjoyed six months of visiting family and

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Lawson Balfour, A Spanish Girl, 1926 Oil on canvas, 83.8 x 63.8 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales Photo: AGNSW © Estate of the artist

friends, and staying with Annis’s parents George and Ellen at Ash Ridge in Sutton-in-Ashfield. The reunion with their daughter and their only grandchild must have been wonderful and heart wrenching, especially as they might have felt this would be the last time they would see them. Although they were to have three more grandchildren in later years, George died in 1936 before they were all born, and Ellen died in 1939, only a year after Annis’s brother Jack’s first son was born. Annis spread the news in Nottingham about Hoff’s success in Australia. She spoke to Hoff’s former friend at the Nottingham School of Art, Robert Francis Wilson, who wrote an enthusiastic appraisal of Rayner’s career in Australia in the Nottingham Guardian: I had the good fortune to receive news of a friend who lived in Nottingham for twenty years, afterwards going to Australia, and there making history in the world of art. I refer to Mr Rayner Hoff, whose wife is paying a visit to her home in Sutton-in-Ashfield, accompanied by her daughter Sandra, and it was from Mrs Hoff that I heard of Rayner’s life since leaving England … of Hoff very little has been heard, and so I hope an account of his work overseas will be of interest to readers.12

Annis must have brought Australian press clippings with her, as Wilson then went on to quote from them to demonstrate Hoff’s standing in Australia, concluding, ‘Many miles away the tradition of the Nottingham School of Sculpture, founded by Mr Else, is influencing the art of another country through Mr Rayner Hoff.’13 No doubt the Royal College of Art would also have taken some credit for Hoff’s success if they had known about it. Hoff did keep a tab on his fellow students’ careers, and his scrapbook contains many clippings that document the exhibitions and commissions of his former colleagues.14 Sandra celebrated her fifth birthday in Nottingham in July 1927. It is unusual that Annis did not appear to take many photos of her own family on this trip but there are quite a few beautiful photographs of Elizabeth and George Hoff in the Hoff archive from around this time, so it is probable that Annis saw Rayner’s parents and his siblings Sydney, Dorrie and Amy. Annis and Sandra spent Christmas and New Year in Sutton-in-Ashfield and left London on 10 January 1928. During most of the nine months they were away, Hoff had remained at Smithfield Grange but, in January 1928,

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he moved to a flat at Alison Road, Coogee. It’s hard to know if they lived separately for some of 1928, with Annis and Sandra listed as living in Brook Street, but by the end of the year they had decided to buy their own house in the eastern suburbs and Annis was pregnant with their second daughter. Only five years after his arrival, Hoff was in the enviable position of being able to buy a house in Sydney. The house that Rayner and Annis chose was on an isolated headland between Bondi and Tamarama, now called Marks Park. In 1928 it was a public reserve, a scrubby spot with breathtaking views over the Tasman Sea.15 The area behind the headland had been used by the Scottish-born Mackenzie family as a dairy farm for Waverley Dairy for 60 years, and they had started subdividing it for sale in 1919. The plot that the Hoffs bought (Lot 22) was first sold at an auction of Mackenzie’s Ocean Estate No. 2 in February 1921, and a two-bedroom brick cottage had been built on it by WE Robinson in 1924. The subdivision can be seen clearly in an advertisement for the auction in 1921, which also shows its proximity to Bondi Beach and Fletcher Street, where the tram stop was. Post-war land sales such as this estate were reaching boom proportions by the mid 1920s in the eastern suburbs, and the population of the area had grown by 43 per cent between 1920 and 1929.16 The majority of the dwellings in the area were flats. This would be the first time the Hoffs had lived in a whole house by themselves since they arrived in Australia. There was at least one other owner of Lot 22 before the Hoffs bought the house in 1928.17 In this year the property was valued at £1400, more than twice Hoff’s annual salary. There has been some confusion regarding the numbering of the house in Kenneth Street, as Lot 22 became number 27, but changed to 25 before 1937, and then changed again to 23 in the 1950s. The simplest way to locate the site is to find the second last house on the southern side of the street, now 23 Kenneth Street. It was originally called Rosamond. No doubt the Hoffs were drawn to this house due to its unique position, perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking Tamarama Bay. The surrounding beaches, large block of land, and proximity to the Bondi tramline would have also been contributing factors in their decision. In 1928 the land went right down to the edge of the sea, and measured 12.2 x 67 metres, but by 1935,

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the land at the back had been reclaimed to make a pathway along the clifftop for the public, and the block was shortened to 44.7 metres. Despite its beautiful outlook, the brick and tile cottage was a modest building, described as a Californian Bungalow, a style popular in Australia in the 1920s. The steep block meant that the street entrance level contained all the living areas, with two bedrooms, a small dining room, lounge room and an enclosed verandah overlooking the sea. This verandah had an external staircase that led to the garden and a large laundry and covered area under the house. This doubled as a workshop and storage area for sculptures that weren’t in Hoff’s studio at the art school. During the height of Hoff’s fame as a sculptor, the cottage was featured in an article in the Australian Home Beautiful magazine in August 1934, with photographs by Harold Cazneaux showing the sunroom with views across the sea. The family had been living in Kenneth Street for under a year when Nereida Rayner Hoff was born in June 1929. She was seven years younger than her sister Sandra and, although what was then called a ‘sickly child’, she had a cheeky personality and was a delight to the family. Be Hoff recalled that she was very delicate as a child, and had to be reared on goat’s milk. She and Tom had a motorbike, and Tom managed to locate a milking goat at a farm in Gladesville. It’s a shame that Annis was not there to photograph Tom bringing the goat back to Bondi through peak hour traffic, with the goat in the sidecar of his bike.18 Annis did photograph Rayner with his two girls many times later. One shows Rayner with Sandra in front of him and Nereida on his shoulders, standing in a river in the countryside (page 96). Taken in Camden in summer 1930, Nereida is tiny, but happy, and it’s possible to see the reason that Hoff called her ‘The Starveling’ in the portrait he made of her in 1929–30. He had also made a portrait of Sandra as a child in 1923 – both are touching works, and show his closeness to his children. Most Sundays were spent on the beach with friends and family. Annis became close friends with Hoff’s former student Victoria (Vicky) Cowdroy, who had a daughter Diane (pronounced ‘Deeane’), born a few months after Nereida. Vicky and her husband George Bunting lived in Castlefield Street, Bondi, not far from Kenneth Street, and Diane and Nereida became best friends. There is a lovely series of photos of them together with their

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Nereida, Rayner and Sandra, Camden, 1930

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mothers taken on Bondi Beach, and also later ones of George with the girls making sandcastles (page 88). With no television, entertainment consisted of playing music on the radio, gramophone or piano, or inviting friends over for meals.19 Visitors included members of Norman Lindsay’s family, Tom and Be and numerous other students and colleagues. Diane remembers the many nights that she stayed at the Hoff house when her parents were there having dinner: I spent a lot of time there under the dining table, listening to the adults. They were all there eating, drinking wine and playing music. I’d be half asleep as a child. There was a couch in an alcove along the windows that looked out towards the sea – there were curtains that could be drawn across. Being in that bed at night with the sound of the Bondi surf all the time – the music, the voices in the background – it was a wonderful atmosphere.20

As Diane was an only child, she valued her friendship with Nereida, and remembers going to the art school to visit Rayner and her mother Vicky while they were working there. She often played with Nereida in the ‘whiteness’ of the plaster room. Hoff loved the children and included them as much as he could in his busy life. Diane remembers him as ‘a darling man, who treated me kindly when I was a kid … he was quite impressive looking with his moustachio and suntanned skin’.21 In later years she became more aware of his strong personality, wit, and knowledge of music and poetry, which led to his close association with a small group of bohemian writers and artists in Sydney such as Hugh McCrae, Douglas Stewart and Ronald McQuaig. Following on from the Briggs family traditions in England, it appears that the Hoff family employed a maid or nanny not long after Nereida’s birth. Family photographs show Nereida in the garden at Bondi with ‘Cilla’ wearing an apron. Hoff also employed a masseur, Jack Gallagher, who had rooms in Bourke Street, Darlinghurst, but visited Hoff at his house twice a week. Gallagher was in the newspapers in February 1935 after having an altercation with the Hoffs’ neighbour, Frederick Hunter, during which Hunter allegedly threatened him with a gun. A slightly melodramatic account of this incident was described in the Truth newspaper, which also implied that Gallagher had been using Hoff’s phone for illegal betting.22

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Tom, Sandra and Rayner at Coogee Beach, c1924

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The Hoffs’ lifestyle was in strong contrast to the rest of the population. Rayner’s salary was almost three times the average annual male earnings of £267 in 1929. Hundreds of people suffered badly during the Great Depression of the 1930s with many experiencing years of high unemployment, resulting in plunging incomes and poverty, as well as lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement. Unemployment reached a record high of around 30 per cent in Sydney in 1932. Camps, tents and shacks for the homeless grew around La Perouse, Rockdale and Brighton-le-Sands. In Waverley the local council attempted to create relief work by spending money on projects such as the ‘marine drive’ and the Spanish Revival–style Bondi Pavilion in 1930. When it opened in 1932, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, planned well before the Depression, became a symbol that a return to prosperity was possible.23 Despite the rapid shut-down of most building construction that was to occur during the Depression in the 1930s, Hoff would be able to continue work on his major project of the sculptures for the Anzac War Memorial, and employ at least eight assistants to work with him in his studio. By the time Hoff started this work, his brother Tom had left the studio. He and his wife Be ‘went bush’ for a while, and by 1931 Tom had a full-time job working as a window dresser and designer at Farmers and Company, on the corner of Pitt and Market streets. The big department stores were highly competitive and attracted customers through their mail order services and elaborate window displays. Tom’s excellent modelling and casting skills were put to use making large models for the Spring and Christmas shows. Be remembered one huge model of the Arc de Triomphe, and Tom was also heavily involved in making models for the 1938 celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet in Australia.24 Both David Jones and Farmers stores boasted art galleries with a more contemporary focus than the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, while also promoting modernity in interior design and fashion.25 They employed artists and designers to work in their advertising and modelmaking departments, many of whom had trained at East Sydney Technical College. Artist Douglas Dundas and designer Douglas Annand were employed by Farmers, as were many of Hoff’s students. Rita Bloomfield used skills learned with Hoff to make some large models for the popular

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department store, as can be seen in a photograph of her working on an Egyptian figure in the Farmers workshop (page 102). Tom Hoff worked at Farmers for at least ten years, until he and Be moved to Nowra in the late 1940s. In June 1935 Tom and Rayner Hoff received the sad news that their mother Elizabeth had died at the age of 66 in Nottingham. Rayner had not seen her for 12 years, and felt the loss deeply. He had always felt close family ties with those left in England – his family was an important part of his life. Even with his excess workload throughout 1935 and 1936, Hoff continued to make time to spend with his family in Australia. He made a point of taking a few weeks break in the summer holidays in January each year. A letter he sent to his former student, Eileen McGrath, in England in 1936 shows how close he was to his children: The family are growing up. Sandra is much taller than her mother and almost as tall as myself, with the hell of a lot of weight and cheek, big breasted and powerful. Last summer I could beat her over 50 yards swimming, but not under. Probably this year I shall not be able to beat her at any distance. Nereida has grown lanky, but is still quaint – quite different from what she used to be but still a remarkable personality, that is, her funniness has changed in character.26

During a holiday to the Barrier Reef in September 1937 he wrote again to Eileen McGrath, just as he was about to start work on the Canberra Memorial to George V. In a poignant letter, he sounds full of hope and ambition for the future: There is a great busyness here just now with the Sesquicentenary celebrations next year. I am doing a gold medal which has yet to be approved by the committee … and I may start work on the Canberra Memorial at any moment. Recently I had a month’s good holiday, on the Barrier Reef, with Annis and Sandra. We swam and fished a great deal; Annis, however, was the champion fisherman, hauling them in hand over fist. One night there was a fancy dress dance, and I caused a sensation in the character of Britannia, in a blanket and swimming helmet, with a fish-spear as trident. You can picture my magnificence.27

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Rita Bloomfield, Farmers department store workshop Courtesy Grounds family

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Sandra and Nereida, June 1936

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10

Shaping the future The National Art School

Harold Cazneaux, Rayner Hoff at East Sydney Technical College, 1924 Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

One of the reasons that Hoff was so busy in his 14 years in Australia was because of the major role he played in the development of the art school where he was employed. When he arrived in July 1923, Hoff began work at one of the oldest art schools in Australia, which already had many links to the academies of Europe where he had studied. The development of the art school can be traced back to the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts, founded in 1833, where the first lecture on the principles of drawing by John Skinner Prout took place in 1843. The aim of this institution was to further the education of working men through public lectures and classes, and to establish a library. The first School of Arts was built at 275 Pitt Street in 1836. Crucial to the development of the art department was Frenchman Lucien Henry, who had trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He brought many elements of that curriculum to Sydney, where he taught freehand drawing, design and modelling. Henry had been active in the political clubs and bohemian culture of the left bank in Paris. An ardent republican, he became a leader of the Paris Commune during the bloody months of 1871. Referred to as ‘le Colonel’, at 21 years of age he faced death by firing squad but his sentence was later commuted to exile on the French penal colony of New Caledonia, along with 4000 other Communards. French sculptor AiméJules Dalou, who had been responsible for the development of the Sculpture School at the RCA in London before Hoff studied there, was also a refugee from the Paris Commune. An unexpected result of the exile of these artists was the dissemination of knowledge gained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts to far-flung parts of the world. In 1879 Henry was granted amnesty, left New Caledonia and headed for Sydney, where he married Frenchwoman Juliette Lebeau and rapidly came to prominence as an educator and artist. In 1883 he was appointed as the first lecturer in art at Sydney Technical College at the School of Arts. Like Rayner Hoff 40 years later, Henry established his own studio at the school.

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Lucien Henry in his studio in Pitt Street, c1890 Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney

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A photograph of Henry working in his floodlit studio in the School of Arts building in Pitt Street was taken in about 1890 (pages 106–107). Surrounded by plaster casts (including one of Michelangelo’s Titus), teaching aids, bentwood chairs and makeshift furniture, the photo gives us a rare glimpse into an artist’s studio in Sydney in the late 19th century. Henry was impressed with the flora and fauna of Australia and appalled that Australians clung to European motifs rather than appreciating the indigenous beauty of the country. This was an opinion shared by Hoff, who chose to use local flora, including banksias and flannel flowers, to flank his relief on the City Mutual Life Assurance building in Bligh Street, Sydney, in 1936. Henry’s major work in Sydney was the stained-glass windows in the Sydney Town Hall, which are still in place on the staircases today. As well, he painted portraits and landscapes, designed medallions and wrote and illustrated a book in 1889 using Australian motifs. Failing to find a printer for the book, after 12 years in Sydney he left his wife and travelled back to France with one of his students, Fanny Broadhurst, in order to find a publisher. Sadly, Fanny died in France after giving birth to their son, Harry Andre, and by 1894 Henry had still not been able to secure a publisher, and was declared bankrupt. Lucien Henry died in France in 1896 of a consumptive illness he had contracted in New Caledonia in 1896, aged only 45. His four-year-old son remained in the care of a friend in France, and later helped return Henry’s designs to Sydney, where they finally entered the Technological Museum at Sydney Technical College in 1911.1 Artist George Aurousseau, who had trained under Henry, was still teaching at East Sydney Technical College when Hoff arrived in 1923. In 1873, the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts established a Technical and Working Men’s College, which was absorbed by the governmentappointed Board of Technical Education in 1883. Renamed Sydney Technical College, it moved from Pitt Street to new premises in Mary Ann Street, Ultimo, in 1892. Its main Romanesque Revival–style building was designed by William E Kemp, architect for the Department of Public Instruction. It featured intricate carvings, a vaulted ceiling on the top floor and several stained-glass windows. Lucien Henry’s former student and teaching assistant, Gregory Macintosh, designed and executed the naturalistic

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Australian flora and fauna carvings on the buildings.2 The art department occupied the top floor of the building. In 1898, the art course was offered in morning, afternoon and evening classes. This meant that students would study up to 38 hours per week, including Saturday mornings. There was a strong emphasis on drawing, and the intensive training meant the quality of work produced was high. With the popularity of the courses, and the influx of repatriation trainees after the First World War, Sydney Technical College expanded and began to look for another site close to the city to accommodate the extra demand. James Nangle, Superintendent of Technical Education, and Thomas Mutch, Minister for Public Instruction, lobbied in 1919 for the old Darlinghurst Gaol buildings to be used as an annexe of Sydney Technical College. Built of sandstone on a hill overlooking Sydney, it had been the principal gaol in Sydney from 1841 to 1914. After it closed, there were many suggestions about what to do with the site. Eventually it was used as a military detention camp during the First World War, and in October 1920 it was decided to convert the buildings, by then derelict, into an educational institution. This inspired decision saved the buildings, creating a unique creative environment that would have a remarkable effect on the students who would study at the art school. Adapting the complex into an educational institution was an enormous task. Some of the internal sandstone walls and all of the cells needed to be removed, windows enlarged and, in some cases, internal structures of the wings completely renovated to convert three levels into two. The resulting spaces were enormous, bathed in light and ideal for art studios. The excess stone was sold and some was given to Sydney University for its ongoing building program. A public auction was held on site to dispose of materials taken from the buildings, including cedar doors, grates, casement frames and marble mantels. By January 1922, the site was ready. A number of departments from the Sydney Technical College moved to Darlinghurst, such as Women’s Handicrafts, the Sanitation and Hygiene school, the Sheep and Wool school and the Domestic Science school, along with the Department of Elementary and Applied Art. The campus was named East Sydney Technical College (ESTC) and the art department originally occupied only five buildings on the

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site. ESTC remained an annexe of Sydney Technical College until 1955. The art department needed a name to distinguish it from the other courses. Soon after his arrival, Rayner Hoff suggested the ‘National Art School’, but there is some debate over where the name originated. Hoff had studied at the Royal College of Art, formerly called the National Art Training School, so he was familiar with the concept, as were many other institutions in Australia. What is now the Art Gallery of New South Wales was originally called the National Art Gallery of New South Wales. The National Gallery School in Melbourne, founded in 1867 and associated with the National Gallery of Victoria, was called the Melbourne National Art School by William Moore in his book The Story of Australian A rt in 1934.3 As The Australian’s art critic Christopher Allen writes: There are a number of institutions in Australia – like the National Gallery of Victoria itself – that call themselves ‘National’ in a way that must appear incongruous to foreigners, but the title is justified by the fact that they were founded before Federation; to use the term in the 1930s, however, was to make a clear and rather provocative claim to national pre-eminence.4

It is possible that Hoff suggested the name change to provoke discussion. He certainly had the confidence to claim the national importance of the art school where he taught, and his students believed he was responsible for the name. Student Nessie Stephen stated emphatically that ‘Hoff had the idea of founding a National Art School’.5 The new name was first mentioned in a public document in December 1926 in the catalogue for an Exhibition of Art by the students of East Sydney Technical College held at the Department of Education gallery in Loftus Street in Sydney, only three years after Hoff’s arrival. This was the first public exhibition of art by students of ESTC. The name was also used for the Students’ Club in the 1920s, which was formed before 1928.6 The name was common enough to be used as part of the design for a badge for students in 1928. Former student Ted Howell recalled that intermediate art teacher Robert Carswell had ‘designed an attractive palette-shaped badge’ that was available to members of the National Art Students’ Club.7 In 1935 and 1936, the department was first listed as the National Art School in the official handbooks, but the name was dropped at the end of the decade and

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not used in handbooks again until 1956. After this date it was again known as the National Art School but most students referred to the art school as the ‘Tech’, or ‘East Sydney Tech’. In 1996, when the Art School finally detached itself from the Department of Technical Education and gained its independence, it was formally called the National Art School (NAS). By the time Hoff and Lecturer in Charge of the art department Samuel Rowe had introduced a full-time diploma course in 1926, there were 80 students enrolled in the fine art course, and the art department was gaining a reputation as the most comprehensive art course in Sydney. Students had to sit for a rigorous entrance test if they wanted one of the prized places. For the drawing entrance test in the first year they had to submit a figure composition drawing, three drawings of the nude from life, and six other drawings or paintings. The test ran over two days and involved one drawing of the nude from life, and one drawing of the head from life, full size. Sculptors also had to work in clay and copy a bust from the antique. The course offered in the late 1920s involved a one-year introductory course, a one-year intermediate course, and then a diploma course of three to four years, in which the students specialised in one of four departments: drawing, painting, sculpture or design. There was an obvious predominance of female students, and they often enrolled at the age of 15 or 16 years. Students could leave after the first or second year with a certificate, but if they wanted to finish the diploma they had to sit for another entrance test in the discipline they wanted to study. Sculpture in Australia at the time had been at a low point since the First World War, particularly as there were few commissions available. Many sculptors, such as Bertram Mackennal, Charles Web Gilbert, George Lambert and Daphne Mayo, chose to work overseas. They all proved that it was possible to succeed in Europe; indeed, Daphne Mayo became the first woman to receive a gold medal in sculpture from the Royal Academy in London on 20 December 1923. But, as Deborah Edwards has noted: As the decade [1920s] progressed, more opportunities were provided for Australian sculptors, particularly in the area of war memorial work. Post-war reconstruction in Europe assisted a revitalised architect– sculptor collaboration whose principles entered Australia late in the decade and were seen particularly in the collaborations between Art

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Deco architects Bruce Dellit and Emil Soderson with Hoff and his students.8

With Hoff’s energetic input, the sculpture department soon became one of the strongest departments at the NAS. Before his arrival in July 1923, there was no dedicated sculpture department at the technical college. The subject had been part of a two-year course established by Henry in the 1880s and intended primarily for tradesmen modellers, masons and plasterers rather than fine artists. Hoff’s arrival and his innovative changes to the course represented a major step forward in sculpture instruction in Australia. His first job was to set up the studios and find a space for his own private studio. Hoff had seen and worked on many ancient buildings in the United Kingdom, but the unique conversion of Darlinghurst Gaol must have been quite an eye-opener for him. With the building works almost completed, the site was full of possibilities. The original circular chapel with its solid cedar ceiling at the hub of the site was still intact, and the mezzanine level that was originally used by women prisoners was also in place. The old cell wings with slate roofs and rounded ends were built to radiate out from the chapel in the shape of a panopticon. With the 6.7-metre-high sandstone walls enclosing the site, it felt like an oasis in the middle of the city, and it didn’t take long for Hoff to take full advantage of the opportunity to convert more of the buildings into studios. In 1923, the sculpture department was confined to what is now Building 26. This three-storey building was formerly the cookhouse, engine house and schoolroom of the gaol, and proved a difficult site for sculpture studios due to the narrow central staircase, which was the only access to the upper floors. Even so, the rooms had massive wooden trussed ceilings and made excellent studios that were light and airy to work in. A winch was employed in the staircase to lift heavy objects. The largest building on the site was the old manufacturing wing, now Building 11. It was the last building to be completed in the conversion, and it ran 110 metres along the length of the eastern wall next to Darlinghurst Road, with a 7-metre gap between the building and the outside wall. In 1923 a 9.14-metre section in the southern end of this area was covered to provide Hoff’s private studio, then called ‘Studio 7’. It had two timber walls with

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Building 26, c1923 National Art School Archive

doors and windows, and beams with rods and bracing were added to form trusses. Because it had solid sandstone walls on both sides, an asbestos roof was built with skylights, and the large double doors on the southern end of the studio opened onto a courtyard where a brick clay pit was constructed. The studio was eventually extended to 30 metres, with space for Hoff and his students to work on large public commissions. An office, where accounts could be settled and commissions arranged without him having to leave the studio, was built into the space. Hoff employed a secretary while working on large commissions – initially Arthur Buist and later Be Williams’s sister Gwyneth, who studied at the NAS in the 1930s. A photograph showing the office in relation to the studio (page 114) features either Hoff or Arthur Buist talking on the phone, while students work in the background. On the wall of the office is a photograph of Hoff’s XOPOZ or Circular Dance, one of the works he made in 1922 as a student and had to leave in the United Kingdom when he immigrated. Also in this building were facilities for the schools for Aviation, Motor Body Building and Ship Building, and adjacent was the ‘Trade school’, which was helpful as a resource for wood and metal fabrication for Hoff and his

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The office in Hoff’s studio Courtesy McGrath family

students. When reporter Spartacus Smith from the Sydney Mail visited the art school to meet Hoff in September 1924 he described the student classrooms upstairs in Building 26: Picturesque and interesting surroundings indeed! A strange place for a sculptor! Here and there the iron bars of the cells are to be seen, and weird steps leading down to underground dungeons. High walls enclose the whole wonderful scene – so unlike anything else in a modern city. It is like a scene on a theatre stage. Alterations are going on. Big, wide windows light up rooms that previously did not see much daylight. Upstairs in one of them Mr Hoff has his studios. Young men and women are at work fashioning figures in clay – from life in one room, from casts in another.9

Fascinated with the whole process of sculpture, Smith goes on to describe Hoff’s teaching methods and illustrates his extensive article with photographs of six Hoff sculptures. Eleven years later, another reporter visited Hoff’s studio in Building 11 in winter, with an expectation of a romantic and cosy artists’ space, but said: I walked into a freezing stone shed with a bare corrugated iron roof. It looked as if an anarchist had dropped a bomb there an hour before. Slithering over a wet patch of concrete, a young man and a woman, both in dungarees, covered with clay, with blue noses and red hands, were moulding wet friezes. A ton of plaster, in sacks, was dumped in a corner. Casts of heads rolled among a pile of dusty debris. A skull was lying against a model of the Anzac Memorial, and a satyr was laughing at everything … Rayner Hoff smiled a generous welcome.10

In 1923 the art department consisted of ten staff, including George Aurousseau and Gregory Macintosh, both former students of Lucien Henry. Other teachers there were Robert Carswell, Joseph Peach, Samuel Rowe, Rose Blakemore, Edith Brown, Edgar C Walters and two teachers named Edward Smith, christened ‘Blacksmith’ and ‘Silversmith’ by the students.11 Macintosh was the teacher of modelling in Building 26. The first Lecturer in Charge of the Elementary and Applied Art Department at ESTC was Samuel Rowe, who had trained in architecture and design in the United Kingdom and was keen to promote the collaboration of sculptors with architects. Rowe also wanted to invigorate the course by

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employing new staff. In an outline of the history of the art school in the catalogue from 1926 it says, ‘Rowe, a designer of great ability, soon realised that if the Art Department was to function properly, and fulfil its mission as the National Art School, it must obtain young teachers of outstanding ability.’12 Hoff’s official position was Teacher of Antique and Life Drawing, Modelling, Architectural Modelling and Sculpture.13 These were the subjects he had studied at Nottingham and the RCA, and along with Samuel Rowe he helped to reorganise the art school, modelling it on the academies of Europe with a traditional master–pupil studio workshop practice. This was the first time Hoff had taught or designed a sculpture school, and his student, Elizabeth ‘Treasure’ Conlon recalled that he contacted Lucien Dechaineux in Hobart to ask his advice about setting up the studios and organising the first diploma course. Conlon had been a student of Dechaineux’s at Hobart Technical College for four years, before moving to Sydney where she enrolled in the sculpture course and later worked as an assistant to Hoff.14 Florent Vincent Emile Lucien Dechaineux was a Belgian artist who had studied art at Sydney Technical College under Henry, and had succeeded him as a teacher after Henry left for France in 1891. After moving to Tasmania he became a much-respected artist and educator and taught there for 33 years. Another student of Hoff’s, Nessie Stephen, also said: Hoff designed all the new studios. He … had help from a friend of Treasure’s – a Belgian sculptor from Hobart tech. The benches were all covered in lead. There were bins for clay which were well looked after, and boards and stands of all sizes. You had to bring your own tools and calipers – it was all very well organised.15

The art school was the only state-run art course in Sydney at this stage. There were private art schools – Julian Ashton at the Sydney Art School, JS Watkins and Dattilo Rubbo all ran successful private courses. Once the course was established, the standard was considered to be high, with many students from ESTC winning travelling scholarships and exhibiting at the annual Society of Artists exhibitions soon after graduating. Hoff’s appointment and subsequent commissions were covered extensively in newspapers and magazines from 1923. Photographer Harold Cazneaux was the first to take advantage of his charismatic looks, posing

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him in his studio at ESTC in front of a partly completed marble relief sculpture, Idyll: Love and Life, now in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.16 Hoff had obviously dressed up for the occasion, as he was renowned for his abhorrence of a collar and tie, always preferring an open-necked shirt. With tousled hair, but wearing a three-piece suit, he holds a mallet and chisel as if still working in the studio. Another photograph taken that day was of Rayner’s brother Tom, who had arrived in Australia in July 1924 (page 120). This helps date the photo of Rayner. It is the only known photograph of Tom at the art school, where he worked with Rayner for seven years. Tom is holding a tiny statuette of a sphinx, a joint project between Hoff and his friend Norman Lindsay. The photo dates the Sphinx as being made between 1924 and 1925, earlier than previously thought.17 Tom was not employed by the Department of Education, but Rayner paid him to work as his assistant on his private commissions. His future wife Be was one of the most popular models in the sculpture and drawing departments. She was paid 15 shillings a day and the poses would sometimes last up to three months. It was exhausting work, and models would often be required to stand for six hours a day. One sculpture of Be by a student is now held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Called Life Study – ‘Be’, 1925, it was reproduced in Hoff’s book on student Eileen McGrath in 1932. Hoff also employed Be as a model in his private studio, and she was the model for one of his seminal sculptures, Australian Venus in 1925–26. She believed that the original work in plaster, made by Hoff, was better than the final marble version.18 Among Hoff’s reference material, anonymously titled ‘Studies of the Figure’, is a folder of photographs of models taken in the 1920s. Some are by commercial photographers, but three pages are by Hoff, including seven photos of Be posing outside at the National Art School. Perched on a small cloth on the ground, the stone walls can be seen behind her (page 118). Although Be’s figure is more slender than the final version of Australian Venus, it is easy to see why she was chosen by Hoff as the ideal Australian woman. Usually only known to the students by their Christian names, life models have always been an integral part of the art school. There have been some notorious ones over the years, such as Rosaleen Norton (later known as

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Beatrice (Be) Williams modelling outside at the NAS, c1925

‘The Witch of Kings Cross’), who modelled at ESTC in the 1930s. She had started as an art student at the Tech, and was taught by Hoff for two years. A young fellow student from Tasmania, Adye Bailey, was quite shocked by her behaviour: We called her ‘Tiger Norton’ as she made up her eyes to look like a tiger. She was quite the most exotic thing I had ever met. While I was in first year, Rosaleen decided to leave home, so she earned a living by being an artist’s model. She used to pose at the tech in the life class, and would regale us with stories of her very free sex life. We would sit with our mouths open – and we soon knew all about the facts of life.19

Norton’s later affair with composer Sir Eugene Goossens was partly responsible for his resignation from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1956. Students recall Hoff also employed young models in order to ‘keep them off the streets’. Marjorie Fletcher’s 1933 life-size figure of the pre-pubescent girl Kathleen was one such case. Another student, Jean Broome, recalled that she was ‘a runaway from the Cross’, with a defiant yet grumpy attitude to the modelling.20 Others, like Be Williams and Roberta Gore-Edwards, were chosen for their classical proportions, and perhaps for their latent sexuality. One intriguing photo in Hoff’s papers appears to be from a model, and is inscribed ‘To Mr Hoff, Sincerely, Doreen Prau’ (page 122). One questionable decision by Hoff was to use a 20-month-old child, Michael Gore-Edwards, as a life model for the students. A cheery caption in the Sydney Morning Herald read: ‘Michael attends the class twice a week, and is described by Hoff as a little man doing a difficult job well. He is the youngest model in Australia.’21 Michael and his mother Roberta modelled for both Hoff and for Norman Lindsay. Michael went on to play a lead role in the iconic Australian film Bush Christmas in 1947 when he was 14.22 In 1926, the notable Australian sculptor Sir Bertram Mackennal (knighted in 1922) was commissioned by the NSW State Government to design and erect the sculptures for the First World War Cenotaph in Martin Place for the sum of £10,000. Mackennal needed a studio in Sydney to begin the works, and there could have been no more appropriate place than the School of Sculpture at ESTC. Mackennal was 30 years older than Hoff, and it is believed that they had met in London in 1920 via the Royal Academy

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exhibitions. Mackennal was also a member of the Faculty of Sculpture at the British School at Rome in the early 1920s, and was aware of Hoff’s winning entry in the Rome Scholarship competition.23 No doubt Hoff could see the advantages of having an experienced sculptor working on site, so he helped make the arrangements. Mackennal travelled to Australia in 1926 to fulfil the commission and he also held a sell-out exhibition of 44 small bronzes at Macquarie Galleries in October of that year.24 Mackennal chose two Australian servicemen as models when he made the sketches and sculptures between 1926 and 1927. He started work on the two sentinel figures – an AIF soldier and RAN sailor – during his stint at the art school. The models were cast in bronze at the AB Burton Foundry in the United Kingdom and despatched from England by Mackennal on his return

Harold Cazneaux, Tom Hoff with Sphinx, ESTC, 1924 Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

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in December 1928. The Cenotaph was unveiled in 1929. While Mackennal was working at ESTC, the photographer Harold Cazneaux photographed him in one of the studios in January 1927 (page 124). Like Hoff’s earlier portrait, Mackennal is posed in front of a sculpture, wearing his white dust coat and holding a tool, as if just pausing a moment from his work. During the months Mackennal worked at ESTC, Hoff had asked him to open the first exhibition of art by students on 3 December 1926. Widely reported by the press, Mackennal’s inflammatory speech was damning of the conditions at the college and the lack of government support for the arts. But he was also full of praise for the students’ work: ‘The Government of this country is starving you in matters of art,’ said Sir Bertram Mackennal yesterday, in opening the exhibition of work by East Sydney Technical College students at the Education Department gallery. ‘I am surprised to find,’ he went on, ‘that there is no professor of painting at the Technical College in this country. There ought to be a national school of painting endowed with scholarships so that students who show great promise would not be left stranded, as they are now at the end of their course, but might be able to travel and open out their minds. Why, every other city of a million inhabitants all over the world has four or five art schools publicly endowed. ‘Another matter which has impressed me unfavourably is the type of accommodation afforded technical college art students at their work. Since I have returned to Australia I have done a good deal of work on the premises, and have had many opportunities of observing the cross lighting, faulty arrangement, and other defects in the classrooms. ‘Under these conditions it is really surprising to find how high a standard has been attained. That children should produce some of these exhibits – for, indeed, the artists are little more than children – is nothing short of amazing. Only the very highest grade students abroad could produce anything to equal them.’25

This speech must have been galling for the Superintendent of Technical Education, James Nangle, to hear, but afterwards he graciously moved a vote of thanks for Mackennal. Mackennal was correct in saying that in 1926 there was no specific head of painting at ESTC. Samuel Rowe was Lecturer in Charge of the whole art department and, apart from Hoff, the other teachers

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Doreen Prau, undated

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were listed as ‘Teachers of Art’. Although artist Fred Leist was occasionally described as Head of Painting, it was not until 1940 that Douglas Dundas was officially appointed as the first Head Teacher of Painting. Dundas however recalled that the first painting diplomas were awarded in 1931 or 1932.26 After Mackennal returned to London, a studio was built in the former women’s exercise yards, between C and D wings of the gaol, and it was named after him.27 Affectionately nicknamed ‘The Kennal’, it became the principal life-modelling studio for the art school. This almost doubled the space for the sculpture school, and had the added bonus of being on the ground floor. Students of Hoff, including Barbara Tribe, Jean Broome, Eileen McGrath, Liz Blaxland, Marjorie Fletcher, Anita Aarons and Beth Macdonald, worked there to construct three-quarter and full-sized clay sculptures of life models. Broome recalled the classes in The Kennal, which began at 9 am, with half an hour for lunch, and finished at 5 pm: The students were responsible for all the practical aspects of their work. They were required to sketch their own works, build wooden and metal frames and armatures to support the clay models, sculpt, make gelatine moulds and finally cast their own works in plaster.28

In some photographs the sculptures are so life-like it is difficult to distinguish them from the life model (page 126). The model would be placed in the centre of the room on a circular dais with students working on plinths around the dais. Every 15 minutes the dais was moved so the students could see all angles of the pose. After the clay model was finished, a plaster cast was made. Hoff was a hard taskmaster, and expected a lot from his students. He visited them a few times each day, and left the technical side of the casting to his colleague, sculpture teacher John Moorfield (page 128). Moorfield was appointed to the staff at ESTC in September 1928 and became the principal teacher of modelling in 1929 after Gregory Macintosh retired. Former student Liz Blaxland recalled that he ‘was quite a different personality to Hoff with a different set of skills. He came from Manchester in the UK where he had trained. He was a skilled craftsman, very methodical, and was much appreciated by Hoff.’29 Moorfield had studied at the Manchester Municipal School of Art, winning many prizes, including the Gold Medal in the National Competition

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Harold Cazneaux, Bertram Mackennal, 1927 Gelatin silver photograph, 22.1 x 17.3 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photo: AGNSW

in 1907. In this year, at the age of 17, he worked as an assistant to the modelling master John Millard, who wrote him an outstanding reference when he left.30 He travelled to Australia in 1908, and after spending some time in New Zealand he came to Sydney and worked at Wunderlich’s metal ceiling manufacturers as a modeller from 1911 to 1914. Samuel Rowe also worked there during this time. By 1916, Moorfield had set up a sculpture studio on George Street in Sydney, advertising himself as ‘Jack Moorfield, sculptor’, specialising in portraiture.31 He also worked at Mark Foys department store, and the Prince Edward and State theatres. By the time he was employed at the art school he was 48 years old, an experienced artist and craftsman, and an invaluable asset to the sculpture department. The School of Sculpture was growing rapidly by the time Douglas Dundas was appointed as a teacher of life drawing and painting in February 1930. He taught with Hoff for seven years, and worked with him closely on the Society of Artists executive as well. Dundas believed that the whole art department had benefitted from Hoff’s positive influence, particularly as it was attracting students from all parts of the Commonwealth, and in this respect had assumed the character of a national art school. Discussing Hoff’s relationship with other staff members he said: He had the faculty of getting the best from his staff by acknowledging their ability to handle their subjects and encouraging in the individual a sense of responsibility. An aura of efficiency surrounded the man, whether at his desk in the studio, where affairs of the Art Department, and of his own sculptural projects, were perfectly organised, or at work on a model in clay. I rather fancy that, next to handling clay, he enjoyed handling people and situations. Here, his interest in psychology was of great value to him. He was quick to sense a prevailing mood, and if favourable, turn it to his advantage. When he felt justified, Hoff challenged and attacked, and accepted the consequences without harbouring any ill-will. At times gruff in manner, he concealed beneath the surface a sensibility and an understanding that only a few were privileged to know.32

Dundas also described his impressions of Hoff’s studio: One recalls him in the great barn-like studio at Darlinghurst, a solid, capable figure, fresh faced in his cream smock and open necked shirt,

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Lewis modelling in the Kennal Courtesy Beth Macdonald/Meyers family

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against a background of his own creation. An extraordinarily varied, yet somehow homogenous background it was. Drawings for bas-reliefs for the Anzac Memorial, torsos in marble and sandstone, groups and heads in plaster and bronze, and back of all these, the tremendous impedimenta of a studio equipped to carry out big jobs.33

In the 1930s Dundas was responsible for establishing a policy of collecting student works, a tradition that still continues today. The policy stated that the art department reserved the right to retain permanently three representative pieces by every student who was awarded the diploma. Due to this policy, many of Hoff’s students’ drawings and paintings were collected and have remained at the NAS since. Staff works were also collected, and although sculptures were harder to retain and store, there are four works by Hoff in the NAS Collection. Dundas met his future wife, Dorothy Thornhill, at the art school when she was a student in the 1930s (page 130). Thornhill was an outstanding figure drawer, and Hoff later employed her as a teacher of this subject – she went on to become a much-respected teacher at the school for almost 40 years. Hoff always kept a lookout for talented artists like Thornhill who could be valuable teachers. One of these was Edmund A Harvey, who had met Hoff at the Society of Artists meetings. In his memoirs, Harvey describes Hoff telling him to keep a look out for an advertisement in the Herald in May 1935. Harvey was subsequently employed as a teacher of painting and drawing for over three decades, and wrote an insightful and perceptive memoir of the early years of the NAS. As well as describing his fellow teachers, he discusses the evolution of the buildings and their occupants, recalling: A painting studio was built at the end of the block adjoining the Kennal, forming a right angle with it. This enclosed a very private courtyard, the fourth side of which was a high fence beyond which browsed Rayner Hoff’s pet kangaroo.34

By the early 1930s, the art staff at the NAS consisted of at least 17 members, with only one full-time woman, Phyllis Shillito. A photograph taken in one of the studios at this time tells a fair bit about the dress code expected (page 131). The men all have suits on, mostly with ties, three with bow ties. Most are not smiling. Hoff and John Moorfield have their white

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dust jackets over their formal trousers, and both have open-necked shirts, indicating the more relaxed attitude of the sculpture department. Arms folded, Hoff looks a bit annoyed. Sam Rowe is seated on Hoff’s right and trying to smile. The personal stories of their antics and eccentricities from former students are hard to imagine from this very serious shot. Although the art school may have seemed to be housed in an idyllic setting at the time, ESTC was in the inner city, surrounded by the then notorious suburbs of Darlinghurst, Surry Hills, Woolloomooloo and Kings Cross. In the late 1920s and early 1930s these suburbs were the home of the vicious ‘razor’ gangs battling for control of the criminal underworld. This

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John Moorfield in Hoff’s studio Courtesy Moorfield family

no doubt worried the families of the young students, but another aspect of the area was its bohemian population, attracted by the low rents in these predominantly working-class suburbs. The rising number of flats and subsequent increase in population meant that Kings Cross began to develop a reputation for night-time entertainment and dining, and cafés, restaurants, saloons and entertainment venues began to open. The Kings Cross Theatre, Paris Café, Kookaburra Café and California Café all added to the atmosphere of the area. These were within easy walking distance of the art school and were frequented by staff and students alike. Taylor Square was even closer, and although the hotels closed at 6 pm, the pubs were favourite spots for an afternoon drink and a chance for staff and students to socialise. The social life of the students centred around the National Art Students’ Club (NASC). At first the library, clubroom and cafeteria were in the old governor’s quarters in Building 22, but later a tuckshop at the northern end of Building 11 was opened. Hoff helped establish the NASC library committee, and was chairman and treasurer from 1928 to 1930. The committee raised funds to purchase books for a much-needed library for students, and Hoff helped with advice on what should be bought.35 Student balls were not held on the site until the Cell Block Theatre was established in the 1950s, but there were many parties in the studios and the clubroom. The majority of Hoff’s students were female, although male students including Lyndon Dadswell, Otto Steen, Ralph Trafford Walker and Arthur Murch also received instruction. Even so, the predominance of women in a sculpture course was unusual in the 1920s, with most women choosing to study painting or commercial art rather than sculpture. Lyndon Dadswell studied sculpture under Hoff from 1926 to 1929. He was a talented student, and although he absorbed much of Hoff’s teaching and put it to use in his later teaching practice, he was not involved in any of Hoff’s public commissions. Even though Dadswell hadn’t completed his diploma, in 1929 Hoff encouraged him to leave ESTC to assist on a commission for the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne.36 Having had the experience and rigorous training with Hoff, he was able to assist sculptor Paul Montford on this nationally significant work, which was a project for Victoria’s Memorial to the Great War. Dadswell produced 12 large freestone relief panels that skilfully illustrated the Australian armed services. Critical

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Douglas Dundas and Dorothy Thornhill, c1933 Douglas Dundas papers, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

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National Art School staff photo, c1933 National Art School Archive

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response to the shrine was positive, and the work proved to be a great boost to his career. One student who worked with Hoff for eight years at the art school was Eileen McGrath, who had received a scholarship at Drummoyne Public School in 1922 to study art full time at ESTC. McGrath was 16 when Hoff arrived, and she soon proved to be a talented sculptor. Eileen was very close to her brother, the architect Raymond McGrath, and in 1925 she used her modelling skills to work with him on a small war memorial he designed which still stands in the grounds of Callan Park Hospital in Sydney. Eileen’s parents, Herbert and Edith McGrath became friendly with the Hoff family, and sometimes took them with Eileen on long drives in their Chevrolet.37 Hoff described Eileen as a ‘quiet, unassuming, almost diffident girl; rather apt, perhaps to underrate her ability’.38 But in 1926 he also said she was the most outstanding student at the college, and had great hopes for her future as a sculptor.

Lyndon Dadswell and a panel from the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, 1929 Courtesy McGrath family

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Eileen McGrath, Portrait of Rayner Hoff, 1932 Plaster, 40 x 14 x 10 cm Photo: National Art Archive, Art Gallery of New South Wales

McGrath also made the only known sculptural portrait of Rayner Hoff. A photograph of this work was used as the frontispiece in the Hoff edition of Art in Australia in October 1932, and the work was also exhibited in the Hoff Memorial exhibition in 1938, although not for sale.39 McGrath was the first student to be awarded a Diploma in Sculpture (Honours) in November 1930. Regarded as a significant event in the history of the NAS, this was also the first Diploma in Art to be awarded in Australia.40 McGrath poses in a rather awkward photo in front of one of her works in the sculpture studio at ESTC while being presented with her diploma by former NSW Governor Earl Beauchamp and Samuel Rowe, with Hoff in a rumpled suit beside her (page 134). It looks like they have interrupted a class for the photograph, as a scantily dressed model peeks out from behind a screen in the background. Very soon after she received her diploma, Hoff employed McGrath as one of his assistants on the Anzac Memorial commission from 1930 to 1933.

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Eileen McGrath receiving her diploma, NAS, 1930 Fairfax Syndication

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During their studies at art school, lifelong friendships often developed among the students. The friendship between Jean Broome and Marjorie Fletcher began when they sat beside each other for the entrance exams for the NAS in 1929. They soon became friends with Beth Macdonald, and the three of them would work together for long hours in the Kennal on their life studies. A wonderful photo taken at the art school shows the three friends standing near the Kennal in their white dustcoats between classes. As Fletcher’s son Don Mitchell later explained: It was a rather daring pursuit for these young women, who had to study and sculpt the naked form from living models, particularly as their teachers were youthful and male. The explicit studies of the naked form were controversial at the time. However, despite the ‘liberal’ nature of the work, Broome Norton stresses that the great majority of students were far from bohemian in their lifestyles.41

Marjorie Fletcher, Jean Broome and Beth Macdonald, NAS, 1932 Courtesy Don Mitchell

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Still, they were practical in their approach, and not shy of modelling for each other if need be. For instance, when Jean Broome was trying to get the breast in the correct position for her sculpture of Hippoly ta and the Amazons defeating Theseus in 1933, she happily removed her shirt and posed in the tricky position while Hoff adjusted the sculpture for her.42 Hoff was also willing to encourage students to make their own work at the tech, and as a result of this his student Enid Fleming organised for the famous pilot Charles Kingsford-Smith to pose for her at the NAS in 1932. Fleming was working on a series of sculptures of well-known aviators, and it was quite a coup to convince Kingsford-Smith to pose for the life-size sculpture. She can be seen with the completed plaster sculpture Smithy in a photograph taken on the top floor of Building 26 at the NAS.43 Of all of Hoff’s students, Barbara Tribe was possibly the one who most fulfilled his ideal of a young athletic and talented student who symbolised the time of optimism in Australia during the interwar years. Aged 15 when she enrolled at ESTC in 1928, she was singled out by Hoff to enter the three-year Sculpture Diploma course after she finished her two intermediate years. She soon became a prominent member of Hoff’s successful group of students, producing a large body of diverse work and helping Hoff on his private commissions. Tribe was a keen swimmer, and joined the acrobatic group organised by athlete Wal Balmus in 1931, thus perpetuating the notion of the perfect sunbronzed Australian body that was epitomised in the work of the Hoff school students. In 1931 Hoff was interviewed about his views on the Australian physique, and he was full of praise: I doubt if even the Ancient Greeks produced better examples of physical beauty and grace. We don’t allow our bodies to become flaccid … the call of the sun, surf, great open roads … is all too strong for any to resist. Hence, we are active, virile and well and few nations show such an average of body perfection.44

A photo of Tribe with her enormous plasterwork, Bacchanalia, shows the ambitious scale of the work that Hoff encouraged (page 138). The photograph is taken on the top floor of the three-storey Building 26, and the mould was made in sections in order to get it down the steep staircase. Tribe recalled that she normally did all her own casting, although Hoff’s fellow

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Enid Fleming and Smithy, 1932 Courtesy Lawrence Sayer

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teacher John Moorfield helped her to cast this work, which was over 180 centimetres tall.45 Tribe’s unabashed depiction of the sexually charged nymphs and fauns shows the strong Hoff influence in her work, and also her prodigious talent, given that she was only 21 when she made it. By this time Tribe had already graduated, receiving her Diploma (Honours) in June 1933 and also the prestigious Bronze Medal for Sculpture. When interviewed in 1985 Tribe said of Hoff: His enthusiasm inspired us, that was the main thing. I think I took to him. I think everyone who worked in the Kennal – they were the ones doing the modelling, took to Hoff as a person. He was desperately human – outgoing and very helpful to students, never rough with them, always wanting to help or guide you – everyone adored him and he inspired everybody. Hoff wasn’t really a mixer, but a loner, outgoing to students but inward looking very much and a family man … Hoff wasn’t bohemian in the least. He was a very ordinary, down to earth sort of person.46

Despite wanting Tribe to stay on as a teacher at the art school, it was Hoff who persuaded her to enter the NSW Travelling Art Scholarship in 1935. Judged by eminent artist John Longstaff, when Tribe won it was a significant achievement in her career. She became the first woman as well as the first sculptor to be awarded the scholarship. Hoff graciously praised her win and described her career and rapid progress at the NAS: I have never known anyone to acquire so much facility in so short a time. Great strength is shown in the work from life … Her drawing is fresh and original and has a directness which is derived from a very thorough knowledge of form … Because she is a tremendous worker, I think we may expect her to achieve many further successes.47

Barbara Tribe, Bacchanalia, 1934 National Gallery of Australia Research Library, Canberra

As Hoff taught at the art school for 14 years, it is impossible to mention all of his students. Many excellent students didn’t finish the course, and some studied part-time or had to leave in order to gain employment. Those he taught were consistent in mentioning how he influenced them, and many became accomplished artists and teachers. One who returned to teach was Arthur Murch, who had attended ESTC under Hoff for one day a week in 1924 while working as an engineer for the rest of the week.48

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Otto Steen was one of Hoff’s students who went on to work as his assistant, and later worked as a freelance sculptor himself. He had trained as a stonemason in Copenhagen before he migrated to Australia in 1927. He studied sculpture with Hoff from 1928 to 1930, then assisted him on the Anzac Memorial and other projects from 1932 to 1935. Although he appeared to be a quiet and unassuming artist, Steen had a keen sense of humour and often drew cartoons of his fellow sculptors. He enjoyed the company of the Hoff students working in the studio, and can be seen in many photos working on the Memorial. He also became close to Hoff’s children, and spent family days with them at Bondi Beach. Hoff’s love of theatre meant that he played a large part in the NAS Dramatic Club, and encouraged the building of a theatre on site. Student Nessie Stephen recalled that Hoff was impressed with her entrepreneurial skills and put her in charge of setting up the theatre: I was made vice president of the first committee of the NAS club. I was interested in theatre and stage design, and I suggested that we start a dramatic club. There was a stage already in the dressmaker’s section. Hoff said: ‘Go ahead Nessie and start it, we’ll back you up. If anyone can do it, you can.’ Hoff was marvellous with students and student functions. At one time we needed a stuffed owl for a play – so Hoff said, ‘Go down to the Australian museum and mention my name, they might let you borrow one.’ Although the man I was supposed to meet had died, they still gave me a darling owl.49

The theatre was made by the students, possibly with the help of teacher Robert Carswell, who had worked in theatre design and made proscenium arches. Barbara Tribe executed two large dancing figures to flank the proscenium, and an intricate shield with the letters ESTC was carved for the centre of the arch.50 This small theatre was on the ground floor of what is now the NAS Gallery, originally A wing, the first male cell block built for the gaol. The National Art School Players performed there intermittentlyfrom 1930 onwards. One play performed in 1939 was directed and produced by a well-known NAS model, Frank Whyte.51 Samuel Rowe retired as Lecturer in Charge of the art department in 1933, and by 1934 Hoff was appointed as Acting Lecturer in Charge. Effectively he was head of the art school, and he was also completing the

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sculptures for the Anzac Memorial at the same time. His salary was raised by £52 per annum to cover the extra work, but the slow wheels of the ESTC bureaucracy meant that he did not receive the full salary of £768 until 1936, when he was officially appointed as Lecturer in Charge.52 Hoff’s previous position as teacher of sculpture and drawing was now available, and Hoff was keen that one of his former students would take the position. It took quite a while for the ESTC to advertise the position, and Hoff recommended his former student Eileen McGrath in 1936, but she had moved to London and decided not to apply. Lyndon Dadswell had also been in London for two years and was ready to return to Australia. He applied and was appointed to this position in early 1937. By September he was working at the art school with Hoff and Moorfield. Hoff mentions this in a letter to Eileen McGrath: Lyndon Dadswell is settling down to teaching here. I cannot yet say how he will shape; he will have to ‘find’ himself as a teacher. Yesterday’s heat was a surprise to him; he had forgotten how hot it can be in Sydney.53

Dadswell was later appointed as a war artist during the Second World War, and returned to the NAS in 1943, where he became a much-respected head of the sculpture department for the next 22 years. Hoff fostered a strong collegiate attitude among his students, resulting in many other students becoming assistant teachers soon after their graduation. Barbara Tribe, Jean Broome and Eileen McGrath all worked alongside Hoff and Moorfield as sculpture teachers, before being offered positions as fulltime assistants on his private commissions. Others, such as Dadswell, Liz Blaxland and Arthur Murch returned as teachers after travelling overseas, or studying elsewhere. Hoff’s extraordinary influence at the NAS cannot be underestimated, with many of his students continuing as professional sculptors and coming back to teach, handing on the skills and traditions that began with Hoff and that are still drawn upon today.

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The test of time Artworks

Rayner Hoff, The Kiss, 1923 Bronze, 27 x 28 x 10 cm Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund 1938 Art Gallery of South Australia

Not long after Rayner Hoff arrived in Sydney he received a parcel in the mail. Addressed to him at East Sydney Technical College (ESTC), it contained an embossed diploma to certify that he had been elected as ‘a Member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors for distinction in the Art of Sculpture’ on 17 December 1923. Established in 1905, the Society had consisted of 51 members in its first year, and received royal patronage in 1911. This recognition from his peers in London possibly held some recompense for the scholarship difficulties he had had prior to his departure from England. None of these problems, though, had slowed him down. In his first year in Australia Hoff’s sculpture output was astounding. In 1923 he had completed the bronzes Sandra (a portrait of his daughter at age 13 months), Eurydice, and his lyrical and sensual version of The Kiss. During 1924, as well as establishing the sculpture department at the art school, he continued to make and cast small intricate works. In the erotic Faun and Nymph, the coupling of the two mythological creatures epitomises Hoff’s vitalist view of life in which energy and passion are central. He soon developed a strong notion of where Australia sat in his view of the world, as a current lecturer at the NAS, Lorraine Kypiotis, explained: In Hoff’s artistic practice, the body became the primary metaphor for a modern Australian identity, based on the classical perfections of the ancient Greek model, and imaged as a virile product of the nation’s outdoor environment. Hoff’s sculpture promoted a renaissance of culture aligned to the ancient world through the energised healthy body in an optimistic celebration of life.1

The public first saw Hoff’s extraordinary output at the Society of Artists exhibition in 1924, when he showed 23 pieces of sculpture. Comments in the press show how little sculpture had been exhibited in Sydney before this: For the first time in its existence the Society is really strong in sculpture. The splendid work of G. Rayner Hoff, Rome prizeman, would

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Society of Artists medal, 1923 Bronze

claim attention in any European gallery. Gael and Pan are masterly. His reliefs are something we have never seen tried here, and the Department of Education is fortunate in securing such a fine artist for its Technical College. An interesting function at the opening of the exhibition by S.H. Smith, Director of Education, was the presentation to Julian Ashton of the Society’s medal, ‘in appreciation of good service for the advancement of Australian art’. None deserved the honour better than he, and few could more highly appreciate it. The medal is a fine example of Rayner G. Hoff’s work.2

Hoff made the first of his many medallions in Australia for the NSW Society of Artists in 1923. Cast in silver and bronze, they depicted a personification of ‘Art’ as a partly draped standing woman, holding a palette and brush. Much prized by artists, the medal was awarded to individuals for the advancement of Australian art annually up until the 1960s. Hoff also began a series of sculptural portraits of his new friends and colleagues in Sydney. Ten years later William Moore wrote, ‘At the

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Rayner Hoff, Portrait of Norman Lindsay, 1924 Copper, 44 x 38 x 25 cm Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales Photo: J Ashton, Ashton family photographs and papers

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suggestion of DH Souter, Hoff is engaged on a series of busts of notable Australians with a view to establishing a national gallery of portrait busts.’3 This unrealised ambition resulted in a large number of portraits by Hoff, including those of Samuel Rowe, Norman Lindsay, James Nangle, Mary Gilmore, W Bede Dalley, Howard Hinton, Earl Beauchamp, Hugh McCrae and composer Alfred Hill. This final portrait, completed in 1936, is the only one held by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, which opened in 1999, many years after Souter’s suggestion. Artist Norman Lindsay sat for his portrait in Hoff’s studio at the art school in 1924. Hoff’s belief in ideal Australian proportions and beauty of physique is demonstrated in this work. He claimed that Lindsay’s head measurements bore a striking resemblance to those of an ancient Greek.4 Made of copper, this portrait of Norman Lindsay at age 45 (page 145) was exhibited in the Society of Artists exhibition in September of that year. Another acquaintance of Hoff’s, who he had met through the Society of Artists, was the painter and teacher Norman Carter. In 1924, Carter painted Hoff in his studio at the art school while he was working on his figurative sculpture Gael. It is not the best of Carter’s work, but it is the only known painting of Hoff. In an overly exaggerated and apparently invented pose, Carter places Hoff as if he is leaning back to look at the work, while the model stands behind him where he couldn’t see her. It looks as if Carter has used the photo of the sculpture on page 148 as reference, although the awkward proportions in the painting are quite different from the actual work. The painting, however, does show a good view of Hoff’s studio before it was enlarged to make the Anzac Memorial sculptures, and his portrait of Samuel Rowe can be seen in the background. Hoff’s importance to Australian culture was guaranteed early in his career when he was asked to design the very symbol of the fledgling Australian car industry, the Holden car insignia. In 1926 Holden’s Motor Body Builders in Adelaide had decided to adopt an emblem for the firm similar to the lion used for the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924. The Adelaide architect Louis Laybourne Smith, who was in contact with Hoff in relation to the Adelaide Memorial, suggested that Hoff could design a sculpture and badge.5 Hoff was commissioned in 1927 and Holden historian Don Loffler says Hoff:

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Norman Carter, Rayner Hoff in his studio, 1924 Oil on canvas, 107 x 76.6 cm National Gallery of Victoria. © Courtesy the artist’s estate

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Rayner Hoff, Gael, 1924 Original clay version in Hoff’s studio

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Rayner Hoff, Lion (produced for the Holden Motor Company), 1926–27 Bronze, cast c1930, 36.5 x 40.5 x 12.7 cm Gift of Lady Holden and the Holden family in memory of Sir James Holden 1996 Art Gallery of South Australia

The first Holden car badge, 1928 Photo: Courtesy Don Loffler and Ivan Hoffmann

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produced a pair of bronze lions as a feature for the garden of Sir Edward Holden’s home, and adapted the design for the new Holden’s Motor Body Builders badge. Hoff modified the Wembley lion by having one of its paws raised so that it rested on a spherical stone. In recalling the legend that ancient people discovered the principal of the wheel by observing a lion rolling a stone with its paw, Hoff related the lion to the automobile.6

As Deborah Edwards points out, Hoff’s Holden lion became ‘not only an Australian cultural icon, but a quintessential image of interwar modernity’.7 Hoff’s badge featured the lion and the word ‘Holden’ on a rectangular plate (page 149), and die cast or pressed metal replicas were affixed to all Holden car bodies produced from 1928 to 1939. Updated versions of Hoff’s design are still seen on Holden cars today. This iconic emblem could possibly be one of Hoff’s most visible works, although few people are aware of the name of its designer. One early large commission that Hoff completed was the magnificent Egyptian Room in the new Royal Arch Masonic Temple in College Street, Sydney, in 1927. The architect of the lodge was A Phipps Coles. Hoff made the original reliefs for the lodge, Chas Everett made the decorations, and they were commercially cast in plaster by GR Lumb and Sons. The friezes and plaster reliefs were based on the papyrus scroll depicting the afterlife of the scribe Ani from the Book of the Dead. The original scroll from Thebes, made in 1250 BCE, was obtained for the Trustees for the British Museum in London by Wallis Budge in 1888, and no doubt Hoff would have seen it on his many visits to the Museum when he was a student in the early 1920s. It was 23.78 metres long and 381 millimetres wide before it was cut up into 37 manageable segments in London. One of these segments, The Weighing of the Heart, is still one of the most popular treasures of the Museum today. Hoff had excellent reference material for the work in a large-scale facsimile of the Book of the Dead, brought from London by the Masons.8 Kept in a handmade leather case, this rare book contains coloured prints that depict the passage of the spirit from life to the Kingdom of Osiris. The Book of Ani demonstrates the paramount concerns of the Masons, of Truth, and the Scales of Justice, so the scroll was an apt choice for the decoration of the new temple.

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Tom Hoff’s wife Be recalled that it was required for Rayner to become a Mason for the opening of the Egyptian Room. Both Rayner and Tom were asked to join the Masonic Lodge, but Tom could not afford to buy the specialised clothes that were needed, so only Rayner joined.9 He became a Freemason at the age of 32, joining Lodge Literature on 8 December 1927. This lodge was principally made up of writers, including journalists from the Sydney Morning Herald, and some artists, such as Hoff and DH Souter.10 Hoff went on to attend the monthly meetings at the Grand Lodge in Castlereagh Street, and became a Master Mason in August 1928, but left the Masons in May 1935. The opening of the Egyptian Room caused quite a stir in Sydney, with the Sunday News featuring it in the ‘multicolour section’ in May 1927. Titled ‘An Egyptian Temple in the Heart of Sydney’, the reporter invited visitors to ‘step into ancient Egypt, and feel about you an atmosphere diffusing the glorious colours, all the glamour and mysteries of gods and mummies.’11 Regrettably the Royal Arch Masonic Temple in College Street was demolished in the 1960s but, before this, the frieze was dismantled, stored and reinstalled in the Petersham Lodge in 1977. The Lumb family company were contracted to reinstall the plasterwork. By this time, one of the Lumb family members, Frank Lumb, was teaching sculpture at the NAS in Darlinghurst. The fibrous plaster moulds have been kept, along with samples of the original colours. This unique room retains the original rich colours, paint and friezes, and is a testament to Hoff’s skills as a modeller and carver of relief sculptures, and to the Masons who had the foresight to preserve the Egyptian Room as it was. In 1927 Hoff also completed the monumental work Deluge: Stampede of the Lower Gods, now in the National Gallery of Australia collection. This 4.6-metre-long relief took two years to create and shows the flight of the lower gods from hell after exorcism. According to a later owner of the work, Alec Mitchinson, the work was commissioned by a gallery (possibly the National Art Gallery of New South Wales), but the commission fell through due to the Depression, the high cost of casting in bronze overseas, and possibly because the subject matter was considered too risqué.12 A moody photograph shows Hoff standing in front of the huge relief in his studio, when he was still working on the clay version (see title page). The panel was made in high relief, which was unusual for Hoff, and

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difficult to cast. The fibrous plaster craftsman Mitchinson, a friend of Hoff’s, did an excellent job of the casting, and Deluge was exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1927. Hoff was reportedly very disappointed when the commission was cancelled, and he sold the sculpture to the Ambassadors nightclub in Pitt Street in Sydney (page 155).13 Treasure Conlon remembered that there were ‘complaints about the nudity. It was quite shocking in those days to see half demons/half humans on the wall.’ She recalled that one of ‘the boys’ had to go to the nightclub to trim off the penis of Pan.14 Barbara Tribe also recalled that the panel was considered to be too erotic or bacchanalian, and Hoff was asked to ‘alter certain male features which were protruding’. She remembered it sitting on the studio wall when she was a student, made of plaster and painted a very dark bronze colour.15 Later the sculpture was sold to Mitchinson, who bought it at auction. It hung on the walls in his factory in Mascot for 30 years, where artists and students were welcome to visit it. When Hoff’s student Lyndon Dadswell was later lecturing at the ESTC, he took advantage of this offer and arranged for his students to view the work. Finally Mitchinson’s family business, Art Plasto Co., had to move, and the family recall that Deluge was donated by Colin Mitchinson to the National Gallery in Canberra in 1968. There was some doubt about this. In 1968–69 Hoff’s former student Arthur Murch corresponded with the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board in Canberra about the possibility of employing FJ Lemon, a former employee of the Morris Singer Foundry in London, to cast Deluge in Melbourne. He also believed that the sculpture was being stored in H Broadhurst’s plaster works in Padstow in Sydney.16 As it turned out, the bronze casting was never done, and the National Gallery in Canberra paid for the plaster version to be transported to the capital. This circuitous route to a gallery collection at least saved this major work, but many of Hoff’s other works have been destroyed or lost over time. Deluge was also made during a period when Hoff was becoming increasingly interested in depicting the Aboriginal Australians, and the relief includes two clearly recognisable Aboriginal figures as pagan spirits, with the male sporting a full beard and flowing locks, and a cloven hoof. As well as these, the work combines numerous figures from various eclectic sources, including Silenus astride his ass, Pan with his pipes, a dragon

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and a Minotaur. Deborah Edwards believes that ‘Aboriginal [culture] becomes part of the means by which Hoff made claims for the power of the Australian environment in fostering a Dionysian resurgence in life’.17 In his later writing, Hoff espoused his own theories about the origins of Aboriginal Australians and their art, saying that ‘in Aboriginal art we find all the beginnings of our own, and the missing link beyond the conceptual art of early Egypt and Greece’.18 Reinterpreting classical stories to forge new Australian identities is typical of Hoff’s approach, but also points to the ignorance of the heritage of Aboriginal Australians in the early 20th century. In 1924 Hoff made his first portrait of an Aboriginal man, called Cromagnon, and another portrait of a young boy, Aboriginal Head, in 1925 (page 158). It is very likely that these works were done from the same models he used for his large commission for the Australian Museum in 1924–25. Hoff was commissioned by philanthropist Ernest Wunderlich, President of the Australian Museum Board of Trustees, to sculpt three life-sized sculptures of an Aboriginal man, woman and child for display in the Museum. The exhibit was created in the context of a popular belief at that time that the Indigenous Australian population was in irreversible decline. Wunderlich thought that it was desirable to document and show to the public a faithful physical representation of the original Australians. He financed the production of the display with his own money. The people in the group were depicted with a man throwing a boomerang, while a woman and their child are observing the hunting scene. The Aboriginal Protection Board and the police participated in the search for three suitable models. The boomerang thrower was Yangar, from the Wiradjuri group, also known as Jimmy Clements or King Billy, who claimed to be 85 years old at the time. He was a great conversationalist and a good storyteller. No doubt Hoff enjoyed the stories while Yangar posed for him. Nellie Walker was the model for the woman. Originally from Bombala, she lived in Sydney while the sculptures were being made, and Hoff kept in contact with her in later years. The boy was Harold Marsh, a nine-year-old boy from Grafton, who stayed with relatives at La Perouse and later lived at the Brewarrina Mission.19 The tableau was modelled in clay by Hoff and then cast in plaster.

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Although made for museum display, Hoff did a remarkable job capturing the individual characteristics and proportions of each of the models, right down to the stretch of the skin over the ribcage, and exquisite details on the hands and feet. The sculptures were painted by Ethel King, an accomplished illustrator and artist at the Australian Museum. The finished figures, complete with hair and fur pelts, were put on exhibition in 1925. There was considerable positive media publicity about them at the time, as they were considered to be extremely fine pieces of art and depicted their subjects well. Ten years after he had completed his first work based on an Aboriginal model, Hoff revisited the subject matter with an energetic bronze figure of a man throwing a woomera. It can be seen in a portrait by Harold Cazneaux of Hoff working on the clay version in his studio in 1933 (page 133). Once again, this photograph is a posed shot, but it does appear that Hoff was actually working on the incomplete sculpture at the time. Although Hoff had used Aboriginal models for his earlier work, Deborah Edwards found a card in Hoff’s papers in the 1980s confirming that this work was partly based on a white Australian model: Although Woomera was presented as a sculpture of a modern Aboriginal Australian, it was in fact at least partially modelled on the white Bondi athlete, Wal Balmus – an anomaly which highlights something of the disjunction between such artistic ‘truths’ and the realities of an indigenous population which was, at this time, legally invisible, health impaired and forcibly restrained in Government mission and reservation programmes.20

In 1926 Hoff was commissioned by the architects Walter Bagot and Louis Laybourne Smith, to realise the reliefs and bronze statuary for the National War Memorial in Adelaide. He had already met Laybourne Smith in 1924, and Bagot had done some preliminary sketches for the Memorial himself, but Hoff’s design changed the heavy winged stone figures envisaged by Bagot to lighter, stylised winged spirits, which seem to hover imposingly above the bronze figures below. Hoff produced detailed designs for the sculptures from his Sydney studio at the art school. He modelled the one-quarter-size clay maquettes of the angels himself, then his brother Tom made moulds of the maquettes and cast them in plaster with the help of Hoff’s students. Before

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TT Lennon, Ambassadors Club, Sydney, showing Hoff’s Deluge, c1930 National Gallery of Australia Research Library Gift of Robert Dein

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Harold Cazneaux, Hoff with Woomera, 1933 Reproduced from the original negative, National Library of Australia Gift of Robert Dein

they were sent to Adelaide, Hoff exhibited the plaster maquettes in the 1927 Society of Artists exhibition in Sydney. They were then packed in 18 packing cases and sent to Adelaide in February 1929.21 The two 4.88-metre-high relief figures were scaled up from Hoff’s plaster models by Tillett’s masons in Adelaide and carved in Angaston marble by a skilled team led by sculptor Albert ‘Julius’ Henschke. The carving of the angels took from 1927 to 1931 to complete, and was considered Henschke’s major achievement.22 His granddaughter Jennifer Marshall recalled that Hoff had been keen to use Italian marble on the Memorial, and had wanted Henschke to go to Carrara to select it. But he refused to go, and chose to use the excellent local Angaston marble for Hoff’s Australian Venus and for the Adelaide Memorial as well. Marshall also explained that the Henschke family went bankrupt during the Depression, and that the work on the war memorial was a godsend for the family.23 With the overall height measuring 9.6 metres, the Adelaide Memorial was considered to be the largest war memorial made in the southern hemisphere at the time. Construction began in 1928 with the cutting and placement of the enormous marble blocks sourced from Angaston and Macclesfield. An Adelaide firm, AW Dobbie & Co., made the bronze castings of the foreground sculptures. Although Hoff was sceptical about the quality of foundries in Australia, these figures appear to have been satisfactory (page 160). Hoff made the figurative group full scale in his studio in Sydney. Called Youth, it is 3 metres high, and consists of a male student, a woman and a farmer. The models for these were professional models from the NAS, but Hoff also used a mixed bag of reference material to make them. Hoff student Treasure Conlon remembered that it was already partly finished in clay when she first came to the studio to work on it: It was all done at ESTC. The plaits on the girl came from one of Hoff’s students (Mavis Mallinson), but the body was a professional model. The dress belonged to my mother – Hoff had to find suitable clothes from 1914, so I borrowed my mother’s dress and brought it in. The arm was mine. The day students were asked to come in and help with the modelling and casting.24

The Register News – Pictorial in Adelaide suggested that the model was well-known artists’ model Joan Britton (also spelled ‘Bretton’), but Hoff

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Rayner Hoff, Aboriginal Head, 1925 Terracotta, 26 cm (height) Photo: National Art Archive, Art Gallery of New South Wales

described this as ‘bunk’. He said it was Britton’s sister Kitty who posed, and that the head was ‘directly derived from two of my assistants’.25 Once the plaster figures arrived in Adelaide, the staff at AW Dobbie’s in Pirie Street had to attempt the first major bronze sculpture casting made in South Australia. Before this the firm had produced mainly brass church furniture and water meters, but due to the dramatic fall in work because of the Depression, they took on the contract for the figures and nameplates on the Adelaide Memorial in 1930.26 The success of the complex and difficult casting is proof of the expert craftsmanship of the casters at Dobbie’s foundry. Hoff only went over to Adelaide once, in October 1930, during the installation. Conlon recalled that there was a measurement that needed to be sorted out. He spent two weeks there, and was satisfied with what he saw, telling the Adelaide Advertiser on 26 October that he was pleased that ‘there were none of the sham heroics of militarism’, and that local marble had been used.27 With a strike by the stonemasons and delays in the bronze casting, the monument was not unveiled until Anzac Day in 1931. The choice of this auspicious day meant a huge crowd of up to 75,000 people assembled in the city. There was a procession, which took over an hour to reach the memorial.28 Hoff was not there, as he was already back in Sydney at work on the biggest project of his life, the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park. Before he started on the Memorial in Sydney, Hoff completed what was for him a small commission: a marble fountain for the foyer of the Rose Bay Wintergarden Theatre. To advertise new renovations and the coming of talkies to the theatre, a film was made in 1929 of the men who were undertaking the refurbishments. The major participants included Ray Allsop, the inventor of the Raycophone sound-on-film technology that he developed at the Wintergarden Theatre; the architect who was developing plans for the foyer, FA Jarvie; and Hoff.29 In an ironic twist to this story, the sound for the film has been lost. The film held at the National Film and Sound Archives has survived for over eight decades, and is the only known moving image of Hoff. His segment runs for 40 seconds. Despite this, it tells the viewer an amazing amount about the man and his charismatic presence, which is so often mentioned by the

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Rayner Hoff’s Youth in Dobbie’s foundry, Adelaide Courtesy Donald Richardson

people who knew him. It starts with text to introduce him: ‘Mr Rayner Hoff, world famous sculptor, who has signed a contract to execute a beautiful marble fountain with statuary for the foyer.’ What follows is a fade-in of Hoff working on a sculpture that is so subtle that it is hardly perceptible. Hoff, aged 35, is seen standing against a stone wall at the NAS, dressed in a suit and tie with his white dust jacket over the top, smoking. At first he looks a bit embarrassed to be on film, but then he relaxes. He speaks to camera but we cannot hear him. He smiles, takes a drag on his cigarette, and that is it. Although there are hundreds of still photos of Hoff, this tiny clip brings him to life in a way that the photos never could. After Hoff completed the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park between 1930 and 1934, civic commissions came thick and fast. His notoriety as a sculptor meant that he received more than he could handle, and once again he called on his students to help him complete the commissions. Liz Blaxland assisted him on the James Farrer Memorial in Queanbeyan in 1934 and Barbara Tribe worked with him on the monumental plaster relief, the Ride of the Valkyries, for the Manly Hotel in 1935. In the same year he made bronze panels and plaster friezes for the modernist extensions of the Australia Hotel, designed by architects Sodersten, Stafford and Dellit. Most of these sculptures have been lost over the years when the buildings were demolished, including the magnificent 6-metre-long relief panel Theatre A rts, designed by Hoff in 1934 for the foyer of the Liberty Theatre in Pitt Street, Sydney.30 Hoff also continued to design medals during this hectic period of his life, including the John Sulman Medal for NSW architects in 1933, and the Victoria Centenary Celebration Medal in 1934. Controversy was sparked in Melbourne when Hoff designed the Victorian medal. A competition was held for the design of a plaque to commemorate Melbourne’s centenary in Victoria. When the entries submitted were judged to be unsuitable, the Centenary Art Committee commissioned Hoff to design the medal. After much consideration and many casts, Hoff designed a sparse medal with a ram’s skull and single ear of wheat on one side, representing Victoria’s primary industries and an electricity tower on the other side as a symbol of progress. The design was approved by the committee and images were printed in the newspapers. It was after the public saw the design that the storm broke. Dubbed the ‘death’s head medallion’, critics complained that

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it represented death, drought and destruction, and did not commemorate Melbourne at all. As an experienced designer of medals, Hoff defended the design: In a medallion, an artist has a limited medium, and he must limit his subject matter and methods of treatment. If a writer or a painter had been asked to portray the century of progress he would have been able to treat it more fully. But in the more abstract forms of art you are very limited … A medallion is in art what one deeply telling line is in prose. It may be easy to write an account of something in 500 words, but intensely difficult to condense the effect of those 500 words in two lines.31

In a gesture of conciliation, he submitted a second design in August, with farming tools substituted for the ram’s head in the original design. The committee upheld their previous decision, and opted for the ram’s skull. Five hundred silver and bronze medals were struck for the commemorations in October 1934. Hoff believed it was a fuss over nothing, but it was difficult for him to deal with during an already stressful time in his life. Hoff’s reputation seemed to grow with each newspaper report, and for some he epitomised the romantic view of an artist. A reporter for The Australian Women’s Weekly demonstrated this in an article written in 1934: Tall, well built, and dark, Rayner Hoff carries on his creative work unperturbed by these storms in the outer world. He lives for his art, follows implicitly the dictates of his inspiration, and does not care a brass farthing what the critics say, one way or another. Rayner Hoff has no particular mannerisms when at work in his studio in the one-time Darlinghurst Gaol, Sydney. His well-formed hands with fingers strong as steel plunge into the clay, and as though by magic it takes shape. But if his visitor is inclined for a chat, the sculptor, who is deeply interested in people and who is always ready for a discussion, will sit down and yarn for an hour as though he had nothing to do at all. Like most artists he will argue, at length, about anything under the sun just for the sake of sharpening his mental wit. He is a good talker with a keen sense of humour and is always ready to have a hearty laugh at life in general.32

It is interesting that the reporter describes him as tall, as he was of average height, and certainly not tall by today’s standards.33

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By 1934, Hoff was considered an expert on Australian military equipment and uniforms. He kept cupboards of carefully stored uniforms in the studio as reference, and was meticulous about using the correct details in his work. So when the board of directors of Associated Newspapers Ltd decided to donate a perpetual challenge trophy for the Infantry Brigade Service Teams competition, they commissioned Hoff to execute a figure of a typical Australian infantryman in bronze. This work completed an exceptionally busy year, and the three-quarter life-size sculpture of an infantryman holding his rifle and bayonet at the ready was ‘voted wonderfully accurate in its detail’ when it was returned from England in 1935 after being cast.34 Hoff was photographed for the magazine Reveille standing next to the sculpture in April 1935. Placed on a wooden plinth with brass plaques recording the annual winners, the Sunday Sun trophy was displayed in Farmers Pitt Street window, and ten miniature versions were made in bronze to be presented to each winning brigade on Anzac Day. The original bronze sculpture has survived intact in the Army Museum at Victoria Barracks in Sydney. In 1936 Hoff completed what was to be his last portrait bust, that of composer and violinist Alfred Hill. Hoff was photographed working on the sculpture of the 66-year-old composer in his studio for the Daily Telegraph in June 1936.35 Although never cast in bronze, the patinated plaster version of this work is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, with a slightly different moustache to the original. The sculpture was kept for many years by Alfred Hill and became part of the collection of L Roy Davies, Head of the NAS from 1948 to 1960. This portrait brought the number of Hoff’s completed portrait commissions to over 30, arguably the most made by a single sculptor in Australia during this period. In 1937 Hoff submitted two proposals in competitions for memorials to King George V, who had died in 1936. One was for Canberra and the other for Melbourne. His two models for Melbourne were exhibited in Melbourne Town Hall in August 1937. The winner of this competition was Sydneyborn William Leslie Bowles, although this work was delayed by the Second World War, and was not unveiled until 1952. Hoff was one of three sculptors invited to submit proposals for the memorial in Canberra. The other two were Paul Montford and Bowles, who had previously worked as a sculptor

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and model maker at the Australian War Memorial. It was decided to select the three sculptors, rather than open this commission for public competition, and the budget was limited to £20,000 for the entire memorial. Hoff took the proposal seriously, producing a ten-page printed booklet outlining his three different designs in great detail, including the exact scale, plans and elevations. The booklet also covered costing of individual parts of the memorial, which included a massive carved stone sculpture, casting of George V in bronze in London and all the architectural elements.36 As well as this, he made three-dimensional models and sketches to scale. His students worked on the submission with him. To help him submit the proposal on time, Hoff chose one of the talented illustration students at the art school, Adye Bailey, to help with the architectural drawings and watercolours. She believed that Roy Davies, then head of the illustration department at the NAS, knew that she was hard up during the Depression and had pointed her out to Hoff. She was thrilled to be chosen, and to receive the much-needed wage. And she loved the work in the studio: We worked on the weekends for Hoff and if we were really busy, after class as well. He was very caring for the welfare of his students. For instance when we were really busy and working late at night, Hoff would send a couple of the older ones down to Oxford Street to get a huge bag of prawns and bread. We’d all sit around one of the long work tables which had been cleared, eating them. He also provided beer for the older ones and for us younger ones, soft drinks. It was lots of fun and laughter. If it was really late he’d insist on paying for a taxi to take me home. How lucky I was to be with this man.37

Despite the fun, Adye Bailey recalled that the work was difficult. Hoff would give her a rough sketch and she would be expected to do the research herself and fill in the details. She had to do some complex perspective drawings of the steps for the memorial, and if she made a mistake, Hoff would correct it. After the drawings were done, student Liz Blaxland then worked on the three different models, recalling, ‘I made the scale models and took them down to Canberra to erect them for the competition.’38 One of Hoff’s designs, an art deco–style collaboration between Hoff and associate architect Harry Foskett, was partially accepted by the committee in March 1937. The design was officially accepted by the Federal Cabinet in

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August 1937 and Hoff set up his studio and started work on the sculptures, which would be his final commission. Hoff completed over 150 sculptures during his lifetime. Dispersed into public and private collections all around Australia, the exact number is very difficult to ascertain, but art historian Ken Scarlett has listed most of them in his comprehensive book Australian Sculptors.39 Listed are 31 reliefs, 32 portraits and heads, 31 single figures, nine medals, six commercial works and nine groups. The groups cover works on the war memorials, so they have multiple parts to them. Scarlett wrote the entry based on an original list lent to him by Hoff’s daughter Sandra Henstock, apparently compiled by Hoff himself. Many of Hoff’s works remain in Australia. Sadly, only one known public sculpture exists in the United Kingdom: the Storrington Memorial. His major work completed at the Royal College of Art for the Rome Scholarship, Labour, has been lost. Fortunately, as Hoff brought some of his other UK sculptures to Australia in 1923, at least five of these have survived. Looking through Rayner Hoff’s catalogue of works, it is gratifying to see how many of his works are still held in collections in Australia. Public buildings such as the war memorials in Adelaide, Dubbo and Sydney are visited by thousands of people each year, as are his works in public galleries. The greatest losses came with the demolition and renovation of buildings on which he had worked, including the Australia Hotel, the Liberty Theatre, and the Wintergarden Theatre at Rose Bay. A few major figurative works like Imperia, Woomera and Gael have also been lost, but through the good management of Annis Hoff, her children, and Hoff’s friends, most have survived, if not in public collections, at least in private ones.

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12

Under the skin Friends and colleagues

Rayner Hoff and poet Hugh McCrae at an apple orchard near Camden, NSW, c1934

There are a few delightful photos of Hoff and his friend Hugh McCrae eating apples together in an orchard near Camden. Dressed in an open-necked shirt and braces, Hoff holds the ever-present cigarette in one hand, and matches and an apple in the other. It seems that he has just shared a joke with McCrae, who is looking at him with amusement. McCrae’s brother-in-law Robert Adams owned an apple orchard at Elderslie, and it is likely that they visited there during 1934–35.1 Most of the Hoffs’ social life was generated through Hoff’s colleagues and students at the technical college, but he soon formed relationships with some of the leading artists and writers in Sydney, including Norman Lindsay, Hugh McCrae and Mary Gilmore. He met many of these artists through his involvement with the Society of Artists, which he joined soon after his arrival. Founded by David Henry (DH) Souter in 1895, the Society of Artists was an influential Sydney-based group of progressive artists that staged annual exhibitions from its inception until its closure in the 1960s. Hoff was able to show his work in the Society’s regular venue at the Education Department’s Art Gallery in Loftus Street, Sydney. Through this Society Hoff met many established artists, including Souter and Sydney Ure Smith, President from 1921 to 1948. Ure Smith encouraged new members and advocated measured progress in Australian art. He and George Lambert helped to keep the Society liberal and supported the award of the Society’s travelling scholarship to young artists.2 Norman Lindsay had been a member of the Society of Artists since 1907. By the time Hoff met him, Lindsay had already established himself in Australia as a well-known cartoonist, illustrator, writer, painter and novelist, and author of the classic children’s book The Magic Pudding. During the 1920s, Lindsay continued to work prolifically both as a writer and artist, producing short stories and novels, pen drawings, etchings and dry-points, watercolours and ship-models and showing his work regularly in the annual

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exhibitions of the Society of Artists and the Australian Water-Colour Institute. Lindsay was also a Trustee of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales from 1918 to 1929, and as such was one of the judges on the panel during the time when Hoff won the Wynne Prize. Hoff soon joined the circle of writers and artists associated with the Lindsays. He enjoyed Norman Lindsay’s brilliant and persuasive conversations. He also read the works of younger writers whom Lindsay had inspired including poets Robert D Fitzgerald, Kenneth Slessor and Douglas Stewart, and Australian authors who wrote for Franfrolico Press in London. Hoff’s close relationship with Norman Lindsay resulted in at least three sculptures. One was of Lindsay’s second wife, Rose, who he had married only a few years before they met. Rayner and his brother Tom drove up to the Lindsay house in Faulconbridge on weekends in 1924 and 1925 to complete a figurative sculpture of her. Rose’s recollections of the event in her book, Model Wife, were not particularly complimentary about Hoff, but she was, however, quite pleased with the final work, and tried to find its whereabouts in later years, sadly with no luck: Rayner Hoff decided to do a statue of me; life size. He arrived with his brother Tom and a car-load of trestles and clay. These he set up in the studio, completely depriving Norman of any comfort to work there, for weeks. Rayner came every weekend till the statue was finished. I was allowed a thin drape which constantly slipped down, and was finally left when Rayner said ‘Leave it there’. So I was nude with a wedding ring and head-dress. Tom silently handed him all the materials as he worked. Rayner was short, stocky, dark and very brisk. Tom was tall, fair and gentle, with a great admiration for Rayner. I never quite forgave Rayner for saying that I had a most remarkable figure for my age – but he was always a bit clumsy with his compliments.3

Hoff called the sculpture Imperia, and it was first exhibited in the Society of Artists exhibition in 1925. Rose remembered it being ‘one and a quarter life size’, and it does appear that it may have been larger than life size. A Bulletin article described it as ‘the big work Imperia which is one of the dominating features of the Society of Artists exhibition’.4 Lindsay’s youngest son Phil wrote about the relationship between his father and Hoff in 1927:

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Harold Cazneaux, Norman Lindsay, c1924 Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

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In the future, when these times are being written and biographers are busy scraping in the rubbish-heap of memory and fable, there will be one scene they will linger over and record with loving care. That is the meeting between Rayner Hoff and Norman Lindsay. Two men with identical ideas, they were immediately friends – more than friends, in fact. At Springwood in Mr Lindsay’s watercolour studio, in the shadow of his gigantic easel, the pair sat before the fire and discussed that most inexhaustible of all subjects, art.5

Obviously an enthusiastic admirer of Hoff’s, Phil Lindsay goes on to describe him as a great teacher, a great artist, an iconoclast, and even an apostle. Letters between Hoff and Norman Lindsay range in subject matter from their attitudes to art, religion, the Society of Artists, their ideas for setting up of a university art school to arrangements for sittings and the making of a sphinx for Rose’s car. In a letter dated around 1924–25, Hoff thanks Lindsay for his drawing of the sphinx, based on the winged monster of Greek mythology that had the head and breasts of a woman and the body of a lion, which Hoff described as ‘most amusing’ and says it should model well.6 The tiny sphinx statuette sat as the radiator cap on Rose’s Vauxhall car for many years and an image of it is now used as the insignia for the Lindsay Museum in Faulconbridge. Lindsay also made a larger version of this sculpture in concrete, which still sits in the courtyard of the cottage. Rose recalled: Norman designed a mascot for my car, a sphinx, and Rayner made it to be cast in metal and silvered. Norman would keep on interfering, suggesting more chest, and more of a curve here and there, so that the finished result is Norman’s work down to the chest, and Rayner’s below – and very proudly the lady sat up on the front of my car as the radiator cap.7

Helen Glad, Lindsay’s daughter, believed that the original Sphinx was made of melted paint tubes. The National Trust made a bronze edition of it in 1988.8 Renowned for his insightful and sometimes rambling letters to his friends and family, Lindsay often mentioned conversations he had had with Rayner on the weekends he stayed in Faulconbridge. From them we gain a glimpse into Hoff’s candid opinions on sculpture, gender and sex. In Lindsay’s letter

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Norman Lindsay and Rayner Hoff, Sphinx, c1925 Silver, 20.5 x 6 x 6 cm Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum

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to his son Jack, written from Springwood around 1926, he said: By the way, I have been discussing Rodin and Michelangelo a lot with Hoff, and he has raised an interesting point touching the failure of both, which is directly concerned with the sex-muddle of both. Michelangelo tried for a male canon in the ‘David’ and failed completely. He tried at the same time to achieve a love-episode with a woman and failed also. The male and female canons became confused in his mind so that the only real aesthetic value that remains in his work is expressed in certain feminised male forms. Rodin, having a terrifically strong seximpetus towards women, exploited it constantly through life, and failed altogether to complete a female canon … In Hoff’s admirably direct phrase, he failed to fuck his own creations, and wasted cock-stands on women instead of work.9

Lindsay and Hoff remained friends and colleagues for the 14 years that Hoff lived in Australia, which was quite an achievement, as Lindsay was notorious for his intolerance of fellow artists. He had had huge rows with many friends and quite a few of his family. Lindsay later wrote: I can only say in reference to Rayner Hoff that his death was one I still mourn for its loss to the whole art movement here. He was not only a first class sculptor and an inspired teacher, but he had one of the best minds in his outlook on Life and Art that I have exchanged talk with.10

Another relationship that developed due to Hoff’s reputation as an educator and sculptor was with a young New Zealander named Len Lye. Lye studied art at Wellington Technical College, where he had received a solid grounding in technical skills, but also became interested in the idea of creating art in a moving form. He became convinced that motion could be part of the language of art, leading him to experiment early with kinetic sculpture, as well as a desire to make film. When he moved to Sydney in 1922, he met artists and bohemians in pubs and at parties, particularly the Black and White cartoonists from Smiths Weekly, and began making a living doing posters for a film advertising agency and learning animation. As his biographer Roger Horrocks put it: Lye got to know various subcultures of artists and writers. Bohemianism, as he experienced it was about lively people seeking one another out and finding ways to have a good time on little money. It

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was about intellectual independence, about radical or irreverent views on religion and politics, and about sexual freedom.11

It was not surprising then, that Lye met Hoff in a pub and later went to him for advice on tools when he wanted to make some sculpture. He described a visit to Hoff’s studio in a letter in 1965: About the Raynor [sic] Hoff portrait marble head. He did it on my second stay in Sydney around 1924–5. I looked him up as the local expert on sculpting to get advice on tools and found him most kind and wise so, instead of yarning away about art he occupied himself by doing the head. His brother also took some photos of my head so he could work on it when I wasn’t around. I think I was twenty-four at the time.12

No doubt Hoff was fascinated with the shape of Lye’s head, with his closely cropped hair and elongated neck. He eliminated the neck in the final sculpture, instead placing the head on box-like shapes, which emphasise the trance-like and serene features of the face, and foreshadows the classic art deco style Hoff used to great effect in later works. After completing the clay portrait, he then cast his final version of the work in plaster. In return for Lye’s modelling time, Hoff gave him instructions, some marble and sculpting tools. Lye took them back to the garden at his rented room and started carving directly into this marble block, creating a geometric and abstract version of a man and woman embracing, which he called Unit.13 Hoff exhibited the plaster version of his portrait of Lye in the Society of Artists exhibition in September 1927 and was asked to submit it for the Wynne Prize, administered by the National Art Gallery of New South Wales in the same year. One of Australia’s longest running art prizes, the Wynne was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne. It is still awarded annually for ‘the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours or for the best example of figure sculpture by Australian artists’.14 GVF Mann, director of the Gallery, sent Hoff a letter asking him to submit his ‘Head in marble’ in December 1927. Hoff replied: I am forwarding to you the cast of the head which I exhibited at the Society of Artists exhibition. The head was not in marble, but the present peculiar colour is due to a coat of shellac recently applied, as I intended sending the head to a foundry to be cast in bronze.15

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The bronze cast was not made, but the work was selected as the winner of the Wynne Prize and the announcement was made in January 1928. The prize money was £55, less than one-tenth of the prize money for the Archibald Prize that year. Even so, it was a great honour to win and further cemented Hoff’s reputation as a sculptor in Sydney. He was only the fifth sculptor to win the prize in the 30 years it had been held. The next sculptor to win it was one of his students, Lyndon Dadswell, in 1933. After winning the Wynne, Hoff commissioned master stonemason Julius Henschke to carve Lye’s portrait in marble in Adelaide while Hoff was preparing to work on the National War Memorial there.16 A fascinating photograph held by Henschke’s family shows him working on Hoff’s other masterpiece from 1927, Australian Venus (page 176). Taken in Henschke’s studio in Adelaide, Hoff’s original plaster, which is being reproduced in local Angaston marble, is seen on the right, with a pointing machine clearly visible in the foreground. The plaster version of Hoff’s Decorative Portrait – Len Lye can be seen in the background. If the date of the photo is 1927, as suspected, this plaster must have been left in Henschke’s studio after he had carved it for Hoff in Italian marble. Henschke also had Hoff’s 1923 portrait of Sandra (possibly cast in bronze in Adelaide) in his studio. There is also part of the foot of the angel from the Adelaide Memorial, which Hoff had sent from Sydney to be carved. In later years, Lye was a quite a maverick, never fitting any of the usual art historical labels. He became an innovator in many areas of the arts – particularly in experimental film, but also in painting, sculpture, photography and writing. Lye left Sydney for London in September 1926, so was not in Sydney when Hoff won the Wynne Prize. He didn’t see the final marble version of the sculpture until he visited Sydney again in December 1968. By then, the sculpture had been purchased by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and had been rather neglected in the gallery collection, with part of an ear broken off. Lye later described his rediscovery of the portrait in a lecture he gave in Berkeley College in New York in 1969: I got a letter from Daniel Thomas at the Art Gallery of NSW (in 1965), asking if I was the Len Lye of whom they had a marble sculpture carved by Rayner Hoff? It had lost an ear and they couldn’t find it. I said – yes, that’s me alright. I visited Sydney with my wife Anne

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Rayner Hoff, Decorative Portrait – Len Lye, 1925 Marble, 30.5 x 22.5 x 16.5 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales Photo: National Art Archive, AGNSW

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6 months ago. I thought it would be in the basement [of the Gallery]. On the way I told Anne about the marble head and she was surprised I hadn’t told her about it, mainly because I’d forgotten about it. I never really liked the head – I thought it was a little idealistic. There was a huge entrance hall with marble columns, and in the far right hand corner I saw the head – I said ‘No!’ I couldn’t believe it! It said ‘Len Lye Esq’ on the label.17

Despite not being overly enthusiastic about the work, Lye did have his photograph taken with it, which accompanied an extensive article on Lye’s work in The Australian newspaper.18 The ear was repaired, although Lye was not concerned about its loss, saying, ‘If Van Gogh could afford to lose one, who am I to quibble?’19 Hoff’s abiding interest in architecture and its relationship with sculpture meant that soon after his arrival he made friends with many of the up-andcoming architects in Sydney. He met many architects when he and the new

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Julius Henschke carving Australian Venus, Adelaide c1927 Courtesy David and Jennifer Marshall

City Surveyor, Mr Weekes, were welcomed to Sydney by the Institute of Architects a month after his arrival in Sydney. After the gracious and formal welcome, Hoff replied: I feel very strongly the welcome to the City Surveyor and myself. I have been largely connected with, and have had every sympathy for, architecture from the very beginning of my training, and I feel the importance of the relation between sculpture and architecture. In the position I have taken up, I think architecture will take an important part. I would like great consideration to be given to sculpture in your designs. In the past you have been hampered and inconvenienced by the difficulty of getting good sculptors here. I think we will soon have a school here which will be able to supply all the needs. It will take some time to realise to what extent sculpture may be legitimately used for the general public for the advancement and greater appreciation of architecture, sculpture, and painting, but for the sake of the students I hope we will soon be doing some very acceptable work.20

One of the first civic commissions to come Hoff’s way was for Professor Leslie Wilkinson, who met Hoff at ESTC in July 1923 and became a friend and colleague. He commissioned Hoff to make four busts of famous scientists for the Physics Building at the University of Sydney in 1925. Wilkinson, as university architect, designed the Mediterranean-style building, which opened in 1926. The medallions of Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell and Archimedes have a diameter of 80 centimetres and were made in architectural terracotta by Wunderlich. Although very high up on the façade, these sculptures are still visible today. Wilkinson became quite a champion of Hoff’s work. Even before commissioning him to complete the work at the University of Sydney, he was responsible for introducing Hoff to the architects of the National War Memorial in Adelaide in 1924, after they decided against using the sculptor Paul Montford.21 In 1931 Wilkinson wrote an exuberant essay on Hoff’s student Eileen McGrath in Hoff’s book on her work, and regularly promoted Hoff’s work for private commissions in Sydney. Like Hoff, Wilkinson trained in England, received a scholarship to study at the British School at Rome, served in the Great War and had come to Australia when he was appointed Chair of Architecture at the University of Sydney in 1918.22 In 1920 he became the founding Dean of

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the Faculty of Architecture. In this position his ideas on architecture as a form of art strongly influenced both the school and its students. Described as exceptionally tall with a fair complexion, pink cheeks and a clipped moustache, Wilkinson made such pronouncements as ‘it is not so important to be in style as to have style’.23 He later joined Hoff as one of the founding members of the Australian Academy of Art, and helped organise a memorial exhibition of Hoff’s work in 1938. Poet and author Hugh McCrae, another friend of Hoff’s, was also a close friend of Norman Lindsay until they drifted apart. Best known for his poetry, letters and black and white illustrations, McCrae’s writing included prose, drama and journalism. He met Hoff soon after Hoff’s arrival in Sydney, and in 1926 McCrae wrote an article in the Sunday Times regarding his reaction to Hoff’s students’ work: Through an exhibition recently held by students of the East Sydney Technical College, G. Rayner Hoff, chief instructor of the Upper School, has rid me of a lifelong heresy, viz., that the teaching of art does not much matter where the highest talent is concerned. I am ready, now, to think upon exactly opposite lines. Looking down Hoff’s catalogue, I find his pupils are familiar with the works of Shakespeare, Goethe, Marlow [sic], Wycherley, Congreve, Keats, Matthew Arnold, Edgar Allan Poe, and Hans Anderson [sic]. Hoff is that rare individual who loves literature almost as much as he loves life; and consequently, mind and body make their natural union in every work which comes from his hand. This quality alone brings him rewards, but I think his power for conveying knowledge to other people, combined with an unapproachable gift for direction, sets him as a man apart, even among the best we have seen.24

McCrae also discussed the work of Hoff’s students Eileen McGrath and Victoria Cowdroy in effusive terms, describing the 18-year-old Cowdroy as: a determined modernist, if ever there was one. To me, she suggests the parallel of some madcap creature, disturbing the religious by clapping her hands on Sunday. Out of all restraint; and, as bold as brass, she flashes herself wittily through the air. No one has drawn such naked women since Norman Lindsay took the field in eighteen – God-knowswhen! Too slippery to be held for punishment, she makes a grimace

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at authority; while the rest of the world laughs immoderately, and watches for the next thing to come.25

Norman Lindsay also saw the exhibition in 1926 and mentioned McCrae’s article in a letter to McCrae after Hoff had taken his students from the art school up to see Norman at Faulconbridge: Hoff brought his best students up here recently and I put them through the simple rudiments of etching. Those technical college girls … were really a delightful surprise. Your article brought them great stimulus. It charmed me too. You noticed a point that I had overlooked – the admirable response to literature they displayed. Of course, one can never count too far for student work, but the general effect in the show was very hopeful.26

Hoff collected McCrae’s publications, and Hoff’s personal library contains most of McCrae’s books, often inscribed by the author. McCrae was a prolific and exuberant correspondent, who regularly illustrated his letters with drawings and photographs. When Robert D. Fitzgerald edited a book of McCrae’s letters in 1970, he had over 3000 to choose from.27 A typical example is in a letter from McCrae to Hoff arranging a sitting for his portrait, probably in 1935. As well as a photograph of himself, McCrae included a drawing of Hoff’s daughter Nereida running around a very large Bruce Dellit, the architect of the Anzac Memorial, with McCrae running after her: Now I know how you get your exercise! I’ve seen Mr Dellit and not only have I seen him but chased Nereida for a quarter of a mile around him (I suppose you’ve often gone the full distance?) What a marathon of a man! Can I sit (and nest) for you on Friday afternoon at 3.30?28

Hoff completed the life-size portrait of McCrae by September 1936. A plaster version was exhibited in the Society of Artists exhibition in that year, but its whereabouts is currently unknown. Like Hoff, McCrae also became friends with the student Victoria Cowdroy, who signed her work Vic Cowdroy (or later ‘Royston’) but was known as Vicky to her friends and family. Born in Sydney in 1908, and a keen drawer from early childhood, Cowdroy attended Fort Street High School until she became ill with scarlet fever. After she recovered, she began studying art at ESTC at the age of 14. By the end of 1925, at age 17,

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Cowdroy was in her fourth year at the art school, making sculptures as well as working as an illustrator for magazines. As a student, much of her work was influenced by Norman Lindsay, an artist whom she was said to admire profoundly. Her graduate sculpture, Figure from Life, was acknowledged when it was illustrated in the respected magazine A rt in Australia in March 1927 (page 183).29 This significant nude self-portrait of the uninhibited Cowdroy and appears to be the first female sculptural life study done in Australia. Sadly, the whereabouts of the sculpture is unknown, but her family still has two photos of her posing at the art school as reference for the sculpture (page 182). It is believed the photos were taken by her future husband, George Bunting. Bunting, a law student, was a keen sculptor and draughtsman and Hoff welcomed him at the school, although he was only able to attend at night. His friendship with Hoff was cemented in later years when Bunting became his solicitor, and Annis and Vicky also grew close when they both had children at a similar time. George Bunting collected anecdotes and newspaper clippings regarding Hoff and his friends, and among them is a typed poem from McCrae to Hoff, apologising for his behaviour during a recent drinking binge.30 One of Hoff’s closest friends and colleagues in Sydney was Samuel Rowe, who had been part of the selection committee that had offered Hoff the job at the art school. Born in Manchester, England, Rowe showed great promise as an up-and-coming interior and decorative arts designer. He had studied design for six years at the Manchester Municipal School of Arts, where he won the Bronze Medal in 1891. After moving to London he designed furniture and fabrics for Liberty’s of London and was a proponent of the British Arts and Crafts school. He designed fabrics made by AH Lee & Sons, some of which survive in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection. Despite the Rowe family’s extensive research into his life, it is unclear why he decided to immigrate to Australia in 1899.31 He landed in Fremantle and tried his luck in the Western Australian goldfields. Soon afterwards he served in the Boer War in South Africa before being invalided back to Western Australia in 1902. He moved to Sydney and established a branch of his UK family business in Australia, manufacturing boot polish with the brand ‘Cobra’. Rowe commissioned Norman Lindsay to produce a series

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of advertisements for Cobra in 1909. Rowe was to establish himself as an interior designer and worked for Wunderlich’s architectural department in Redfern from 1905 to 1922. As their best-known designer, Rowe has been credited with introducing Art Nouveau to Wunderlich’s decorative pressed metal ceilings, and his complex organic designs were installed in thousands of Australian homes and businesses up until the 1950s. Examples of his ceiling panels for Farmers Pitt Street store have survived in the Powerhouse Museum collection. Rowe was appointed as Lecturer in Charge of the art department at Sydney Technical College in July 1916. His extensive experience as a designer was of great value to the art department and, by the time Hoff arrived, Rowe had been in this position for seven years and was 54 years old. Hoff was taken with Rowe’s craggy, strong features and he was one of the first to sit for a portrait in Hoff’s studio. In the resulting work, Rowe sports his favourite bow tie, and the original also included his trademark round glasses. The plaster sculpture, minus the glasses, has survived at the art school for over 90 years, and is now part of the National Art School Collection (page 185). Rowe supported Hoff in his private commissions by allowing him time to work in the studio, and his family recall that he possibly helped Hoff in the initial stages of the design of the Anzac Memorial. They also recall that Rowe mentioned staying at a camp at Merimbula: Sam remained interested in the arts and in his retirement taught drawing and painting. In his summer holidays he and some artistic friends, including Fred Leist, Jack Tanner and Jack Treganna, camped at Merimbula, on the far southern coastline of NSW, among the coastal scrub and dunes. Sam spoke of lazy days swimming and painting and being well fed with thick ‘bacon steaks’ from Molly Shafers’ meat processing factory.32

The Hoff family joined Rowe and his friends at Merimbula in January 1933, and the lazy days are apparent in photos showing them fishing and swimming near the camp. The photos were taken in the January holidays in the year that Rowe retired, when Hoff was about to go back to work as Lecturer in Charge of the whole art school. Hoff remained close friends with many of his colleagues at the art school

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Victoria Cowdroy posing at the National Art School, c1926

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Victoria Cowdroy’s selfportrait, Figure from Life, 1927 Art in Australia, March 1927

after they had retired or moved on. One was the irrepressible Scotsman Robert Carswell, head teacher of the Introductory art course at the tech, known affectionately as ‘Carsie’ to his students. A fine draughtsman and designer, he had designed fittings for buildings Hoff had worked on, including the lighting fixtures for the Masonic Temple, and the chandeliers for the Rose Bay Wintergarden Theatre.33 He was extremely popular with the students, who wrote a poem after his death, ‘Our lost Pal’.34 He and his family lived at Bondi, and he spent many hours with Hoff, often having drinks after work in the pub. Carswell died on 13 November 1937, at age 50, and Hoff attended the funeral at Kinselas Funeral Parlour in Taylor Square. No photographs have been found of the prominent socialist poet and author Mary Gilmore posing in Hoff’s studio for her portrait, but they are hardly needed, due to the extensive correspondence that has survived between Gilmore, Hoff and McCrae. These frank letters describe the profound effect that the studio and Hoff’s work had on Gilmore, and demonstrate how close their friendship became over the three years she knew him.

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In keeping with his suggestion that Hoff make portraits of Sydney’s cultural identities, artist DH Souter suggested that Hoff sculpt Gilmore, and Souter arranged for her first sitting, which took place in August 1934. At the age of 69, Gilmore was a little reticent at first, saying she wished Hoff had ‘had the face before the textures had gone and muscles sagged’, but agreed that it was wonderful to have him ‘take it as a model for a future life’.35 Gilmore had enjoyed a full and eventful life before meeting Hoff. After growing up in country New South Wales, her first teaching positions were at Wagga Wagga and Broken Hill. In 1890 she transferred to Sydney, where she continued to teach, began to write for The Bulletin, and became friends with Henry Lawson. She established a reputation as a radical poet, and a champion of the workers and the oppressed. She followed William Lane and other socialist idealists to Paraguay in 1896, where they had established a communal settlement called New Australia two years earlier. Here she met and married William Gilmore at Cosme in 1897, and their son Billy was born in 1898. By 1900 the socialist experiment had failed, and the family eventually returned to Australia in 1902. After a period of farming at Casterton in Victoria, Mary Gilmore and Billy moved to Sydney. She edited the women’s page of the Australian Worker, and over the years Gilmore campaigned for a wide range of social and economic reforms, including votes for women, old-age and invalid pensions, child endowment and improved treatment of returned servicemen, the poor and Aboriginal Australians. She wrote numerous letters to friends, as well as contributing articles and poems to the Sydney Morning Herald, and published books of poetry and prose from 1910 until her death in 1962.36 When Hoff met her, he described her as ‘about the most interesting woman’s head I have ever been faced with’, and as a woman who knew more than he could ever learn in three lifetimes.37 A photograph taken 14 years after Gilmore posed for Hoff demonstrates his remarkable ability to capture her likeness in his sculpture (page 186). Although Gilmore wrote to Hoff regularly, it was to McCrae that she was able to describe her feelings about sitting in Hoff’s studio: That studio and the work in it together with the sitting and the perception of the fingers working and what the fingers could do was one of the [most] terrible experiences I ever had … The smell of the

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Rayner Hoff, Portrait of Samuel Rowe, 1924 Patinated plaster National Art School Collection. Photo: Peter Morgan

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clay, the sight of the timbers, the dust on the floor and the holes in it as one entered, crashed the two ends of seventy years together and the impressions of my childhood, of my father and his workshed, his building and the smell of clay and of timber – rose up out of their graves and though I sat in this world I was in that.38

Gilmore wrote three pages of typed personal notes about her impressions of Hoff and his work, which she intended to use in an article. They reveal her romantic vision of the artist and she describes again the effect of the studio: I went into his studio unconscious and unknowing. I came away feeling as if I had seen the void take shape. It nearly killed me … There is something about Rayner Hoff’s work that says things to me that nothing else in form or colour has ever said.39

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Mary Gilmore, 1948 Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

The sculpture Hoff completed of Gilmore also reminded her of her family roots, and she believed he had captured all her forebears in her face: ‘I saw at first astoundingly, not one person, but ancestors – they were there, and I could not see myself for seeing them.’40 The correspondence between Hoff and Gilmore is held in the National Gallery Research Library in Canberra. They are at first formal in tone, with Gilmore calling him ‘Mr Hoff’ and Hoff replying to ‘Mrs Gilmore’, until May 1935, when she starts to address the letters to ‘Dear Rayner’, and he changes to ‘Dear Mary Gilmore’. The letters reveal a rare relationship between an older woman and a younger man, full of mutual respect and admiration. She lived in a flat not far from the art school, in Darlinghurst Road, and occasionally would hand-deliver her letters. She often sent him copies of books she thought he’d like, newspaper articles, her own poems (some before they were published, which she called her ‘swans’), and described exhibitions she had been to as well as the various ailments that caused her problems. As the friendship developed, Gilmore also sent Hoff an Elioth Gruner etching, and a photograph of herself, smiling, taken eight years earlier. Gilmore’s sittings at the studio were from August to December 1934 and these were arranged via mail. After he finished the portrait, Hoff wrote to Gilmore to tell her that he had been reading her poetry while she was sitting for him, but deliberately did not discuss it: I had to protect my own general impressions to some extent, therefore I seldom spoke to you, and avoided the intimacy which would naturally develop with frequent references to your work. This head of you is, I am sure, one of the best I have ever modelled. This despite the fact that you were nervous, and I, not in the best of form. Many things disturbed me while I was working, but I have never come to any job with so much pleasure. To work on your head was relaxation, and at the same time, the great ‘keyed-up-ness’ that one gets in the most tense and enjoyable of work.41

Hoff had recently had influenza, and the stress of his workload was affecting him during the sittings. Mary Gilmore’s son Billy was a keen admirer of Hoff’s work, and Gilmore

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asked if Billy could visit Hoff’s studio to see the portrait of her. When he saw the studio and work in January 1935, he was most impressed, describing how it made him look at his mother anew: ‘I had to confess to myself that I didn’t know my mother’s features.’42 In March he wrote to Hoff to suggest that the work be cast or carved in marble, and in April he sent a cheque to Hoff for the casting. Hoff then packed the plaster and sent it to the Morris Singer Foundry in London. He asked Gilmore what colour she’d like the bronze finished in, and a green was chosen.43 Once they received word that the bronze was on its return from England in September, Hoff and Gilmore discussed where it should be placed. Hoff didn’t like the idea of Canberra ‘as it is very much out of the way’, but told Gilmore that she wouldn’t have to pay any customs duties if it went to a public collection. He tried to contact their friend DH Souter from the Society of Artists, but couldn’t get onto him. He then found out that Souter had died suddenly on 22 September. Hoff’s reaction was, ‘now he is buried and I have missed modelling him’.44 Gilmore was more sympathetic: ‘My heart aches every time I think of DHS,’ but in the same letter she also discusses her forthcoming book: ‘The shaping of verse to me at all events is like forging and bending steel to shape.’45 The bronze arrived in October, and Hoff wrote to Gilmore to say he had unpacked it and was very pleased with it: ‘The colour is very striking, being vivid green. It knocks all the other colours in my studio kite-high.’46 He also arranged for Gilmore to visit the studio to look at it. She described being ‘terrified’ to see it. Although she found that some of the ‘feminine seeking look has submerged’, and that in the bronze the ‘upsprung hair is horns’, she was impressed with the final version: There is such power in it … and life. Under the skin the flesh, under the flesh the bone, and behind the bone the ancestor. When I think of what you have done for this sad tired ugly face and the circumstances under which it was done I am filled with wonder.47

The Trustees of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales accepted it into the collection in March 1936, and it went on display in May. Gilmore asked for the inscription to read ‘Presented by DH Souter, Rayner Hoff and Mary Gilmore’. She was keen for the sculpture to be dedicated to the memory of her friend, who had first proposed and arranged the sittings.

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Mary Gilmore was appointed a Dame of the British Empire in February 1937 for her literary and social achievements, and became a celebrated public figure. Her correspondence with Hoff continued and his last letter to her gives a hint of his workload at this time: I had a good holiday (a month) at Christmas, and the very day I got back had to start work again on the Canberra Memorial – seven days and seven nights a week for six weeks. I have eased off a little since the end of that time, but still have more to do than is convenient.48

Rayner Hoff, Mary Gilmore, 1934 Bronze, 33.4 x 22.6 x 25 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photo: AGNSW

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13

In the public eye Social and public life

Rayner Hoff dressed for the Artists’ Ball ‘Fairy Tale Night’, 1933

In the early 1920s, Artists’ Balls, in the form of huge jazz parties, were held annually in the Sydney Town Hall. In part they were a response to the Great War, as young men and women began to live more independent lives than previous generations, enjoying the sensual rhythms of jazz and a more bohemian lifestyle. The precedent set at the 1922 ball was to transform the space of the Town Hall, including its basement area, into an atmospheric vaudeville-like arena, with enormous grotesque figures and large friezes as decorations. The Town Hall could accommodate up to 2000 people on the two levels, and attendees wore extravagant fancy dress costumes and masks. Masks were removed on the stroke of midnight, revealing the artists and models, such as George Finey, Rose Lindsay, Theo Cowan, George Lambert and Stan Cross, as well as many of Sydney’s social elite. Despite his busy work schedule, Hoff took time out to enjoy many social events in Sydney, with the Artists’ Ball being the highlight of the year. His previous involvement with the Chelsea Arts Balls in London meant that he was keen to promote these wild bohemian events in his adopted country. The Artists’ Ball in 1923 was held on Wednesday, 25 July, the same day Hoff was welcomed to his new position at ESTC. No doubt he would have noticed the article about the ball in the next day’s edition of the Sydney Morning Herald – it was on the same page as the one outlining his appointment.1 This was a one-off ball, specifically organised by the Society of Artists to help raise funds for a planned exhibition of Australian art to be held at the Royal Academy in London in October of that year. This major exhibition concentrated on Australian contemporary works of the period by many of the artists whom Hoff would later exhibit with in Sydney. By 1924, Hoff had become closely involved with the ball. He had joined the Society of Artists and was on the Executive and the Decorations Committee that organised the Artists’ Ball. One of the younger members of the committee, his photo was displayed on page four of the expansive

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souvenir programme, between the stalwarts of the ball executive, DH Souter, Oxnard Smith and Lister Lister.2 Months of preparation went into the decorations. As Hoff had experienced in London, artists and their models enjoyed the idea of dressing up in absurd or extravagant costumes, making elaborate sets and decorations, and then drinking so much that they often ended up taking off those elaborate costumes and trashing the sets that they had spent many hours constructing. In 1924, Hoff chose student Victoria Cowdroy, then aged 16, to design two enormous bas-relief plaster panels (each 3.6 x 1.8 metres) for the ball that year at the Sydney Town Hall. These were made in Hoff’s studio at the art school by Cowdroy and her fellow students, and were designed to illustrate the theme of the ball, Back to Childhood. Hoff’s vision and capacity to work on a grand scale was realised early in his students’ work, and Cowdroy’s reliefs were widely admired. They were said to be ‘weirdly original in design, displaying her virile imagination, her innate sense of composition and her skillful modelling’.3 Cowdroy was the first student to benefit from a scholarship offered by the Artists’ Ball Trust Fund. The prize of £150, raised from ticket sales at the balls, was first awarded in 1925 to allow the winning student of a drawing competition to study for one year, full-time at a recognised art school. To enter, students under the age of 21 were asked to sit for a drawing competition, which lasted two days and was judged at the Royal Art Society rooms in Pitt Street by George Lambert. This generous award allowed Cowdroy to complete her five-year diploma course at the NAS. Lambert was impressed with the quality of the students’ work, and it was reported that two extra scholarships would be awarded: ‘In view of Mr. G.W. Lambert’s favourable report the board decided to award two subsidiary scholarships of £75 and £50 per annum to Miss McGrath and Miss Ogilvie respectively, pupils at the East Sydney Technical College.’4 Hoff and his students continued to attend the balls throughout the ‘Golden Decade’ of the 1920s. Although there are no photographs of him at the balls during this period, his student Nessie Stephen recalled ‘a fancy dress ball where he dressed up as a caveman one time – in a goat skin. It was very funny because it kept undoing – we had heaps of fun with it.’5 During the 1930s and ’40s the annual balls were held in a variety of venues,

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Hoff dressed for the Artists’ Ball, 1933

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including the Palais Royale, the David Jones Auditorium, the Trocadero and the Farmers Blaxland Galleries. At ESTC, the National Art Students’ Club began organising their own version of the Artists’ Balls in the 1930s. One of the students who helped run the club was Gwenna Welch, aged 16 in 1933. The first ball she remembered was held in a large studio on the site of the ESTC, with the theme of Danse Macabre. There is a series of photographs of Hoff dressed for an artists’ ball, taken outside his studio at the NAS. Snapped in October 1933, they show the uninhibited side of Hoff’s character. Replete with a blonde wig, full make-up, pearls and a tutu, it is not a good look, but he obviously didn’t care. Behind him can be seen the enormous doors leading to his studio, with the smaller one cut into it for everyday use (page 193). The theme of the ball held at the David Jones Auditorium was Fairy Tale Night, and when the photos were found in the Hoff archive, they were enclosed in paper with writing by one of his children that read ‘The Clydesdale Fairy, or The White Violet’. It must have been quite a treat for

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Nereida and Sandra at the National Art School, c1933

the Hoff children, then aged eleven and four, to see their father looking so absurd. It is also an indication of how Hoff treated the art school as his home, dressing up there instead of at his home in Bondi. A photo of Sandra and Nereida was taken at the NAS around the same time, possibly with another sculpture for the ball made of wire mesh and papier mâché. It is hard not to see a Hoff family resemblance in a comic Buddha-like statue, so huge that the girls could climb on it. Once again the background is of interest, as the photo is taken in the courtyard next to Hoff’s studio, with the old gaol wall behind, and the covered clay bins directly behind the figure. In 1936 Hoff judged the prizes at the Authors’ and Artists’ Ball, held at Farmers Blaxland Galleries. The other judges were theatre luminary Doris Fitton, Sydney Nicholls and JS Watkins. First prize for the best characters from an Australian film went to a family dressed as the then well-known personalities of Dad, Mum, Dave, Sarah and the kids from On Our Selection.6 Hoff by this time appears to have been fully immersed in all aspects of Australian culture. Beach sports and eurhythmics were popular among Sydneysiders, and Hoff and his students often portrayed beach scenes in their works. A drawing of Hoff’s relief Pacific Beach (1930–32) was reproduced in the short-lived Sydney newspaper the Sunday Guardian in 1930, accompanying an article in which Hoff advocates for much scantier beachwear than was fashionable at this time. He cites his observations of beachwear in Cologne in Germany: The whole attitude is different in Europe. We are isolated, and overrun with wowserism. There are really only two schools of thought at many bathing places on the Continent. One says that as little as possible should be worn, and that should be of a thin, silkish material, which will admit the sun’s rays. The other school sees nothing wrong with nudity, complete and unashamed.7

In the 1930s, when beachwear included shoulder to hip bathing costumes for men and women, this attitude was partly responsible for Hoff’s reputation as an unconventional radical. In other newspaper interviews throughout the 1930s, Hoff espoused his forthright ideas on all aspects of Australian life and culture. In 1936, Colin Wills asked him about entertainment in Sydney. Hoff did not hold back: There can be no other city of anything near the importance of Sydney

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that has only one legitimate theatre. The young generation knows nothing of the stage drama, yet with good fashionable theatres, with low prices, bright shows, refreshments, and smoking, we should recapture the new generation and the theatre would be as much alive as ever. And concerts should be given in places where one can eat and drink, instead of being made into austere, almost religious functions, where one feels as though one were being sent back to school!8

Hoff would make his mark on the development of theatres in Sydney, with his sculptural contributions to many of the newly built theatres, such as the Liberty in Castlereagh Street, the Wintergarden, Rose Bay, the Roxy, Parramatta, the Doncaster, Kensington, the Rialto, Ryde and the Minerva Theatre, Kings Cross, which is now the Metro theatre. As well as this he made a sculpture of Shakespeare for Warner Bros Films, which stood in the foyer of the Embassy Theatre in Sydney during a screening of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1935.9 Hoff was also keen to promote his students by organising exhibitions of their work and encouraging them to publish work in magazines and books. He designed and edited a book in 1930–31 on one of his best students: The Work of Eileen McGrath. It was printed by the letterpress students at Sydney Technical College under the chief instructor of printing, and Hoff’s friend, Ernest Shea. McGrath drew the accompanying illustrations, and images of all her major sculptures were reproduced. One thousand copies of this impressive book were printed, and all were numbered and signed by McGrath, Hoff and Shea, with a note in the back to say that none of the books were to be for sale. Norman Lindsay wrote a long-winded essay, A Footnote to the Future, and other articles were written by Professor Leslie Wilkinson, JS MacDonald, BJ Waterhouse and W Bede Dalley. Hoff outlined his reasons for producing the book in his editorial: ‘The aim underlying the production of this book is to show what is being done in Australia in the way of art and printing by technical college students and as evidence that there are young people in this country who have talent, tenacity and resourcefulness.’10 In the 1930s there were very few opportunities for publishing in Sydney, and later Ernest Shea set up a small handmade book business, Sunnybrook Press, in his home in Mosman. One of the first books he published there was

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Sculpture of Rayner Hoff, printed in 1932–1934. Only 100 copies were made, and funds were raised by donations and advance orders from friends and family. The list of subscribers printed in the back of this book is extensive and demonstrates how highly Hoff was regarded in Sydney by 1932. As well as family and friends from Australia and the United Kingdom, they include the Honourable Justice HV Evatt poet Dorothea Mackellar, KW Hall of Angus and Robertson, media moguls Frank Packer and Sir Keith Murdoch, and the Victoria and Albert Museum Library in London. Hoff’s public persona was well covered in the press due to his deep commitment to the promotion of the arts in Sydney via the Society of Artists, his writing, teaching, exhibition practice and his involvement in the setting up of the Australian Academy of Art in 1937. He was also regularly asked to judge public competitions, and newspaper reports show that he was happy to oblige. His attitude to women was often remarked upon, particularly in newspaper articles. For all his enlightened views of gender equality among his students, and in regard to recognising the role of women in the war, he was still adamant that men were less ‘fanatical’ than women. In an article called ‘As We See Each Other’, he and Annis were both asked to discuss their attitudes to the opposite sex. Part of Hoff’s view was: Mentally and physically, they are designed to be the complement of men; and, by this, I do not wish to infer that they are in anyway inferior. They are merely different … Usually, when you find women holding strong opinions on any subject; they are fanatical rather than reasonable. I would not permit myself to develop any fanatical ideas about any feminine quality. I have continuously to meet women and to associate with them, both in business and at home, and if I allowed myself to be disturbed by things about them with which I could not sympathise, I should lead a dog’s life.11

Annis, called ‘Mrs Rayner Hoff’ in the article, was very rarely in the media, but here she likened men to Peter Pan, and gave her candid assessment: They are incurably romantic. Man is narrow-minded. He can only see things from his male point of view, and his only complaint against women boils down to a regret that she is free from this male bias.

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This is a masculine standpoint which the philosophic man might think women would find difficult to bear. Actually, of course, women, who are older than men in every sense, are not irritated by this – it is all a part of man’s childishness.12

Other social events for the Hoff family included weddings, particularly of his students. The three friends who graduated in 1934 were bridesmaids at each other’s weddings – Beth Macdonald married in 1935, and Jean Broome in 1936, with her best friends from art school, Macdonald and Marjorie Fletcher, as her bridesmaids. Treasure Conlon married John Dehle at St Mark’s, Darling Point, in September 1934. Articles on the wedding were written in the social pages of the newspapers, which mentioned that ‘the bride was also attended by a little flower girl, Nereida Rayner-Hoff, whose frock was of rose pink tulle’.13 The wedding photo showed Nereida, aged five, standing with Treasure and her bridesmaids. Treasure looked stunning in her ivory satin frock, a far cry from the muddy clothes she wore for so many months while working with Hoff on the Anzac Memorial. Treasure’s fellow student Nessie Stephen was also at the wedding and described Nereida as ‘a sprite, or fairy – she was so small and thin’. As Nereida walked into the church, she saw Rayner sitting there, and embarrassed him by saying, ‘Hi there, Daddy!’ Hoff responded, ‘Go on, get on with it.’14 With Hoff’s high profile in Sydney, he was often called upon to give advice on the restoration of artworks in public collections. One of these was for the Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney. In 1935 a Greek marble sculpture of Hermes was donated to the university by the sons of Charles Nicholson. When it arrived it was dirty, in three pieces and badly repaired with cement and plaster. Professor FA Todd said: Mr Rayner Hoff, to whom the university is deeply indebted for his generous help, came to the rescue. By his advice … the task of preparing the statue for exhibition was entrusted to Mr J.E. Moorfield, whose services were lent to the university for the purpose. The comely new base of Gosford sandstone, the simple and effective mounting of the statue, the attachment of the broken parts – all this and much more we owe to Mr Moorfield.15

Hoff also used his expertise to bronze the 5.5-metre-high plaster cast of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s east door from the Baptistery of Florence Cathedral. This

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cast was donated to the National Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1890 by James R Fairfax, but had been exhibited since then as a white plaster cast. There were calls to have it bronzed as early as 1904, but it took until 1937 for the gallery to employ Hoff to work with gallery staff to cover the surface with a bronze patina.16 Hoff was photographed up an enormous ladder, talking to Will Ashton, Director of the Gallery, in May 1937. When NSW police constables Alan Clarke and Cec Jardine needed to learn to model portraits in clay to help solve crimes, they joined Hoff’s classes at the NAS. The police attended Hoff and Moorfield’s portrait classes at night, and later used their skills to try and help solve the famous ‘Pyjama Girl’ murder case.17 Jardine and Clarke were both members of the Scientific Investigation Bureau and Jardine made the ‘pyjama girl’ mask, which was used to show the public in an attempt to discover her identity. One of Hoff’s initiatives in the public domain was to assist in the setting up of an art academy in Australia. Over the years, there were many attempts to establish a federally sponsored Academy of Art in Australia, similar to the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The closest were societies founded in the major cities, such as the Society of Artists in Sydney, founded in 1897, and the Australian Art Association, founded in Melbourne in 1912. But it wasn’t until February 1936 that the Attorney-General, Robert G Menzies, received permission from Cabinet in Canberra to seek a Royal Charter for an Australian Academy of Art.18 During the next year, Menzies was instrumental in raising funds from donors, such as Charles Lloyd Jones, and the academy was officially established in Canberra on 19 June 1937. Hoff was one of the ten founding members who attended the inaugural meeting on that Saturday. No doubt he would have been pleased to visit Canberra at this time to see the intended site of his George V Memorial as well. The meeting was held at the Hotel Canberra, and the delegates were photographed on the steps on the day (page 200). They don’t look like the conventional view of bohemian artists. Dressed in suits and ties, they are a conservative-looking bunch, and at 42, Hoff is possibly one of the youngest. This photograph is a poignant reminder of Hoff’s reputation in the art world at this time. Standing next to the future Prime Minister of Australia, Robert Menzies, he is surrounded by representatives of five states of Australia. He looks somewhat drained, and like most of the Hoff family

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members, his hair is prematurely grey. The ever-present cigarette is in his left hand and, as usual, his suit is more crumpled than the others. There were 50 foundation members, and chosen delegates represented each state, with Sydney Ure Smith, Rayner Hoff and Norman Carter representing New South Wales. The only woman in attendance was the sculptor Daphne Mayo, representing Queensland. Hoff was active in the decision-making during the meeting, voting and seconding on the constitution and structure of the committee.19 It was agreed that the first exhibition would be held the following year in Sydney to coincide with the city’s 150th anniversary celebrations. To some the Academy was characterised as a reactionary, short-sighted proposal that did not represent the progressive and ‘modern’ artists working in Australia in the late 1930s. When Sydney Ure Smith became vice-president

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Academy of Art Committee, Canberra, 19 June 1937: (left to right) Daphne Mayo, William (Billy) McInnes, Norman Carter, Hans Heysen, Sydney Ure Smith, Robert Croll, Robert Menzies, Harold Herbert, Rayner Hoff, William Rowell, John Eldershaw Daphne Mayo Papers, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library

of the Academy, he saw the dangers of trying to exclude innovation, and many modernists were indeed shown in their first exhibition in April 1938.20 Margaret Preston, Grace Cossington-Smith and Roland Wakelin shared the walls with Elioth Gruner, Lionel Lindsay and Max Meldrum. To counteract the perceived conservative nature of the Academy, the Contemporary Art Society was formed in Melbourne in July 1938. Some artists exhibited with both groups in the same year, showing that despite the rhetoric there was some shared ground in the rival groups. But the longevity of the Contemporary Art Society, which with many changes, is still active in Victoria today, demonstrates the success of this society compared to the Academy, which after an auspicious beginning, held its last annual exhibition in 1947. On 6 May 1935, Hoff was selected as a recipient of the King’s Jubilee Medal, and on 12 May 1937, a list of the NSW Recipients of the Coronation medals was published in the Sydney Morning Herald. Awarded to celebrate the coronation of King George VI, the medals were given to 6500 Australians for their community contribution. The state lists included Rayner Hoff, Dame Mary Gilmore and Hugh McCrae.21 Hoff’s popularity was also demonstrated in his radio appearances. In August 1937, he was selected to choose music for Celebrity’s Choice on radio 2SM. The three-hour recording has not survived, which is unfortunate as it would have been a treat to hear his voice and learn what sort of music he chose. By 1936 Rayner Hoff had been selected as one of 50 prominent artists to represent Australia in the Paris International Exhibition. It ran from May to November 1937 and was held in a purpose-built circular pavilion designed by architects Stephenson, Meldrum and Turner, with its glass-domed ceiling designed by Douglas Annand. Hoff’s small early works Salome and The Kiss were chosen for this exhibition, and were the first works of his shown outside Australia since his student days.

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14

Burning the candle The Anzac Memorial

Eileen McGrath and Hoff working on the clay bas relief illustrating the Eastern Front of the Great War, National Art School, 1932 Courtesy McGrath family

When a war memorial for Sydney was suggested during the Great War, a public meeting to appeal for funds was held in the Domain on 25 April 1916, the first anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. This appeal called for a place of rest and recreation for all returned soldiers, sailors and nurses.1 Many sites were suggested throughout Sydney, with one of the proposals being the site of Darlinghurst Gaol, which was empty at the time, with plans to demolish it to make way for a new high school. A letter in the Sydney City Council Archives from the Town Clerk to Lord Mayor Richard Meagher, dated December 1916, refers to a request by the Council that no action be taken on the utilisation of the site for a high school, but that ‘The subject area should be made available as a public park in which a memorial should be erected in commemoration of the Australian soldiers at Anzac.’2 The Minister for Education rejected this proposal, saying he would not abandon his plans for a high school on the site, and suggested the vacant land in front of the courthouse at Darlinghurst be used for the memorial. In the end, the buildings were saved from demolition when it was decided to use the site as a military detention camp instead of building the new high school. While Hoff was serving in the war, the fate of the two buildings that would shape his life in Australia were decided in these few meetings in 1916. Fundraising for the Memorial continued throughout the war, but it took until the year that Hoff arrived in Australia, 1923, for the NSW Parliament to pass the Anzac Memorial Act that consolidated all the funds in order to build a memorial. At the time the people of Sydney were suffering from the devastating effects of the war. Many had returned mentally scarred or wounded, and in New South Wales 21,000 out of the 120,000 who had enlisted had died. A memorial as a place of remembrance, built to honour the lives that were lost, became a pressing need for the public, the Anzac Fellowship of Women, the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) and the NSW Parliament. The fundraising appeal had taken years of public subscriptions to

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accumulate enough to build the Memorial. By Anzac Day 1928, Fred Davison, state president of the RSSILA, finally announced that a ‘shrine of remembrance’ would be erected at the southern end of Hyde Park. The park was redesigned at this time as a series of radial avenues, with a war memorial at each end of the axis. The Anzac Memorial would be built to complement the Archibald Fountain at the northern end of the park. The fountain was completed in 1932 to commemorate the association of Australia and France in the Great War.3 An architectural competition to design a memorial costing no more than £75,000 was announced in June 1929. There were 117 entries exhibited at the new gallery in Farmers department store, Blaxland Galleries. Judged by Professor Leslie Wilkinson, Alfred Hook and EJ Payne, the commission was awarded to the 29-year-old Sydney modernist architect C Bruce Dellit in July 1930. Dellit studied at Sydney Technical College and had attended Wilkinson’s lectures at the University of Sydney. Breaking from his conservative architectural education, Dellit pioneered the Art Deco style in Australia and his proposal included a striking, 40-metre-high ‘stepped’ silhouette, with allegorical sculptures on the interior and exterior of the building (page 221). With Sydney deep in the throes of the Depression, this prized commission had been keenly contested by some of Hoff’s colleagues. Second place was awarded to John D Moore and Hoff’s former student Arthur Murch. Another design was submitted by Raymond McGrath (Eileen McGrath’s brother), along with George Lambert’s son, Maurice Lambert.4 Dellit was considering sculptors for the Memorial before he received the commission. He knew of Brisbane-born sculptor Daphne Mayo’s work as he had spent time in Brisbane as chief draughtsman for Hall and Prentice on the City Hall drawings. He corresponded with her regarding the memorial throughout 1930. Daphne Mayo was a year younger than Hoff and was regarded as Australia’s leading woman sculptor. She had studied at Brisbane’s Central Technical College and travelled to London in 1919, where she enrolled briefly at the Royal College of Art, possibly at the same time that Hoff was there. Her principal studies in London were at the Royal Academy of Arts, where she gained a travelling scholarship to Italy in December 1923. She returned to a warm reception in Brisbane in 1925, and

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Daphne Mayo carving the Queensland Women’s War Memorial, Brisbane, 1932 Daphne Mayo Papers, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library

by 1930 she was working on the Queensland Women’s War Memorial and the Brisbane City Hall tympanum. Dellit had never met Mayo, but he wrote her a confidential letter in March 1930, saying he was a finalist in the competition and asked if she would be interested in quoting for the sculptures for the Memorial. His choice of Mayo is an interesting one, although he does explain it in his letter to her, ‘Your work is well known to me … naturally I would very greatly prefer, if the work comes my way, to place the sculptural work with an Australian.’5 Although Hoff was fully immersed in Australian culture by 1930, Dellit may have still considered him to be a British sculptor. Neither Rayner nor Annis became naturalised citizens.6 In April Dellit sent Daphne Mayo drawings and detailed descriptions of the sculptures, and asked her to make a model that he could submit with his proposal. The letters sent to Mayo had become insistent by 4 June:

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As time is drawing near for the sending in of my design for the Anzac Memorial Competition, I will be obliged if you will kindly let me have your quotation for the Statuary groups provided for in my design and as indicated in the sketches which I forwarded to you previously, as early as possible.7

He once again outlined the sculptures needed, and described the central internal group with the name Sacrifice as being in Carrara marble. This is a significant note, as it shows that it was Dellit who chose the name for the now iconic work in the Memorial, not Hoff. Marble eventually proved to be too expensive, and the decision to have it cast in bronze was made in 1932. Dellit’s next letter to Mayo is on 30 July, after he won the competition. Mayo had by now quoted on the sculptures, and at this point he asked her to come to Sydney. In August and early September, they were discussing the sculpture in detail, and Mayo asked if Hoff’s former student Arthur Murch would be available to work with her. Here the correspondence between them ends. On 29 October Mayo wrote to the Anzac War Memorial Committee saying she could not make the sketch model they had asked her for because of her already massive workload.8 It must have been hard for her to make this decision, as Mayo was aware of the prestige of the commission. Practically, though, it would have been difficult as she lived in Brisbane and had other commissioned works to finalise, and she would have had to find a studio big enough to complete the works in Sydney. In this respect, Hoff became an obvious choice. By 1930 he had established himself as one of the most conspicuous figures of the Australian art world. Dellit was aware of his work, and later developed more architectural projects with Hoff, many of which also had a strong sculptural presence. Hoff also had a studio in close proximity to the Memorial, and had trained students and staff to assist him. Many already had the experience of making the large-scale memorial in Adelaide. The Trustees of the Memorial had also been using Hoff as an advisor regarding the possibility of casting the Memorial sculptures in bronze in Australia, and met in his studio on 19 September 1930. He suggested that as well as the cost of importing materials, the sculptures should be sent to England, as there were no ‘artistically trained craftsmen’ in Sydney who could complete such large works.9

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The Trustees had asked Hoff and Daphne Mayo to submit models for the central group, and at one stage it looked like they might collaborate on the project, with Hoff making the bulk of the sculptures, and Mayo making the central group.10 By the time Mayo wrote to say she could not complete the scale model for the central group, Hoff had made a half-size sketch model, and had presented his proposal to the Trustees on 28 August. The Trustees agreed to commission him on 25 September 1930, but it took over a year before he had a formal contract. The work he carried out for the Memorial provided Hoff with the opportunity of a lifetime, occupying him almost full-time for over three years. He and Dellit had quickly established a congenial relationship, and although Dellit had chosen the positions of the sculptures in his original design, he was open to Hoff’s suggestions to change them. As Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney, Professor Virginia Spate explained: Dellit had planned that the four standing figures and the sixteen seated figures on the buttresses should represent the traditional allegories of the ‘Four Seasons’ and the ‘Arts of Peace and War’ respectively. Hoff replaced allegory with depictions of typical figures from the four services, the Army, Navy, Airforce and the Army Medical Corps.11

Hoff’s sculptures were expressions of his personal vitalist beliefs,12 and he chose to use a synthesis of classicised figures and images of modern Anzacs. The stylised external sculptures are unmistakably Australian men and women in modern military attire, and the reliefs depict soldiers in battle and working behind the lines, emblematic of the hardy Australian soldiers who had served in the Great War. The figures effortlessly combine both the classic tradition and Hoff’s own interpretation of the Art Deco movement’s reduction of unnecessary detail. Overall there were 20 enormous single figures that needed to be made for the exterior, two monumental bronze groups, and two 10-metre-long bronze reliefs. The interior included marble reliefs representing the ‘March of the Dead’ and the central bronze group, Sacrifice. Hoff started the drawings for the reliefs as soon as he received the commission, and by October 1930 he had sent them to Charles Bean at Victoria Barracks in Sydney for comments on their authenticity. He could not have had better advice. Author CEW Bean had been the official war

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Treasure Conlon, Barbara Tribe and Eileen McGrath (left to right), working on the Eastern Front relief, Hoff studio, 1932 Courtesy McGrath family

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correspondent at Gallipoli and in France during the Great War, and was at the time writing the first two volumes of the official history of Australia in the First World War. Bean had also collected wartime photographs, and Hoff wrote to him to ask if he could borrow some for reference. Bean wrote to Hoff on 13 October, ‘I have found practically all the photographs on your list. These are classified according to your index, and total 206.’ These invaluable photographs consisted of images of pilots, nurses, stretcher-bearers, gas masks, the landing at Gallipoli, trench mortars, and of dead horses and men. Bean supplied them to Hoff and asked for their return at a later date. He then went on to correct the information Hoff had supplied in the drawings of the reliefs: With regard to the figures included in your frieze, the A.I.F. had no tanks, although we were often associated with them. We also had no armoured cars of the pattern shown. The cars that did such great work in Palestine were just rickety old-pattern Fords with Lewis guns mounted as shown in the photograph. They really were rather splendid and worked well out ahead with the foremost light horse patrols.13

Hoff had served with the British Army and so was, of course, unfamiliar with all the Australian details. He replied to Bean three days later, expressing his enormous gratitude for the photos and suggestions. He was well aware of how important it was to correctly depict the people who had served. As well as this reference material, Hoff borrowed items from the War Museum and equipment from the Defence Department.14 The Anzac Memorial sculptures are the culmination of Hoff’s considerable skills in drawing and sculpture, and a fine example of the successful working relationship between Hoff and his students. Fully cognisant of the significance of his work, Hoff planned ahead to photograph the sculptures as they were being made, and wrote to Harold Cazneaux on 20 October 1930 to ask him to photograph the work in progress at various times. By this date he was able to list all 37 sculptures he was planning to make, including their measurements.15 In November 1931, tenders were called for the building of the Memorial, and the contractors employed were Messrs Kell & Rigby. By May 1932 Hoff had submitted his casts for the sculptures to the Trustees and they were all approved, including the external groups.16

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Hoff’s studio at the NAS was the ideal site for the construction of the external sculptures, although it had to be massively enlarged to cope with the commission. It was elongated and the roof was raised in 1930. With a substantial stipend provided to complete the work, Hoff was able to pay his students during the Depression and employ other staff members to work on the Memorial sculptures. The assistants he employed included Eileen McGrath, Otto Steen, Treasure Conlon, John Moorfield, Arthur Buist, Tom Robertson, Bill Lanigan and Barbara Tribe. Tribe said: Hoff had these drawings of the great relief panels. We worked a lot on those two panels – 32 feet long each, we all worked on that and were given a section each. I remember Eileen might have been working next to me … And then I remember Hoff coming and working over the whole lot. I think the panels were already started, Hoff carved it out in the rough and then we would put in all the details, as far as we could. We had to put buttons, and goodness knows what on for the military people, and if it wasn’t right they’d make a song and dance about it.17

Strongly reminiscent of Hoff’s much smaller Rome Scholarship entry, which he’d completed in London almost ten years earlier, the drawings for the complex bas-relief panels still exist in the National Art Archive at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (page 212). Drawn to scale, they show Hoff’s amazing facility for capturing movement with a few pencil lines and a light watercolour wash. The reference photos he used are in evidence – particularly in the Eastern Front relief, where a Ford car can be seen with a Lewis gun mounted on the front, as per Bean’s instructions. Treasure Conlon recalled that Arthur Buist was employed as Hoff’s private secretary, although there are many photos of him working in the studio as well. One photo shows him working with Barbara Tribe in the early stages of preparing the clay work for the relief panels. Conlon said of the atmosphere in the studio: We all got on very well and it was great fun. We were a happy crowd – there was no rivalry, jealousy or quarrels. It was the happiest time of my life. I had to think hard when my husband asked me to marry him as I was so happy there. The work was fascinating, and I met new people all the time. The drawings were always done first, then enlarged, usually by Eileen, who was as good at doing the work as Hoff. Then the

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modelling was done from the sketches. The research was unbelievable. We had to get even the bootlaces etc., exactly right – the military officers would come and check them. We went to army disposal stores, and collected all the things they wore. The models would dress up in them and that’s what we worked from.18

This camaraderie is glimpsed in the photos taken during a break in the work, when four of Hoff’s assistants are leaning against the clay bins in the exterior courtyard at the southern end of the studio (page 214). Another photograph shows them dressing up in the army gear – possibly just to play around, as Bill Lanigan is dressed as the horse in the centre (page 215). Even so, the clothes are recognisable as those used on the Memorial sculptures. Eileen McGrath, on the left, is dressed as an air observer, with an 18-pounder shell at her feet. Next to her is Arthur Buist, standing behind Lanigan and wearing a ‘Sidcot’ suit. This is the airman’s uniform used on one of the largest sculptures on the exterior of the Memorial. Barbara Tribe wears the naval issue duffle coat that is seen on the seated naval signaller on the exterior, and Otto Steen looks like a medieval

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Rayner Hoff, drawing of the relief for the Western Front (detail), c1931 National Art Archive, Art Gallery of New South Wales

knight, but he is wearing a leather coat and carrying a cavalry sword. Dedicated and in awe of Hoff, the students worked long hours to complete the work. Each panel in the reliefs was made up of at least three tons of clay, which had to be kept damp with wet hessian while it was being worked on. When the clay reliefs were complete, they were sectioned off into smaller segments for the plaster moulding to be applied. Plaster of Paris reinforced with sisal (coconut husk fibre imported from Indonesia) was applied by hand.20 This is seen in a photo of two assistants preparing the mould for the March of the Dead panel (page 216). This work, for the inside of the building, was complicated to design, as it was intended to be installed in a curved space under the dome. It shows how Hoff’s architectural studies were put to good use in the making of these massive works. Huge frames holding the clay in place can be seen in the image, as can sisal strewn on the ground. Model maker Harry Grounds is standing on the larger stepladder, which has somehow survived at the art school and is still in use over 70 years later. Once the plaster moulds were dry, they were removed in sections, packed carefully and then sent to London for casting in bronze by the Morris Singer Foundry. Hoff was frustrated that there were no foundries in Australia capable of casting these works, as it took up to a year for the round trip to England. Established in 1848, the predecessor of the Morris Singer Foundry in Kennington was JW Singer & Sons, and it is likely they had cast some of Hoff’s early work in the United Kingdom.21 As specialists in art castings, he trusted them with his precious work, and requested that the plaster casts be destroyed in London after the bronzes were cast.22 Morris Singer Foundry records describe the bronzes being exhibited in Hyde Park in London before being shipped to Australia.23 The bronze reliefs were finally placed above the massive doors leading to the Hall of Remembrance on the Anzac Memorial in September 1933. Apart from the bronzes, materials used in the construction of the Memorial originated in Australia: the white marble for the interior came from quarries near Bathurst, and the red granite for the exterior was from Tarana, halfway between Bathurst and Lithgow. The four largest exterior figures on the Memorial were made in the studio with the use of a pointing

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John Moorfield, Treasure Conlon, Eileen McGrath and Arthur Buist (left to right), 1932 Courtesy McGrath family

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machine. Hoff would model a clay figure at a third to half life-size and it would then be enlarged exactly to scale by his assistants. Hoff described the process in an article he wrote for The Technical Gazette: For large work (over life-size) one quarter and sometimes one-half fullsize models are first made to fix the design of the work. Enlargement to full-size is assisted by a pointing instrument on the pantagraph principal, but working on a ball-joint to allow registration in many planes. Similarly to pointing from a cast on to stone, points are taken from the scale model on to the full size work. An accurate copy of the small model is thus ensured, after which free work can be indulged in with greater ease and safety.24

Many tons of clay were used to make the 3.4-metre depictions of figures from the four military services, and scaffolding was needed to reach the top of them (page 218). A plaster cast was then made in segments under Moorfield’s supervision, and then the clay was removed from the inside. The blocky, slightly abstracted figures suited the Art Deco style of the building, and demonstrate Hoff’s willingness to experiment with the modernist style. At this stage Thomas Grounds and Sons cast the figures in synthetic stone. Founded in 1898, the Grounds family business worked in Sydney

Eileen McGrath, Arthur Buist, Barbara Tribe and Otto Steen (left to right), with Bill Lanigan in the horse outfit, c1932 Courtesy McGrath family

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Harry Grounds and assistant preparing the plaster mould of the March of the Dead panel for the interior of the Memorial, c1932 National Art Archive, Art Gallery of New South Wales

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Harry Grounds and John Moorfield making the plaster mould for the air force exterior figure of the Memorial, c1932 Australian War Memorial, Canberra

throughout the 20th century, producing architectural elements and decoration in plaster and cement. Their factory was in Munni Street, Newtown, and Warren Grounds recalled that Hoff’s student Rita Bloomfield brought a small crouching demonic figure in clay to the factory as a trial for the Memorial sculptures. The company had been experimenting with synthetic stone to make the mullions for the surrounds of windows for the Catholic Church during the Depression, and it seemed an ideal way to make the huge works for the Memorial instead of carving them.25 They tested a mixture of white cement from England and coarse river sand from Emu Plains and the Botany sand hills, then dry pressed it by hand into the plaster mould. After the sculpture had hardened, they removed the mould, and wet the sculpture with a fine spray of water, thus exposing the grainy surface. When officials from the State Government, Hoff and Dellit visited the Grounds factory they approved this very successful technique for the large exterior figures on the Memorial. The final mix for the synthetic stone is recorded in the minutes of a sub-committee meeting as ‘2 parts pink granite, 1 part Moruya granite, ½ part white sand, 1¼³ part snowcrete [white cement] and a very small amount of red oxide and calcium chloride’.26 Granite from the quarries where the exterior slabs were sourced was chosen to grind and mix with cement for the sculptures standing on buttresses, so they would appear to rise naturally from the form of the building. Making the sculptures was a mammoth task, and took many months. The Grounds family moved their operations to Hoff’s studio to help make the enormous moulds, and the enterprising John Moorfield designed a simple but effective crane to help move them.27 Hoff was not without his critics even at this early stage in the production. CEW Bean, who had helped him source the reference material for the sculptures, was not impressed when he saw the exterior figures for the first time in Hoff’s studio in June 1932. He wrote to the President of the RSSILA, LA Robb: I went down today together with Major Locke and others, and saw the sculptured figures and one relief panel for the N.S. Wales War Memorial … Personally, although I don’t pretend to be a judge, I do not think the conventional modern style should be adopted in any figures on a memorial. The style at present in vogue demands, as you know, the

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Treasure Conlon (front left) and Eileen McGrath in Hoff’s studio, 1932 Courtesy McGrath family

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C Bruce Dellit, Anzac War Memorial, Hyde Park, September 1930 Watercolour, 57 x 87 cm Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

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Sacrifice in Hoff’s studio, c1932, plaster Courtesy McGrath family

portrayal of figures with triangular facets, stiff angles, and dumpy swollen limbs, which give them the appearance of totems … I’m afraid that they may some day be laughed at.28

Bean did, however, concede that ‘the sculptured groups are beautiful’, and ‘the work is distinctly clever’, and indeed most people who saw the sculptures made for the Memorial were emphatic in their praise. Hoff transformed Dellit’s original idea of ‘Sacrifice’ as the centrepiece for the Memorial, and his sketchbook illustrates that he was considering versions of this theme throughout his sculpting career. One early drawing is of a skeleton carrying a dead soldier on his shoulders. Hoff’s final version is a bronze sculpture of a naked young man lying on a shield and sword supported by his mother, sister, wife and child, with his wife’s outstretched hand holding up his head. The women are grouped in a caryatid column, and overall the sculpture references both classical and the more modern Art Deco styles. Its central position means it can be viewed from two levels in the memorial – from above and from the side. This moving sculpture was also made in Hoff’s studio, where he employed one of the art school models, probably Frank Whyte, to pose.29 The female models were also from the art school – one is believed to be Joan Britton.30 Sacrifice appears to be the only sculpture in a war memorial in Australia showing a completely naked male figure, and it caused quite a furore when it was first unveiled. It was sent to London with the relief panels for casting, and since its installation it has become a symbol of the sacrifice of the Anzacs for many Australians. Hoff described his intentions in this sculpture eloquently: I have tried to epitomise in this design the essence of war sacrifice. A great burden of pain, horror and annihilation was laid on the youthful manhood of this nation. The quiet, continuous influence of women throughout the war was less obvious and received no honour, praise or decoration. Thousands of women although not directly engaged in war activities, lost all that was dearest to them, sons they have borne and reared, husbands, fathers of their children, friends and lovers. There is no acknowledgement of them in casualty lists of wounded, maimed and killed. They endured all man’s sacrifice quietly. In this spirit I have shown them, carrying their load, the loss of their menfolk – the sacrifice of themselves.31

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The exceptional prominence of women in the sculptures planned for the Memorial demonstrated Hoff’s vitalist beliefs in the equality of men and women, and acknowledged the Anzac Fellowship of Women who had agitated for a shrine that commemorated both men and women at war. If the sculpture of a male nude was contentious in Australia in the 1930s, it was considered even more brazen to propose two naked female figures as the central elements of the monumental groups planned for the exterior of the Anzac Memorial. Hoff appeared unaware of the storm brewing over his decision to do this. By 1932 all the sculptures were well underway, and it was decided to present them to the public at a Society of Artists exhibition at the Education Department building in the city. A substantial 20-page catalogue was printed by the Department of Printing at Sydney Technical College, which contained images of the maquettes, drawings and a detailed description of the sculptures written by Lionel G Wigmore.32 In this exhibition the public saw the one-third-size plaster models that Hoff had made for the two large figure groups proposed for the exterior of the building: Crucifixion of Civilisation and Victory after Sacrifice. The Anzac Memorial was intended to commemorate the men and women who served in the First World War, and these two works were to symbolise the beginning and end of this war. The final sculptures were to be 4.27 metres high, and the models were 1.42 metres. Both groups centred on an image of a naked woman. One is bound to the sword of Mars as if crucified; the other is the figure of Britannia with her arms raised in victory. Females are presented as equal participants in the events of war, even in death. Virginia Spate, when describing the figures depicted at the base of the feet of Britannia, said ‘Below lies a terrible tangle of shattered bodies, including the body of a nurse. As far as I know, no memorial of the period depicted a woman killed on the front.’33 In describing his vision for the Crucifixion of Civilisation in 1930, Hoff said, ‘Adolescent Peace is depicted on the armaments of the ravisher (the war god, Mars). The Greek helmet animalistically gapes over the head of expiring Peace, the cuirass of the body armour hard and brutal in contrast to her lithe woman’s body.’34 In the Society of Artists exhibition catalogue, where the two sculptures

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Rayner Hoff, 1914 – Crucifixion of Civilisation Reproduced from Art in Australia, October 1932

were first shown, a note says, ‘These will not be executed for the Memorial due to lack of funds.’ Hoff had been asked if he could lower the original quotes for all the sculptures in November 1931. The highest quote out of all the sculptures on the Memorial had been for the bronze casts of the Eastern and Western groups – £12,800. By removing these, the sculptures cost half of the whole commission. The original quote for all the works by Hoff was £23,633.35 This meant the building would remain unfinished, and that Hoff lost almost half his payment for the commission. He had to argue at great length that he should at least be paid for the models, and was finally paid £2430 pounds for the maquettes of these two works.36 One can only imagine the works cast in bronze, three times as big, sitting on the stone ledges built for them in front of the amber glass of the

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eastern and western windows on the exterior of the Memorial. They were never made to the size intended, and the models were eventually destroyed in 1958. As a major part of the Memorial’s design, it is a tragedy that the two sculptures were never made. Bruce Dellit was just as devastated as Hoff, describing the building as incomplete, like ‘a countenance without eyes’.37 In September 1932 Dellit discussed his ideas for the Memorial: Mr Hoff and myself have both set out to give an impression, not of the glory of war, but of its tragedy and horror. The heroism of the dead shines out all the more brilliantly when one recognises the ghastly circumstances in which it was displayed. That is why the statuary (including the group which recently came in for adverse criticism) is so gaunt and uncompromising.38

It is unlikely that it was only the lack of funds that resulted in the removal of these two major works from the final Memorial. A violent controversy broke out when the sculptures were first displayed, with vitriolic articles in the newspapers by the Catholic Church, led by the Coadjutor Archbishop Sheehan. Sheehan announced that he would not be attending the laying of the foundation stone of the Memorial, and described the young woman on the cross as ‘gravely offensive to ordinary Christian decency’. He also believed the ceremony was ‘obviously only intended for Protestants’.39 Others jumped on the bandwagon. Archbishop Kelly, who was overseas at the time, was calling it ‘diabolic’ and the ‘emblem of the fruits of a materialist outlook’, and Sheehan’s secretary, Father O’Donnell, also decried the work. The Memorial Trustees, however, supported Hoff and Dellit, and at a meeting found that Archbishop Sheehan’s views were unwarranted. They wrote to Sheehan and expressed the sorrow they felt that ‘the spirit of solemn remembrance embodied in the proposed Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park should have been disturbed by religious controversy’.40 Hoff was outraged and hurt by the criticism and replied via the newspapers. His first reaction was incredulity: ‘This is a bolt from the blue. I deny that the statuary referred to is either a travesty of the Redemption or that it could be considered “offensive to Christians”.’41 The next day, he answered his critics: I suggest that they might look more broadly at the symbolism of the sacrifices made by the men and women of this country. It is my

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conviction that the symbolism employed in the memorial marches with the spirit in which thousands of Roman Catholic troops, together with others, sank distinctions of creed in the common cause.42

Despite the attacks, Dellit and Hoff both attended the ceremony to lay the foundation stone on 19 July 1932, and stood proudly on the dais with other dignitaries.43 Public interest was demonstrated by the 15,000-strong crowd that also attended. Three days later, the Shipping Lists record Hoff sending three cases of plaster models to London for bronze casting, and he was soon back to work on the exterior figures that could at least be cast in the granite cement mix in Sydney.44

Visiting the Anzac Memorial: (left to right) Barbara Tribe, Bruce Dellit, Rayner Hoff, John Moorfield and Otto Steen, c1932 Courtesy McGrath family

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Harold Cazneaux, The Anzac Memorial dome during construction, c1932 Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Hoff’s student Nessie Stephen, when talking about Hoff’s reaction to the criticism, said: One evening I was walking to class when Rayner came into the tech just ahead of me on the path. It was the day after the controversy, so I walked beside him and said ‘I know how you must be feeling, I’m terribly sorry’. He said ‘these things happen’, but the expression in his voice gave it away. I felt like I was walking next to a man with a load on his shoulders – he walked quietly and didn’t joke as usual. When they turned down his two works – it affected him. I wouldn’t say it crushed him – it would take a lot to crush Rayner, but it did affect him.45

Adye Bailey also recalled how the criticism affected him: In the thirties it was a time of prudery – particularly the Catholic Church did not approve of showing the nude human body … The wowsers of Sydney persecuted him and he had to fight and fight to get his designs passed. It caused him a lot of angst. He believed that the body was beautiful, and should be part of the sculptures – that sex was beautiful – everything natural was.46

Most of the sculptors who had been working in Hoff’s studio visited the unfinished Memorial with Bruce Dellit to see the progress before the sculptures were in place. Standing on the steps of the unfinished building, they were photographed with Rayner and Annis, all looking a little uncomfortable in their civvies, complete with suits and hats. A rare second photograph shows the camera-shy Dellit standing next to Hoff holding some rolled plans in his hand, looking up at the Memorial (page 227). After July 1932 work progressed rapidly on the erection of the Memorial, with the exterior sculptures being placed on their pedestals as the Memorial took shape. The building of the massive dome was a complex achievement, as can be seen in the array of scaffolding taken in an interior shot by Harold Cazneaux. By March 1933 the dome had been completed and by December the bulk of the construction work was complete. The bronze sculpture Sacrifice was shipped back to Australia, and returned to the studio where it had originally been made. There was great excitement when it was unpacked, and photos were taken of Hoff, McGrath, Conlon and Steen around the work, celebrating their great achievement. The first photograph of the building after the scaffolding was removed

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was reproduced in November 1933, revealing the final outline of the muchanticipated building.47 The money was running low at this stage, and a public appeal was launched to raise a further £15,000 to complete the Memorial. The appeal sold 120,000 gold stars for the ceiling of the dome, for twoshilling subscriptions. In the end, the final cost of the Memorial was £80,000. HP Mortlock at Beacon Press produced a handsome book, The Book of the Anzac Memorial. It described the Memorial, and its history and included photographs of the individual sculptures by Hoff.48 There is no mention of the two unmade works in this volume. Still hoping that there might be a chance to have the bronze group on the exterior made, Hoff completed an alternative drawing for a version of the Crucifixion of Civilisation in October 1934. No doubt he was aware that it was extremely unlikely to be made at this late stage. As in his earlier work, his watercolour sketch contains a naked woman surrounded by dead soldiers, with the armaments of Mars on a cross behind her. But instead of hanging from the sword, she reaches up from the ground, her naked body partly obscured by the soldiers around her. This remarkable sketch is a testament to Hoff’s determination to try and complete the Memorial as he and Dellit had envisaged it. A month later, on the 24 November 1934, the Duke of Gloucester Prince Henry opened the Anzac Memorial before a crowd of 100,000 people. The ceremony was preceded by a march from the Domain of 20,000 exservicemen and women. While the crowd waited, the press reported them occasionally bursting into the singing of old wartime tunes. Captured on film by Fox Movietone, the Duke declared: I am privileged today to unveil this Anzac Memorial, in which it is sought to perpetuate the memory of the men and women of N.S.W. who gave their lives for the Empire in the Great War, and to record the gratitude of the community to all those who served.49

Photographer Sam Hood recorded the moment (page 233). Flags were draped in the front of Dellit’s amber glass windows, and dignitaries stood below the platform originally intended for Victory after Sacrifice, dwarfed by the massive sculptures on the Memorial above them. After the official ceremony, the Duke was given an explanation of the interior decoration of the Memorial by Bruce Dellit, and he congratulated Hoff on the sculptures.50

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Rayner Hoff, 1914, 1934 Watercolour, 47.8 x 31 cm Courtesy Hoff family archive

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Hood also captured the moment when Hoff first met the Duke of Gloucester outside the Memorial. The dignitaries are all there, dressed in their finest outfits, but Hoff once again flouts convention. He is wearing a light-coloured, pinstriped suit, and an open-necked white shirt. Beside him is his friend Bruce Dellit, with his back to the camera, and behind the Duke is NSW Premier Bertram Stevens. It was a proud if bittersweet day for Hoff and Dellit. The work they completed together on the Memorial demonstrated that a successful and sympathetic collaboration was possible between an architect and a sculptor, and the monument they created is now widely recognised as a masterwork of art deco design. With the Memorial finally completed, Hoff celebrated his 40th birthday three days after the opening ceremony. He was able to spend the Christmas of 1934 with his family before returning to work at the art school.

Sam Hood, Rayner Hoff, Bruce Dellit, the Duke of Gloucester and NSW Premier BSB Stevens at the opening of the Anzac Memorial, November 1934 Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

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Sam Hood, The Opening of the Anzac Memorial by the Duke of Gloucester, November 1934 Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

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Gone too soon A tragic loss

Sam Hood, Kinselas Funeral Parlour, 1940 Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

It was the end of the academic year, a busy time for marking student work and preparing for a break in January, when the Hoff family usually took the chance to have a holiday away from Sydney and the pressures of work. After a swim at Bondi on Sunday, 14 November 1937, Hoff felt unwell and thought he had gastric influenza. Annis wanted to call the doctor, but he said not to worry him. The recent years had been hectic. The work on the Anzac Memorial and the accompanying attacks in the press had created huge stress for Hoff. He was dealing with an already enormous workload, having been appointed Acting Lecturer in Charge of the art department at the National Art School in 1934, with his position as Lecturer in Charge confirmed in 1936. He continued to make smaller works in his studio and tried to spend weekends with his family. By 1937 he had been awarded his next big commission for the George V Memorial in Canberra, was still on the executive of the Society of Artists, and helped establish the Australian Academy of Art in the same year. Hoff’s student Nessie Stephen, who had known him for ten years, recalled the strain of the workload: ‘He’d asked me to have dinner with him. He was quite depressed. I’d never seen him like this before. He said he had been drinking too much. I tried to cheer him up, but went away quite depressed myself.’1 Hoff woke in the early hours of the following Wednesday morning in great pain. Annis contacted a local doctor, Dr Frederick Lynch, who called an ambulance. Hoff was rushed to a private hospital called Delaware, in Victoria Street, Waverley, about a kilometre from their house.2 George Rayner Hoff died there on Friday, 19 November, two days after he was admitted. He was just 42 years old. Hoff’s death certificate records the cause as haemorrhage/pancreatitis. Without an operation, the doctor treating him would not have known what was causing his extreme pain. It is likely that he was given opiates to ease the

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pain, but the sad fact is that medical treatment at that time was not sufficient to save him. The informant on the death certificate is listed as Hoff’s brother Tom, and it says that Hoff had been in Australia for 14 years, and married for 25 years, although it was actually 17.3 It is likely the intolerable pain was caused by gallstones, which in turn obstructed the pancreatic duct and caused acute catastrophic pancreatitis associated with bleeding, leading to death.4 Gallstones are a common cause of pancreatitis. It can also be caused by alcoholism and stress, although Hoff’s friends and students were adamant he was not an alcoholic. Nessie Stephen said he went to the pub with fellow teacher Carswell after work, and drank whisky with the architect Bruce Dellit, but in all the years she knew him, she never saw him drunk. The city coroner Ronald T Oram dispensed with an inquest when the post-mortem examination revealed that he had died of ‘natural causes’. The shock for Hoff’s family, friends and students was immense. He had such a strong presence, and his sudden loss was keenly felt. A devastated Annis did not want to talk about his death at the time, but later she did discuss it with Nessie. She said that after the post-mortem she was told that there had been an infection in his pancreas, and a section of the pancreas was pressing against the gall bladder, which had caused the pancreas to rupture.5 As there are no notes available from the post-mortem, this is hard to confirm. As the word spread, close friends were left distraught. Vicky Cowdroy’s daughter Diane Masters recalls the moment she heard: I was seven when he died. I do remember my father [George Bunting] getting the phone call, and that moment of drama when he took the call. It was terrible for them – such a shock. I remember how sad all the adults were. I can still see him. My grandmother looked after me during the funeral. Vicky and George went, but children were protected in those days.6

The funeral was held on Monday, 22 November, at Kinselas Funeral Parlour in Taylor Square (page 234), which Hoff had worked on with architect C Bruce Dellit six years earlier. In 1932–33 Charles Kinsela had engaged Dellit to convert the multi-storeyed building into an art deco funeral premises containing Protestant and Catholic chapels. Dellit chose Hoff to

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make the sculptures for the ‘Fan of Life’ and the ‘Sunset of Life’ shrines, and designed the parlour with amber glass, delicate colours and cinema-style lighting. Kinsela’s son Russell also designed an open-cabined Packard hearse and deployed a cortège of glassed-in Cadillac motorcars.7 Over 300 people packed the small chapel for the service.8 Hoff’s immediate family – Annis, Sandra (aged 15), Nereida (aged eight) and Tom and Be Hoff were there, as were many students, colleagues and friends. A long list of the people who attended was printed in the Sydney Morning Herald, and it included the Director of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Minister for Education, the Principal of East Sydney Technical College, Chairman of the Society of Artists, representatives of the Anzac Memorial, and most of the art department of the National Art School.9 The Reverend Le Huray, who conducted the service, said ‘the best way to perpetuate the memory of Rayner Hoff would be to give sculpture the place in Australian culture which he had worked to establish for it’.10 After the service, the maple coffin with silver mountings was placed in the Packard hearse, and a cortège of four cars travelled in the rain to Rookwood Crematorium where Hoff was cremated. His ashes were collected by a representative from Kinselas two days later, and returned to Taylor Square.11 For those who said farewell to him that day, it was hard to imagine that such a vital and influential man could possibly have died so quickly. Eileen McGrath’s parents attended the funeral and wrote to her in London, describing the people there and their own personal reaction: He was such a robust character that it is simply impossible to believe that he no longer lives. We always remember him on the camping trip he spent with us – we have always had the kindest feeling for him and we sorrow for our loss.12

Tributes flowed in newspapers and magazines. One of the first of these was by Bruce Dellit, who had worked closely with Hoff for the previous seven years. Dellit discussed Hoff’s work ethic on the Memorial: He immediately set about reconstructing his studio and went to work with a vigour and tenacity which only a true creative spirit can achieve. Hoff worked like one inspired and never spared himself. Into the early hours, night after night, and month after month, he wrestled with

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his obedient clay, and from shapeless, meaningless earth, reared the colossal figures which to-day gaze down from the Anzac Memorial. To know Hoff as a friend was a great experience. Utterly unconventional and uncaring for the favourable opinions of others, he went his way, intent on the search for beauty and delighting in the pleasure he received in opening the mysteries of sculptural art to his students of the East Sydney Technical College … He took immense pleasure in doing the memorial sculptures, but I am convinced that Hoff’s greatest pleasure in life was imparting his great knowledge and skill to his pupils.13

One can only imagine Dame Mary Gilmore’s sadness at the loss of a friend for whom she had ‘let the gates of her soul fall down’. She attended Hoff’s funeral with a heavy heart. In 1939 she dedicated her new book of verse Battlefields to Hugh McCrae and Rayner Hoff. In the notes at the back she hints at her distress at Hoff’s early death: The inscription in this book is to Rayner Hoff and Hugh McCrae. Thinking that Mr Hoff would long outlive me, I did not tell him of my intention. So he never knew it. But, with Mrs Hoff’s permission, I have left the inscription as I wrote it in his life-time … if Hugh McCrae gave words to the beauty of stone, Rayner Hoff gave some of the beauty (and the warmth and pity) of words.14

Tributes were also written by his colleagues at the National Art School, including this one by the Head of Design, Phyllis Shillito: What schemes lay in Hoff’s brain for the future of Technical Education and its application – the coordination of the many and varied branches of the college – were only shared by those whom he found likeminded in wisdom and understanding on this subject. Indeed as each day comes the calamity of his passing is almost an ache to those to whom he disclosed his aspirations. We shall go forward missing him constantly, aware of what we owe him.15

The Technical Gazette, which Hoff had used as a platform to espouse his ideas about sculpture and teaching, reproduced one of Hoff’s sculptures as its frontispiece, and Douglas Dundas wrote a three-page article on Hoff and his contribution to Australian art and culture since his arrival in Australia 14 years earlier.16

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At the art school, Hoff’s studio was locked as soon as he died. It was full of sculptures, casts, tools and sketches, and decisions about what to do with them still had to be made. The two rejected sculptures for the Anzac War Memorial were there, as was Hoff’s portrait of Annis and Sandra – Mother and Child. It was a sad place, with the energy he had imparted to the space seemingly lost. Annis had to make many decisions at a time when she could barely function. Above all, she had to deal with her grieving children, and she also had to inform the family and friends in England that Rayner had died. Sandra was in the middle of sitting for her intermediate exams at Crown Street School, but was allowed to take them again later. Nereida, at eight, had trouble understanding that her father was gone, asking, ‘Who would she have to give her pennies and comic papers now?’17 One heart-rending letter has survived in which Annis told Eileen McGrath, who was living in London, of his death. Written in pencil on Hoff’s airmail stationery, Annis crossed out his name in the letterhead before writing: I do hope you have already heard about Rayner before this reaches you – if by chance you have not this news is going to be very awful for you. Rayner died a week ago very suddenly – something with a long name which affects the gall bladder was the cause. He was gone in quite a few hours. Please excuse this letter if it gets a bit disconnected – I am writing in the studio (about the last place on God’s earth for me to be in just now, but I had to come in on business and with one thing and another it is very hard to concentrate on practical matters.) Your letter to R. was open on his desk – I loved reading it.18

At this stage, Annis possibly considered going home to her family. Her father George Briggs had died in Sutton-in-Ashfield a year before Rayner, and Annis must have felt a great need to see her mother in England, but her life was now in Australia. Her daughters had friends and were settled in Sydney, and she had to sort out the estate, studio, and the George V Memorial commission. Eileen McGrath’s mother Edith said she had asked Annis if she would like to return to the United Kingdom, but Annis definitely said she would prefer to stay in Sydney.19 Her close relationship with Vicky

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Cowdroy and George Bunting helped. George was now a ‘managing law clerk’ and he was able to give legal advice and help sort out the insurance, which was complicated. John Moorfield was of great assistance in annotating the items in the studio. An inventory was needed for insurance purposes, and the list was extensive. The studio held seven bronzes, three sandstone carvings, three copperplated models and 17 clay and plaster sculptures. As well as this, the separate workroom held 41 plaster casts, 21 medals and many tools, weights and scales, including the large and well-used pointing machine. James R Lawsons (auctioneers and valuers) valued the items in the studio at £149 – nowhere near their real value.

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Cover of Hoff’s memorial exhibition catalogue, 1938 National Art School Archive

The Society of Artists formed a committee to organise a memorial exhibition of the works that were left. This proved to be the largest solo exhibition of Hoff’s sculptures, and it was an opportunity for his work to be acquired by major galleries and collectors. Hoff’s will, prepared in 1933, had been witnessed by Eileen McGrath. He left his entire estate to Annis Mary Rayner Hoff, and appointed her sole executrix.20 The estate was valued at £4897 in January 1938. The largest asset was Hoff’s life insurance policy, valued at £3261. As well as six different life policies in Australia, Hoff also held a small policy in London, probably organised by Annis’s brother Oswald Briggs, who was a solicitor and was named as executor if Annis died. The house in Bondi did not have a mortgage and was valued at £1200, and the items in the house, which included artworks, furniture and books were valued at £133. Lawsons had completed the valuation on 22 December, a month after Hoff’s death. A list of artworks in the house was compiled, and it included many works by his friends, such as Fred Leist, Norman Lindsay, Sydney Ure Smith and Elioth Gruner. There were also three woodcuts (or possibly wood carvings) by his sculpture teacher at the Royal College of Art, Derwent Wood, who had died in 1926. The most valuable item in the house was Hoff’s extensive library, worth £52. One poignant object listed was his wristlet watch, which he can be seen wearing in many photographs. In today’s monetary terms, Hoff’s estate was equivalent to approximately $400,000. Although Annis now had very little income, and two children to support, Hoff’s life insurance policies provided her with an adequate amount to live on.21 Annis was also able to apply for a widow’s pension from the Department of Education. While Rayner was alive, Annis had been responsible for all the family accounts and finances, and Herbert McGrath described her as an astute businesswoman. She had received a legacy from her family, and each year ‘substantial money presents from England’.22 When Rayner had been working on a commission, she would ‘loan’ him the money from the household accounts, and he would give her the cheques later as they came in. Indeed, she claimed £280 from the estate to cover the expenses that Rayner owed her in March 1938. Most of the works left in Hoff’s studio were exhibited in the Rayner Hoff

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Memorial Exhibition, which opened at David Jones Market Street store on 19 May 1938. A catalogue with an essay by Norman Carter listed the 57 works on display, of which 36 were for sale. Some were kept by the family, or were on loan from other owners. They ranged in price from £7 to £200 for the marble Australian Venus, which was purchased by the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, and has proved a popular drawcard for the public ever since. Annis received all the proceeds from the sales, and there was an appeal to the public to donate funds to purchase works to go into the Gallery collection. One small work from the studio was not exhibited in this exhibition, as it was kept by the National Art School as a permanent memorial to Rayner Hoff. It was a marble relief of Pan, carved by Hoff in the 1920s. John Moorfield designed a sandstone surround for it, which was made by monumental mason Frederick Arnold. The memorial was erected in a circular garden beside a palm tree at the art school.23 Although it is unknown where Hoff’s ashes were buried, it seems possible that this was his headstone, and that he was buried in the grounds of the art school he had loved. Showing some wear and tear after 78 years exposed to the elements, in 2015 the memorial was restored and moved inside the building near Hoff’s former studio. Hoff’s friend, architect C Bruce Dellit, lived for only five years after Hoff died. Like Hoff, he had lived his short life to the full. He was a dynamic and obsessed worker, and after completing the Anzac Memorial he continued to design commercial and domestic buildings in Sydney. Dellit’s finest commercial building, the Bank of New South Wales in O’Connell Street, was completed in 1940. He died two years later, on 21 August 1942, at almost the same age as Hoff: 43.24 The building that he created with Hoff stands as a tribute to their extraordinary talents. Rayner Hoff has not been forgotten by the art world in Australia, but 80 years after his death, his name is not known among the general public. It was a different story when he died in 1937, and Colin Simpson summed up his impact on Australian art in a newspaper article, typically misspelling his name in a final tribute: Few men leave such a legacy to a country as Raynor Hoff did when he died on Friday, with a suddenness that is like a blow to those of us who

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were privileged to know him well as artist and man … He is dead, in the prime of his artistic powers, at 43. But the sculpture he fashioned, the tradition he created, and the inspiration he leaves us are far more than most artists could achieve in twice the years he had.25

Hoff Memorial showing Pan, 1937 Marble and sandstone; Pan, 45.3 x 24 x 8 cm; Memorial, including base, 175 cm (height) National Art School Collection. Photo: Peter Morgan

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Epilogue

John Moorfield, Jean Broome-Norton, Yvonne Le Gros and Arthur Buist (left to right) with the King George V sculpture in clay in Hoff’s studio, c1940 Courtesy Moorfield family

After his death, Hoff’s studio was soon back in full production mode. John Moorfield utilised the space to complete Hoff’s final commission, the King George V Memorial for Canberra. It was reported in the newspapers that Hoff had specified that Moorfield, his friend and colleague, complete the memorial in the event of his death, and the Federal Ministry accepted this proposal.1 There had been quite a few delays in sorting out the final details of the contract, and it had not been completed when Hoff died. Annis and Moorfield asked Eileen McGrath if she would return to Australia to work on the commission. McGrath’s move to London in 1933 had been a blow to Hoff, as he had hoped she would return to teach with him and continue to work on his commissions. He wrote to her regularly and she helped him with research in London when he was designing the models for the George V Memorial. In October 1936, he thanked her for sending the reference material regarding King George, which he said he could not find in the Public Library in Sydney.2 McGrath seriously considered returning to Australia to work on the Memorial. Letters from her parents throughout 1937 and 1938 show that she was keen to return with her English husband Albert Frost, but after she gave birth to their son Hugh in 1938, she decided to stay in London.3 The contract was finally signed by Moorfield at the end of 1938, and he worked from Hoff’s designs and maquettes in conjunction with Harry Foskett, who remained the associate architect for the project. Liz Blaxland recalled that the head of George V, the final model and the architectural drawings were all complete before Hoff died. Although she had made the armature for the massive head, she did not work on it after Hoff’s death.4 Moorfield had an enormous task to complete the work. Fortunately he had the models, drawings and the maquette made by Hoff to work from. The design called for a 4.5-metre bronze statue of King George V on a stone plinth facing Parliament House, and a stone-carved sculpture of St George seated on a horse, also on a stone plinth, facing Mount Ainslie and the War Memorial. Moorfield designed the symbolic plaques around the base, and was responsible for the modelling of the plaques, the King George figure and

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the St George figure. Moorfield employed Jean Broome-Norton and Yvonne Le Gros, both trained by Hoff, to work closely with him for two years to finish Hoff’s final work. Arthur Buist was also employed on the project. The work was bigger than any of the Anzac Memorial sculptures, and required 4½ tons of clay and a huge and complex armature to support it. Broome-Norton recalled that Moorfield nearly passed out a couple of times while working inside the airless clay structure, and had to be pulled out to breathe.5 The bronze was eventually cast by the Morris Singer Foundry in London and St George was carved by the stonemasons Garnett and Son of Sydney.6 The horse and rider also needed an elaborate timber armature. Moorfield made the full-scale clay sculpture over the armature in Hoff’s studio, and then cast it in segments in plaster. The Grounds family was called upon once more to help make the huge castings in the studio, and the various sections of the work can be seen in a photo of the plaster casts. The cast was then taken to the stonemasons’ yard at Parramatta, and an exact replica of it was carved in sandstone. A remarkable photo shows Moorfield in the centre standing with six of the stonemasons after the completion of St George (page 248). It shows a crane in the background, the sandstone sculpture on the left, and the plaster one on the right. Although the bulk of the structure of the monument was completed by 1942, the onset of the Second World War delayed the casting of the bronze plaques and the bronze figure of King George V. Moorfield was photographed during the installation of the stone St George sculpture, but unfortunately he died in 1945 and did not see the completed memorial. Because of the delay, the monument was in place, but only half completed, with the blank side facing Old Parliament House for more than a decade.7 Finally in 1951 Moorfield’s plaster casts for the bronze figure of George V were sent to England for casting. Purportedly one of the largest bronzes ever cast by the Morris Singer Foundry, sculptor Sir William Reid Dick was engaged to supervise the casting.8 Weighing 3½ tons and standing almost 4½ metres tall, the model had to be cut into 15 pieces, the head and hands being cast by cire perdue (lost wax), and the bulk of the work by sand moulding. To accommodate its massive height, the statue was lowered into a pit in the foundry floor during the final assembly.9

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Plaster casts including St George’s head in the studio, c1942 Courtesy Moorfield family

As with Hoff’s other works, the plaster moulds were destroyed after the bronze was completed. The sculpture then had to be packed and transported to Australia by ship, at an enormous cost. The memorial was unveiled on 4 March 1953, some 17 years after Hoff received the commission. The well-attended ceremony saw GovernorGeneral Sir William McKell unveil the George V statue from under an Australian flag in the presence of Annis Hoff, Frances Moorfield (John Moorfield’s daughter), Jean Broome-Norton and other dignitaries, including Prime Minister Robert Menzies and Leader for the Opposition Dr HV Evatt.10

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An album of photos of the event shows the diminutive white-haired Annis, standing between Doc Evatt and Frances Moorfield, in what must have been a sad but proud moment for her (page 253). In 1968, the monument was moved to its current location, off to the side of the open square opposite Parliament House. This was more in line with Hoff’s and Foskett’s original wishes, as the Memorial in its original position blocked the land axis and the uninterrupted vista from Old Parliament House to the Australian War Memorial. Two of the works left in Hoff’s studio after he died were the plaster scale models, or maquettes, of the Crucifixion of Civilisation and Victory after Sacrifice, and there was some debate as to what to do with them. The Trustees of the Anzac Memorial visited the studio in 1938, and consequently John Moorfield asked that the models be removed. No doubt he needed the space for the George V commission. It was decided to move them into storage in the Flinders Street store of the Commonwealth Bank, and this occurred before the end of 1938.11 This enormous store in Surry Hills was about 500 metres from the National Art School, and they sat there for the next 20 years.

Garnett’s stonemasons’ yard, Parramatta, c1942 Courtesy Moorfield family

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The Trustees did not forget about the sculptures completely. In December 1938, they contacted sculptor William Leslie Bowles to quote on completing the works. There is no further reference to this quote in the minutes, and they were never made. There is, however, another note in the minutes of the Trustees, many years later in August 1947, saying that the figures of ‘Sacrifice, currently in storage’ would be visited.12 In Hoff’s studio in 1938 there were also a number of models of the completed sculptures on the Anzac Memorial. It is unknown what happened to these after the Trustees paid Annis a nominal amount of £5 and handed them over to the Superintendent of Technical Education.13 By 1952, there was a suggestion that the two scale models could be put to use at the art school or the National Art Gallery of New South Wales. The Trustees tried to approach Lecturer in Art at the NAS Douglas Dundas, but he was overseas, and in his absence NAS teacher Roy Davies inspected the models and advised that they were too big for the art school to house. As they were each 1.42 metres in height, the gallery also refused them due to their size.14 Five years later, the Trustees received reports that there was some deterioration in the models. Obviously reluctant to make a decision on the casts, the Trustees once again asked for advice in January 1958: Messrs. Hal Missingham, Director of the Art Gallery and D Dundas, Senior Lecturer in Painting and drawing, National Art School had advised that the pieces are merely plaster moulds and of no value to the organisations to which they are attached. The Director of the War Memorial in Canberra advises they are not interested; also they have destroyed all the plaster casts they held. In his view the Trustees should not hold onto these.15

Sadly, this signalled the death knell for the ‘lost’ models. It is true that plaster casts are generally destroyed after they have been cast in bronze, but these two works were the only ones in existence, which if eventually scaled up and cast in bronze would have completed Hoff’s and Dellit’s vision for the Anzac Memorial. On 21 April 1958 a ‘Certificate of Destruction’ was received by the Trustees from the Controller of Stores at the Commonwealth Bank in Flinders Street, and the works were destroyed. There were many rumours about what had happened to the sculptures, and over the years various people took up the cause to have them remade.

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Crucifixion of Civilisation, as it could have looked if placed on the Anzac Memorial Photo/collage: Deborah Beck, 2016

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Sandra, Nereida and Annis Hoff, Sydney, c1938

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In 1984 NAS teacher Cameron Bannerman was interviewed, and he believed it would be possible to re-create them if the sculptures could be found. An article described his search, saying that ‘investigations by the Australian War Memorial, the National Gallery, the Queensland Gallery and the Sunday Telegraph have been unsuccessful’.16 Bannerman was also responsible for one of the most bizarre performance pieces ever held at the Anzac Memorial, when as a way to make a point about the missing works, he and his NAS students re-created a living version of Crucifixion of Civilisation near the Pool of Remembrance.17 There was also a chance to have these sculptures made in 2015, when the Anzac Centenary Project was announced. The Returned and Services League (RSL) website described the project: The Anzac Memorial is undergoing a $40 million dollar upgrade that will see the original 1930s vision for the Memorial, by Sydney architect Bruce Dellit, finally completed. The original design included a water cascade stretching towards Liverpool Street but the advent of the Great Depression meant this vision was never realised. As Australia marks the 100th anniversary of the Great War, the Anzac Memorial Centenary Project will see the new water feature and education and interpretation facilities added beneath the Memorial by distinguished architecture practice Johnson Pilton Walker, in collaboration with the NSW Government Architect’s Office.18

Although part of Dellit’s original vision would be completed by the addition of the water cascade, the inclusion of the two Hoff sculptures on the empty platforms on the eastern and western sides of the Memorial was once again deemed to be too expensive. Hoff’s close family stayed on in Australia after his death. In 1937, Tom Hoff and his wife Be were still living in Maroubra. Tom was by this time working as a modeller at Farmers department store. Tom never totally recovered from the loss of his brother, and he and Be moved from Maroubra to Nowra on the south coast of New South Wales in the late 1940s. They never had any children. Be believed that Tom had always lived his life in Australia in Rayner’s shadow. Having a brother as successful as Hoff may have resulted in some competition, but they had been very close, and

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Jean Broome-Norton (second from left), Doc Evatt, Annis Hoff, Frances Moorfield (left to right), at the unveiling of the George V Memorial, Canberra,1953 Courtesy Antonia and Danielle Norton

enjoyed working together for many years in Hoff’s studio. Annis, Sandra and Nereida stayed on in their Kenneth Street house. A street photographer captured them in the city in 1938 (page 251). Annis looked slim and elegant and the age difference between the two girls was obvious. Sandra looked quite mature at 15, whereas Nereida still held a teddy and was tiny for her age. Sandra had had a difficult time at school when her father died in 1937, but later she re-sat the intermediate exam, and gained a pass, which allowed her to study art at East Sydney Technical College. She was a student there during the time that the George V memorial was being constructed in her father’s former studio. Like Annis, she was quiet and introspective, and in later years she did not talk much about her father. When she finished the course, Sandra’s lettering skills led to a job with Standard Telephones and Cables (STC), where she painted numbers on relay panels for telephone exchanges. It was here that she met her future husband, Frederick John Henstock, and they married in 1945. Sandra and Fred had two sons, and the

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first one, born in 1947, was named after his grandfather, Rayner. Although Rayner Hoff did not live to meet his grandchildren, Annis got great pleasure from them. Likewise they enjoyed visiting her at Bondi. Rayner Henstock and his brother Stephen recall climbing the frangipani tree in the front of the house, playing on the beach, and watching the large fish in the fishpond in the garden.19 Annis started having heart problems in 1956 and died in the War Memorial Hospital at Waverley in May 1961.20 She was 69 years old, and had lived for more than 23 years after Rayner died. Nereida, who had been close to her mother and was working as a typist, continued to live at the family’s Bondi home for a few years, surrounded by memories, artworks and her parents’ possessions. The house was eventually sold, and she moved to North Narrabeen, where she worked as a bus conductor. It was at around this time that she found out that she had multiple sclerosis, and she had to spend long periods in hospital. Her friends described her as being very strong, and never complaining.21 She died in 1980, aged 51. Sandra and her husband Fred moved to the north shore of Sydney, then to the north coast of New South Wales. Sandra kept the family photos, Annis’s student drawings, Hoff’s whole library and many of his sculptures. Fred died in 1987, while Sandra lived for another 11 years and died at the age of 76. Because Rayner and Annis had had two girls, the Hoff name has not continued in Australia. Nevertheless the family has continued to grow, as their grandson Stephen Henstock has five children and eight grandchildren. When Rayner Hoff died so suddenly in 1937, Australia lost one of its most committed and visionary artists and teachers. His legacy, however, has continued in the outstanding sculptures he left behind, the skills he taught his students, and the friends and family who did not forget him.

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Hoff’s grandsons, Rayner (left) and Stephen Henstock, c1951

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notes Introduction 1 The cabinets were made by Anthony Hordern & Sons, the largest department store in Sydney at that time.

1 Manx magic 1 Kathryn Watterson, ‘The Magic of the Manx’, New York Times, 1 September 1990. 2 Will of Thomas Hoof of Stickney, Yeoman/Husbandman, 12 August 1730, Lincolnshire Archives LCC1730/128. The estate inventory totalled £61, equivalent to approximately £111,000 in 2015. 3 Deborah Beck, interview with Rayner Hoff’s nephew, Philip Roy Hoff Riley, 28 September 2013, Fareham, UK.

Castletown was the capital of the Isle of Man until 1869, when the island’s government moved to Douglas. 4

5 See archibaldknoxsociety.com/page_112136.html. Archibald, the fifth child of William and Ann Knox, was born on 9 April 1864. 6 Likely named after the island of the same name, as it had once been part of the Kirby estate, the home of Colonel Mark Wilks, who had been the governor of that island while Napoleon was held there. 7 ‘Distressing Fatality at Pulrose: Child killed at the mill race: the Inquest’, Manx Sun, 30 June1894, p. 14. 8 Marriage certificate of Richard Hoff and Hannah Robinson (Rayner Hoff’s grandparents), 27 October 1851. Certificate lists Hannah’s mother as Susannah Robinson; father as Richard Rayner. Lincolnshire Archives. Hannah’s parents were married six years after she was born. Some earlier members of Richard Rayner’s family spelled their name ‘Raynor’.

‘Miscellaneous Exhibits’, Manx Sun, 10 December 1892, p. 16. 9

Hinton Bird, An Island that Led: A history of Manx education, vol. 2, pp. 53–55.

10

Manx National Heritage Archives MS 02117/1B, letter from Rayner Hoff to GF Clucas, 4 June 1924.

11

2 New horizons

Deborah Beck, interview with Margaret Riley, 17 September 2013. 1

Lanercost parish magazine, November 1905. The Band of Hope was a temperance society supported by Lady Rosalind Carlisle. 2

3 Douglas Whitworth, A Century of Nottingham, The History Press, Gloucestershire, 2013, pp. 13–15. 4 Lemon Lingwood (ed.), Jarrold’s Illustrated Handbook to Nottingham, 1906.

Admission register, Lenton Church schools 1901–11, Nottinghamshire Archives. When Rayner left Beeston School he attended Lenton Boys School from July 1906 to March 1907. 5

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6 Church Street School was built in 1883 and Nether Street in 1898. 7 A note mentioning the sculptor F Lazzerini is on the back of Hoff’s enlistment papers dated 1915. See ‘A Lazzerini’, Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/ person.php?id=msib4_1227201005. 8 Lady Middleton, Other Famous Homes of Great Britain and their Stories: Edited by AH Malan, Putnam’s, 1902, pp. 7–8. 9 Deborah Beck, interview with Philip Roy Hoff Riley, 28 September 2013. 10

Beck, interview with Margaret Riley.

3 Turning point 1 Nottingham School of Art, Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, sculpture. gla.ac.uk/index.php. 2 As a sculptor, painter and engraver, Woodford created a wide range of important public and ecclesiastical work. Most of his later work was completed in London. For the coronation ceremony of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, Woodford made a set of ten plaster sculptures of the Queen’s Beasts, each 1.8 metres tall, to be placed at the entrance of Westminster Abbey. In Nottingham, his most prominent work is the 1951 Robin Hood Statue and reliefs that are installed in a square near the Nottingham Castle gatehouse. 3 The Building News and Engineering Journal, vol. 109, no. 3160, 28 July 1915, p. 84. 4 Carol A Jones, A History of Nottingham School of Design, Nottingham Trent University, 1993, p. 57. 5 Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat XLIX, inscribed by hand by Rayner Hoff 1917, Hoff family archive. 6 Deborah Edwards, This Vital Flesh: The sculpture of Rayner Hoff and his school, AGNSW, 1999, p. 11. 7 See Sheila Rowbotham, Edward Carpenter: A life of liberty and love, Verso, 2008.

4 FROM THE HEART 1 ‘Well-Known Suttonian’, obituary in Sutton local paper, 23 January 1936, Robert Briggs archive. 2 Madge Knight went on to have a life immersed in the arts. She married her second husband, American surrealist painter Charles Houghton Howard, in 1940. The couple left for America and lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area throughout the remainder of the war years. After this they returned to England where they became part of the artistic scene and where Charles taught at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London. They later retired to Italy. 3 Nottinghamshire Archives, Nottingham School of Art, Local Prize Winners, DD/SA 2/4/3/3.

5 The first sacrifice

‘Medical History of George Rayner Hoff 29.4.1916’, British Army WWI Service Records 1914–1920, ancestry. com – originals at National Archives of the UK and Public Record Office. It is fortunate Hoff’s record survived among the ‘Burnt Documents’, as around 60 per cent of British First World War records were destroyed after a bombing raid on the war office in London during the Second World War in 1940. 1

2 Jack’s Army Service record, like the majority, does not survive. Information is from his son Robert Briggs, medal cards and family photograph albums. 3 Brad Manera, Senior Historian and Curator, Anzac Memorial, Hyde Park Sydney, essay on Hoff’s war service, August 2013, for lecture at the Anzac Memorial, 1 November 2013. 4

awm.gov.au/wartime/8/articles/iso_rae.pdf.

British First World War Trench Maps, 1915–1918, National Library of Scotland website. 5

6 Manera, whose extensive research forms the basis of this chapter.

‘Protection Certificate and Certificate of Identity George Rayner Hoff 14.9.1919, Dispersal Unit Crystal Palace’, British Army WWI Service Records 1914–1920. 7

6 The world at his feet

Christopher Frayling, The Royal College of A rt: One hundred and fifty years of art and design, Barrie and Jenkins, London, 1987, pp. 44–50. 1

Hilary Cunliffe-Charlesworth, ‘The Royal College of Art: Its influence on education, art and design 1900–1950’, thesis, Royal College of Art, August 1991, p. 159. 2

3 Roger Berthoud, The Life of Henry Moore, Giles de la Mare Publishers, London, 2003, p. 47. 4

Cunliffe-Charlesworth, pp. 175–84.

5 Interview with Sydney’s son, Christopher Hoff, 21 September 2013. Sydney’s medal card shows that he was in the Notts Derbyshire regiment (on the Sherwood Forester’s roll) and had not returned by October 1918.

George Rayner Hoff student file, Royal College of Art Archives. 6

7

ibid.

8 Prospectus of the Royal College of Art 1926–27 (unchanged from 1923), Board of Education, p. 21. Osteology is the scientific study of bones, and myology of the muscular system. 9

Frayling, p. 93.

10

Berthoud, p. 54.

DH Lawrence, The Letters of DH Lawrence, James T Bolton (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979, pp. 14, 155.

11

12

Frayling, pp. 95–96.

13

Berthoud, p. 50.

Liz Bruchet blogs.ucl.ac.uk/slade-archive-project/category/ item-of-the-week/, 8 May 2013.

14

15

Royal Academy of Arts in London, members list, 1922.

Register for the Victoria and Albert Museum, George Swift file, March 1922, MA/1/S4194. The museum number for the medal is A.9-1922.

16

May married in 1929 and became an accomplished sculptor. The Mond family was a great supporter of the arts, and were well known for their ‘musical soirees’ in their Hyde Park Square house. It is unknown if Hoff attended these, or how close he was to the family. Email with Helen Cippio, May’s daughter, 15 August 2014.

17

7 Past masters

Rome Scholarship in Sculpture, 1922, British School at Rome (BSR) archive. Rules outlined by the London office of the BSR. 1

2 Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, The British School at Rome: One hundred years, The British School at Rome, London, 2001, p. 155. 3 Minutes of the 19th Meeting of the Faculty of Sculpture, Royal Academy, 8 February 1922, BSR archive. Faculty members included Sir George Frampton, Mr CS Jagger, Sir Bertram Mackennal and Mr Gilbert Ledward. 4

Hoff file, Rome Scholar in Sculpture 1922, BSR archive.

5

Wallace-Hadrill, p. 149.

6

Hoff file, AGNSW Reference Library.

7

AGNSW Reference Library, 15G/23, 15 December1922.

The Case of Mr GR Hoff, Hoff student file, RCA Archives, 23/60 RCA. 8

9 Mr Spencer, letter to the principal of the RCA, William Rothenstein, 27 April 1923, Hoff student file, RCA Archives.

Sir Hugh Orange letter to the Treasury in response to Their Lordships’ letter (s.7261), 30 June 1923, Hoff student file, RCA Archives, 60/23, 6 July 1923. On 5 January Hoff had seen the Registrar, Mr Spencer, at the RCA and had said he was unsure if and when he could take up the Rome Scholarship.

10

WR Davies letter to GR Hoff, 16 June 1923, Hoff student file, RCA Archives, RCA 23/60.

11

Deborah Edwards interview with Elizabeth Dehle (Treasure Conlon), 9 April 1984. Dehle recalled that Hoff was very open to new trends and was aware of Picasso and what was going on in Europe.

12

Wallace-Hadrill, pp. 54, 153. Hoff did not meet all of these scholars. John Skeaping received the scholarship in 1924 and married Barbara Hepworth in Florence in 1925. She moved into the BSR with him.

13

Hoff, report to the Hon. General Secretary, BSR, London office, 23 March 1923, (G)R Hoff file, Rome Scholar in Sculpture 1922, BSR Archive.

14

15

Wallace-Hadrill, p. 149.

257

BSR Annual Reports 1901–26. Baillie Reynolds was the holder of the Rome studentship from the University of Oxford in 1923.

16

Deborah Edwards interview with Sandra Henstock (nee Hoff), 19 March 1984. William Hardy Wilson had been a student at the BSR in 1908–09. Sandra believed that Wilson had encouraged Hoff to take the position in Australia when he met him in Naples.

17

(G)R Hoff file, Rome Scholar in Sculpture 1922, BSR Archive. He actually resigned in March.

18

Deborah Edwards interview with Barbara Tribe, AGNSW, 7 August 1985. Charles Sargeant Jagger was a British sculptor who studied at the RCA and, following active service in the First World War, sculpted many works on the theme of war.

19

Woodford file, Evelyn Shaw (BSR) letter to James Bourlet and Sons Ltd, 25 February 1929, BSR Library, Rome.

20

8 the other side of the world 1 Memorandum to Department of Woodwork, Victoria and Albert Museum, 9 May 1923, Robert A Briggs collection.

Deborah Edwards, This Vital Flesh: The sculpture of Rayner Hoff and his school, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1999, p. 92, n. 29. 2

FG Lloyd to GVF Mann, Hoff file, AGNSW Reference Library, 15/23. 3

4 ‘New Settlers – the SS Ballarat’s list’, The Daily News, Perth, 22 June 1923, p. 1. 5

The Daily News, Perth, 3 July 1923, p. 10.

6

Hoff family archive.

‘SS Ballarat Migrants’, The Daily News, Perth, 4 July 1923, p. 8. 7

8 Hoff would later design a frieze and two bronze panels in the Art Deco extension to the Australia Hotel, designed by Emil Sodersten, AE Stafford and C Bruce Dellit in 1935. It was demolished in 1971.

Lloyd Rees, The Small Treasures of a Lifetime: Some early memories of Australian art and artists, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1969, p. 46. 9

Rifles. He studied sculpture at Nottingham School of Art from May 1922 to 1923. 6 Deborah Beck interview with Margaret Riley, 17 September 2013. 7 Deborah Edwards interview with Elizabeth Dehle (Treasure Conlon), 9 April 1984. 8 Robert Lee, Linking a Nation: Australia’s transport and communications 1788–1970, Australian Heritage Commission, 2003. 9 Humphrey McQueen, Social Sketches of Australia: The terrible twenties, Penguin Books, Victoria, 1991, p. 98.

Identified by local historian Charles Attard, 18 January 2015.

10

11

RF Wilson, ‘Making History in the World of Art: Mr Rayner Hoff, sculptor – former Nottingham student's success in Australia’, The Nottingham Guardian, 25 October 1927.

13

A copy of this scrapbook is held in the National Gallery of Australia Research Library, Canberra. The whereabouts of the original is unknown. Marks Park was named in December 1929 after Walter Marks MP by Waverley Council, due to his efforts in securing it for the public as a rest park and playground. BT Dowd and William Foster, The History of the Waverley Municipal District, Council of the Municipality of Waverley, Sydney, 1959, p. 171.

15

Max Kelly, ‘Pleasure and Profit: The eastern suburbs come of age 1919–1929’ in Twentieth Century Sydney, Jill Roe (ed.), Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1980, p. 4. The eastern suburbs were defined as the municipalities of Randwick, Vaucluse, Waverley and Woollahra.

16

Waverley Council rate books, 1923–1928, Waverley Municipal Library, and auction details for Mackenzies Ocean Estate No. 2, 1921.

17

18

Television was introduced in Australia in 1956, and regular radio broadcasts began at the time the Hoffs arrived from the United Kingdom, 1923–24.

9 On the beach

21

Sands directory 1925–27, Electoral rolls 1925–27, South Sydney, Randwick subdivision.

22

2

Country Life, 3 October 1924, p. 10.

Deborah Beck interview with Diane Masters (nee Bunting), Melbourne, 4 July 2014.

Peter Spearritt, Sydney Since the Twenties, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1978, pp. 31, 59, 63.

Deborah Edwards interview with Sandra Henstock (nee Hoff), Macksville, 19 March 1984.

23

Thomas Hoff left the United Kingdom on the TSS Jervis Bay on 17 June 1924.

24

Deborah Edwards interview with Rosamund Leslie (nee Be Hoff), 18 June 1984. Hemsleys is possibly Hemsleys and Co., Nottingham Trade Directory 1913. Tom’s medal record shows that he served in the Liverpool Regiment, Army Cycle Corps and Royal Engineers. It is unlikely that he joined the Artists’ 5

258

ibid.

‘Sculptor’s Neighbour Alleged to have made Remarks: Feared violence at masseur’s hands’, Truth, 17 February 1935, p. 13.

3

4

Edwards interview with Leslie.

19

20

1

ibid.

14

‘Mr G. Rayner Hoff, Sculptor and Modeller – Distinguished Career’, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 July 1923, p. 10.

10

Edwards interview with Leslie.

12

Edwards interview with Leslie.

Dr Charles Pickett, Curator, Powerhouse Museum, powerhousemuseum.com/collection/ database/?irn=398479#ixzz2xL8eOXwW.

25

Rayner Hoff, letter to Eileen McGrath, 29 October 1936, National Art School (NAS) Archives.

26

Rayner Hoff letter to Mrs Albert Frost (Eileen McGrath), 30 September 1937, NAS Archives.

27

10 Shaping the future 1 See Ann Stephen (ed.), Visions of a Republic: The work of Lucien Henry, Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, 2001. 2

ibid., p. 111.

Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1934, p. 226. Moore also illustrates his book with two photographs titled ‘National Art School, Group of Students’, 1887 and 1896. These are students from the National Gallery of Victoria Gallery School. 3

Christopher Allen, ‘A Brief History of the National Art School’ in Deborah Beck, Hope in Hell: A history of Darlinghurst Gaol and the National A rt School, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2005, p. 182. 4

5 Deborah Edwards interview with Nessie Stephen, 5 April 1984. 6 National Art School Students’ Club book, 1928 National Art School (NAS) Archives. 7 Ted Howell papers, NAS Archives. The badge was designed by Carswell in 1928.

Deborah Edwards, ‘Love and Life: The sculpture of Rayner Hoff and his school 1923–1937’, Master of Philosophy thesis, University of Sydney, February 1991, p. 17. 8

Spartacus Smith, ‘Rayner Hoff and his work’, The Sydney Mail, 1 October 1924, pp. 8–9. 9

Tahu Hole, ‘Art in a Cold Shed: An interview with Rayner Hoff’, The Telegraph, 16 August 1935.

10

Public Service Lists, 1923 accessed via Ancestry.com, 4 January 2015.

11

Catalogue for Exhibition of Art by the Students of East Sydney Technical College, 1926, NAS Archives.

12

Ancestry.com, Public Service Lists, 1923. Hoff’s annual salary of £605 was well above most of his fellow teachers – Aurousseau received £403, although Rowe as Lecturer in Charge received £789.

13

Deborah Edwards interview with Elizabeth Dehle (Treasure Conlon), Sydney, 9 April 1984.

14

15

Edwards interview with Stephen.

The Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, holds the delicate glass photonegatives of these photographs, measuring 16.3 x 12 centimetres. They need to be carefully removed from their cardboard boxes and paper envelopes, then photographed and inverted to a positive image on computer.

16

It has previously been dated 1927, but I believe this image shows it was more likely to have been made around the time Hoff was doing his portrait of Norman Lindsay, late in 1924.

17

Deborah Edwards interview with Rosamund Leslie (nee Be Hoff), 18 June 1984.

18

‘Rob’ (librarian) interview with Adye Bailey, Canberra, 2001–02, tapes courtesy of her daughter Georgina Bolitho.

19

Don Mitchell interview with Jean Broome-Norton, 1998. Mitchell was interviewed by Deborah Beck, 7 March 2015.

20

Joan Hope White, ‘Child Artists of Australia’, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 April 1935, p. 11.

21

‘Talented Children’, Hobart Mercury, 15 January 1948, p. 1. Michael Yardley (formerly Michael Gore-Edwards) and his brother Nicky continued to act into the 1950s.

22

BSR Library, Minutes of the Faculty of Sculpture, 4 April 1924.

23

Deborah Edwards, Bertram Mackennal, AGNSW, Sydney, 2007, p. 202.

24

Sir Bertram Mackennal, ‘Art Starving’ speech: ‘Low Public Taste’, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 December 1926, p. 16.

25

Brian Stratton, Douglas Dundas Remembers, 1974, p. 31. The first painting diplomas were awarded to Rosalind Edkins and Delphine Stephens.

26

Some sources describe the studio being built for Mackennal in 1926–27, but it is more likely that it was constructed between 1929 and 1930. It was in full operation as the life-modelling studio by 1931.

27

28

Mitchell, interview with Broome-Norton, 1998.

Deborah Edwards interview with Liz Blaxland, 9 May 1984.

29

John Millard, reference letter for John Moorfield from Manchester Municipal School of Art, 25 April 1907, Moorfield family archive.

30

‘Jack Moorfield, Sculptor’, The Salon, December 1916, p. 105.

31

Douglas Dundas, ‘The Late Rayner G Hoff’, The Technical Gazette, June 1938, pp. 16–18.

32

33

ibid.

EA Harvey, ‘It was a Damn Good School’, unpublished manuscript, NAS Archives, 1978, p. 123. This is the only mention found of Hoff keeping any animals on site. It is probable that the kangaroo was used as a subject matter for his students to draw.

34

NASC library committee, Minutes, 1928–32, NAS Archives.

35

Deborah Edwards, Lyndon Dadswell 1908–1986, Wild & Woolley, Sydney, 1992.

36

Donal O’Donovan, God’s A rchitect: A Life of Raymond McGrath, Kilbride Books, Ireland, 1995, p. 39. O’Donovan contests the fact that Raymond McGrath studied with Hoff (see p. 35), but I have found no evidence to prove this either way.

37

Rayner Hoff, Editorial, The Work of Eileen McGrath, Letterpress students, Sydney Technical College, 1931.

38

Herbert McGrath letter to Eileen McGrath, May 1938, Embling papers. Herbert wrote that he was very pleased to see Eileen’s portrait mask of Rayner Hoff in the exhibition.

39

‘Young Sculptress wins Diploma: Sydney Technical College’, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 March 1930, p. 12. The first Diploma in Painting was awarded to Delphine Stephens in 1934.

40

259

Don Mitchell, notes from an interview with Jean BroomeNorton, 1998. Fletcher and Broome-Norton stayed close friends for all of their lives. Although Fletcher ceased making sculpture after she married, Broome-Norton continued to sculpt and teach for many years.

The Book of the Dead, Facsimile of the Papyrus of Ani in the British Museum, printed by order of the Trustees, 1890. Held by the United Supreme Chapter of Mark and Royal Arch Masons, Petersham, Sydney

ibid. Broome-Norton’s sculpture is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.

9 Deborah Edwards interview with Rosamund Leslie (nee Be Hoff), 18 June 1984.

41

42

Enid Fleming was obsessed with flying and hoped to become a pilot. In 1932, when her sculpture of him was made, Charles Kingsford-Smith was knighted for services to aviation, but three years later he disappeared, probably near the coast of Burma, on an attempt at the Britain to Australia record.

43

‘Our Physique – Perfect says G. Rayner Hoff’, Health and Physical Culture, 1 December 1931, pp. 38–39. This inclusive use of the term ‘our bodies’ is an example of Hoff considering himself an Australian, rather than an Englishman.

44

Deborah Edwards interview with Barbara Tribe, AGNSW, 7 August 1985.

45

46

ibid.

G. Rayner Hoff, ‘Barbara Tribe: Winner of the NSW Travelling Art Scholarship’, The Technical Gazette, vol. 23, part 1, 1935, pp. 17–18.

47

Ria Murch, Arthur Murch: An artist’s life 1902–1989, Ruskin Rowe Press, Avalon Beach, NSW, 1997, pp. 26, 111.

48

Edwards interview with Stephen. The dressmaking department was in Building 23, now the NAS Gallery.

49

Patricia R McDonald, Barbara Tribe: Sculptor, Craftsman House, Sydney, 2000, p. 15. Each figure was 136 centimetres tall.

50

Program and photographs, Unnatural Scene, 1939, NAS Archives.

51

52

NSW Public Service Lists, 1858–1960.

Rayner Hoff letter to Eileen Frost (nee McGrath), 30 September 1937, NAS Archives.

53

11 The test of time 1 Lorraine Kypiotis, Modern Bodies, lecture notes, p. 19, 2014. 2 DH Souter, ‘Society of Artists: Education Department Art Galleries’, Country Life and Stock and Station Journal, 3 October 1924, p. 10.

William Moore, The Story of Australian A rt, vol. II, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1934, p. 97. 3

Rayner Hoff, ‘Our Physique, Two Types of Australian’, 16 March 1933, unidentified press clipping in Deborah Edwards, This Vital Flesh: The sculpture of Rayner Hoff and his school, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1999, p. 91. 4

Donald Richardson, ‘Raynor Hoff’s Holden Lions’, The Adelaide Review, 26 October to 8 November 2007, p. 26. Correspondence between Hoff and Laybourne Smith is held in the Woods Bagot files in the Mortlock Library, Adelaide. 5

Don Loffler, Still Holden Together, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2009, p. 13. 6

260

7

Edwards, This Vital Flesh, p. 47.

8

List of Freemasons in Lodge Literature 500, December 1927, held at the United Grand Lodge of NSW and the ACT, Castlereagh Street, Sydney. With thanks to Peter Court at the City Masonic Centre for this information.

10

‘An Egyptian Temple in the Heart of Sydney’, Sunday News, 15 May 1927, p. 6.

11

‘A Masterpiece while they work’, Australian Women’s Weekly, 23 March 1966.

12

Australian Women’s Weekly, 1966. The plaster was 38 cm deep, made in five sections that fit together like a jigsaw.

13

Deborah Edwards interview with Elizabeth Dehle (Treasure Conlon), 9 April 1984.

14

Deborah Edwards interview with Barbara Tribe, 7 August 1985.

15

Letters between Arthur Murch and WR Cumming, secretary of the Art Advisory Board, March 1968–February 1969 are held by Arthur’s daughter, Michelle Murch.

16

17

Edwards, This Vital Flesh, p. 50.

G. Rayner Hoff, ‘The Art of the Australoids’, The Technical Gazette, vol. 24, part 3, 1936, p. 5.

18

australianmuseum.net.au/People-Represented-inPlaster#sthash.jGMwDEAa.dpuf, additional information supplied by Penny Zylstra.

19

Edwards, This Vital Flesh, p. 50. Edwards found a postcard in Hoff’s papers from Wal Balmus in Bondi dated November 1933 saying, ‘I consider it an honour to have posed for you as the model for the spearman’.

20

Donald Richardson, Creating Remembrance: The art and design of Australian War Memorials, Common Ground Publishing LLC, Illinois, USA, 2015, p. 235. Treasure Conlon believed that Tom Hoff made the moulds and packing cases – Edwards interview.

21

22

ibid.

Deborah Beck interview with Jennifer Marshall, 28 July 2013. Julius Henschke was part of the famous Henschke family, winemakers in South Australia since 1862.

23

24

Edwards interview with Dehle.

Richardson, Creating Remembrance, p. 234, from a letter by Hoff to architect Laybourne Smith, Woods Bagot files.

25

Geoffrey Needham and Daryl Thomson, Men of Metal: A chronicle of the metal casting industry in South Australia, 1836–1986, self-published, Adelaide, 1987, pp. 28, 187.

26

27

Richardson, Creating Remembrance, p. 235.

KS Inglis, Sacred Places: War memorials in the Australian landscape, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2008, pp. 281–82.

28

National Film and Sound Archive, Talkie Season Opens: Wintergarden Theatre has the honour of being the first theatre in the world to present a completely new invention in talking picture equipment, Title No: 50834.

29

Terry Ingram, ‘The Sad Day a Dealer was Unable to Take a Liberty’, Financial Review, 13 May 1976, p. 16. This article describes a dealer trying to save the Hoff relief in the vestibule of the Liberty Theatre, but being obstructed by the wreckers, who demolished the whole building in 1975.

30

‘Why Sculptor Chose Ram’s Skull and Wheat’, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 June 1934.

31

‘Rayner Hoff, Australia’s Most Discussed Sculptor – Unperturbed in Present Storm of Criticism’, Australian Women’s Weekly, 14 July 1934, p. 3.

32

Hoff’s army record from 1916 lists his height at 5 foot 7¼ inches, although many people had the impression of him being taller – one of his former students, Adye Bailey, remembered him as being 6-foot tall.

33

‘Newspaper’s Live interest in Defence Forces – presentation of “Sunday Sun” Trophy – Perfect Piece of Sculpture’, Reveille, vol. 8, no .10, 1 June 1935, pp. 3–5.

34

Daily Telegraph, 15 June 1936, Hoff scrapbook, National Gallery Research Library, Canberra.

35

Report by the Sculptor and Architect on Designs submitted in competition for the King George V Memorial at Canberra FTC 1937, Henstock archive.

36

‘Rob’ interview with Adye Bailey, Canberra, 2001–02. Bailey was the only student to work with Hoff who was not from the sculpture department at the tech. She was studying illustration. Original tapes courtesy of her daughter Georgina Bolitho.

37

Deborah Edwards interview with Liz Blaxland (nee Graham), 9 May 1984.

38

Ken Scarlett, Australian Sculptors, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1980, pp. 260–62.

39

9 Norman Lindsay, Letters of Norman Lindsay, Angus and Robertson, 1979, p. 259.

Inscribed in the book The Work of Eileen McGrath, printed by Letterpress students of the printing department, Sydney Technical College, 1931, collection of Harry F Chaplin.

10

Roger Horrocks, Len Lye: A biography, Auckland University Press, 2001, p. 46.

11

Len Lye letter to Daniel Thomas, Assistant Curator, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1965. Thomas had written to Lye in New York to confirm that the sculpture was of him, and to find out what date it was made.

12

13

Horrocks, Len Lye, p. 72.

14

artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/wynne/.

Letter no. 503a/27, letters between Hoff and GVF Mann, December 1927 to February 1928, regarding the portrait are held in the Edmund and Joanna Capon Research Library, AGNSW.

15

Donald Richardson, ‘Henschke, Albert Julius’, Australian Dictionary of Biography adb.anu.edu.au/biography/henschkealbert-julius-12978/text23455.

16

Len Lye, audio of lecture at Berkeley, New York, 1969, copyright Len Lye Foundation, New Zealand.

17

Laurie Thomas, ‘Film That Needs No Camera and Sculpture That Moves’, The Australian, 21 December 1968, p. 11.

18

19

Lye letter to Thomas.

Construction and Local Government Journal, Institute of Architects, 22 August 1923, p. 6.

20

Architect Louis Laybourne Smith travelled to Sydney in September 1924 and August 1927 to meet Hoff. ‘The National War Memorial’, Adelaide Advertiser, 15 August 1927, p. 12. The article discusses architect Laybourne Smith’s impending visit to Sydney to see the designs and gives an outline of Hoff’s career.

21

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, The British School at Rome: One hundred years, The British School at Rome, London, 2001, p. 208. Wilkinson was one of the first Rome Scholars to stay at the BSR in 1906.

22

12 Under the skin 1 Deborah Beck interview with Janet Hay (Hugh McCrae’s granddaughter), 7 August 2014. 2 museumvictoria.com.au/collections/themes/2458/society-ofartists-sydney-new-south-wales. 3 Rose Lindsay, A Model Life, edited by Lin Bloomfield, Odana Editions, Bungendore, 2001, pp. 322–24. This book is a later edition of Model Wife, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1967. Rose was 39 years old when Hoff made the sculpture of her. 4

The Bulletin, Sydney, 24 September 1925.

Phil Lindsay, ‘The Sculptor’s Craft: Rayner Hoff, as seen through Lindsay’s eyes’, Beckett’s Budget, June 1927, p. 11. 5

Letter from Hoff to Lindsay, sent from Coogee, c1924–25, Lindsay family papers, MLMSS 742/12, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. 6

7

Lindsay, A Model Life, p. 324.

Helen Glad, Norman Lindsay Gallery, Springwood, National Trust of Australia, Sydney, 2009, p. 50. 8

Clive Lucas, ‘Wilkinson, Leslie’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wilkinson-leslie-9104/ text16053.

23

Hugh McCrae, ‘Unusual Work of Two Young Sydney Art Students’, Sunday Times, 19 December 1926, p. 3.

24

25

ibid.

Hugh McCrae correspondence 1947, MLMMSS 6046, Lindsay to McCrae, undated, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.

26

Robert D Fitzgerald, The Letters of Hugh McCrae, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1970. Fitzgerald selected 261 of the more significant letters for this volume.

27

Letter from McCrae to Hoff from Wivenhoe, Wahroonga, undated (c1935), Hoff family archive.

28

261

Joan Kerr, 1995 daao.org.au/bio/victoria-ethel-cowdroy/ biography/; Deborah Beck interview Diane Masters (Victoria Cowdroy’s daughter), 4 April 2014.

29

‘An Apology’, poem by Hugh McCrae to Rayner Hoff, undated, collection of Diane Masters, Vicky Cowdroy and George Bunting’s daughter.

30

Richard J Rowe, ‘A Rowe Family in Australia 1900–2000’, unpublished, April 2006. Family research in this section by Richard Rowe, Samuel Rowe’s grandson.

31

5 Deborah Edwards interview with Nessie Stephen, 5 April 1984. 6 ‘Seeking Plot: Ghost at Authors’ Ball, artists collaborate’, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 June 1936. 7 ‘Sydney Sculptor Rayner Hoff Declares We Wear Too Much: Urges bare torso and brassiere’, Sunday Guardian, 2 November 1930. 8 Colin Simpson, ‘The Sins of Sydney: An interview with Rayner Hoff’, Daily Telegraph, 25 June 1936.

ibid., p. 14. Fred Leist was a painting teacher at the National Art School, and another friend of Hoff and Rowe.

9 Ken Scarlett, Australian Sculptors, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1980, p. 262.

GDW, ‘The Late Robert Carswell’, The Technical Gazette, June 1938, p. 18.

10

32

33

‘Our Lost Pal’, poem for the late R. Carswell, Student Magazine, 1937, p. 4; ‘Where is the chap so full of fun, and a ready smile for everyone?’

34

Mary Gilmore, letter to Rayner Hoff 25 July 1934; National Gallery of Australia Research Library, Hoff press cuttings and letters a/N7405.H64H64.

35

WH Wilde, ‘Gilmore, Dame Mary Jean’, Australian Dictionary of Biography adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gilmoredame-mary-jean-6391/text10923

36

Rayner Hoff letter to Mary Gilmore, 28 January 1935, National Gallery of Australia Research Library, Hoff press cuttings and letters a/N7405.H64H64.

37

Mary Gilmore letter to Hugh McCrae, 11 February 1936, NGA Research library, Hoff press cuttings and letters a/N7405.H64H64.

38

Mary Gilmore notes on Rayner Hoff’s work, 1934, National Gallery of Australia Research Library, Hoff press cuttings and letters a/N7405.H64H64.

39

40

ibid.

41

Hoff letter to Mary Gilmore, 28 January 1935.

42

WD Gilmore letter to Hoff, 22 March 1935.

Hoff letter to Mary Gilmore, 8 April 1935. Hoff also mentions that Hugh McCrae was sitting for him at this time.

43

44

Hoff letter to Mary Gilmore, September 1935.

45

Mary Gilmore letter to Hoff, 27 September, 1935.

46

Hoff letter to Mary Gilmore, 21 October 1935.

47

Mary Gilmore letter to Hoff, 14 February 1936.

48

Hoff letter to Mary Gilmore, 28 April 1937.

13 In the public eye 1 ‘Artists’ Ball: Brilliant Scene, Original Decorative Scheme’, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 July 1923, p. 10. 2 Souvenir programme, Artists’ Ball 1924, p. 4, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Q793.3809944/1A. 3 Joan Kerr, Heritage: The national women’s art book, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1995, Victoria Cowdroy entry. 4 ‘Art Scholarships’, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 December 1925, p. 6. The second prize was awarded to Eileen McGrath for sculpture.

262

Rayner Hoff, The Work of Eileen McGrath, Sydney Technical College, 1931. Rayner Hoff, ‘As We See Each Other’, Sunday Mail, Brisbane, 10 May 1931, p. 17.

11

12

Mrs Rayner Hoff, Sunday Mail, 1931.

‘Dehle–Conlon’, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 September 1934; see also ‘Social Notes and News’, Sydney Mail, 12 September 1934.

13

14

Edwards interview with Stephen.

Professor FA Todd, ‘Nicholson Hermes – Gift to University’, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 November 1935, p. 11.

15

Marcus Clark, letter to the editor, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 April 1904. Clark believed the doors, known as the ‘Gates of Paradise’, were ignored by the public as they could not see them in their full glory unless they were bronzed. They are now in the collection of the Powerhouse Museum, acquired from the AGNSW in 1986.

16

‘Sculpture Course for Police as Aid to Crime Study’, Sunday Mail, 8 August 1935.

17

Harold Herbert, ‘Art’, The Australasian, 29 February 1936, p. 17.

18

Minutes, Australian Academy of Art, 19 June 1937, State Library of Victoria. There were ten women and 40 men on the list of foundation members.

19

Christine Dixon, ‘Arguing the Modern: The Australian Academy of Contemporary Art versus the Contemporary Art Society’, ART-NETWORK, Winter–Spring 1986, pp. 56–57.

20

NSW Recipients of Coronation Medals, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May 1937, p. 7.

21

14 Burning the candle 1 Virginia Spate, ‘If These Dead Stones Could Speak: Rayner Hoff’s sculptures and the Anzac Memorial’ in Deborah Edwards, This Vital Flesh: The sculpture of Rayner Hoff and his school, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1999, pp. 53–54. 2 Town Clerk, correspondence files, Sydney City Council Archives, 11 December 1916, Item No. 1408/16. 3 John Ramsland and Christopher Mooney, ‘Apollo Must Contemplate a World of which He Has Never Dreamed’, paper for the Independent Scholars Association of Australia Inc., 2008 conference, ‘The National Estate Civic Heritage’.

4 Between 1918 and 1923, Maurice Lambert was apprenticed to Hoff’s teacher, sculptor Derwent Wood, so it is likely that he knew Hoff in London during this period.

C Bruce Dellit letter to Daphne Mayo, 4 March 1930, Daphne Mayo papers, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, UQFL119. 5

6 A search of the National Archives of Australia on 8 September 2014 did not locate Annis or Rayner Hoff in the index of people who became naturalised Australian citizens between 1904 and 1994. 7

Dellit letter to Mayo, 4 June 1930, Daphne Mayo papers.

Daphne Mayo letter to the Secretary, Anzac War Memorial Committee, 29 October 1930, Daphne Mayo papers. 8

c1936. Hoff also describes the techniques he used for modelling, carving and casting in the article. Deborah Beck interview with Warren Grounds (grandson of Thomas Grounds), 14 July 2015. Warren was a student of Lyndon Dadswell at the NAS, 1949–55, and later worked with his father Harry in the factory in Newtown. According to Liz Blaxland, the test figure was a 3D figure of Pan, which was later cast in a small edition.

25

Minutes, meeting of Sub-Committee appointed by Trustees of the Anzac Memorial Building, 16 June 1932, Government Architect’s Office, Public Works NSW.

26

27

CEW Bean letter to LA Robb, President of RS and SILA (NSW Branch), 14 June 1932, AWM file 419/8/1.

Minutes of meeting of Trustees of the Anzac Memorial Building, 19 September 1930.

29

Minutes of Meeting of Sub-Committee appointed by Trustees of the Anzac Memorial Building, 10 September 1930.

30

9

10

11

Spate, ‘If These Dead Stones Could Speak’, p. 57.

The proponents of vitalism ‘argued that life was more than a set of material forces: that it was animated by a non-rational “life energy” residing in the body’, Edwards, This Vital Flesh, p. 11.

12

CEW Bean letter to Rayner Hoff, 13 October 1930, Australian War Memorial Archives, AWM file 419/8/1.

13

Deborah Beck interview with Tom Thompson (NAS student and teacher), who recalled that Frank Whyte told him he modelled for Sacrifice. Bill Horton, ‘History of the Workers’ Art Club: New Theatre League 1932–1942’, unpublished manuscript, 1980, p. 4. Horton says, ‘Joan was the model for Raynor Hoff and despite her anti-establishment views has been preserved for the future as the female figure in the central group of the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park.’ Rayner Hoff, quoted in ‘Memorial to Sacrifice’, Women’s Budget, 15 November 1933 – original in Sydney Morning Herald, 16 July 1932.

31

‘Anzac Memorial – Work of Distinction – Mr Rayner Hoff’s sculptures’, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 May 1932.

32

Rayner Hoff letter to Harold Cazneaux, 20 October 1930, Rayner Hoff, Artists’ file, National Library of Australia.

33

14

15

S Elliott Napier (ed.), The Book of the Anzac Memorial, Beacon Press, 1934, p. 44.

16

Deborah Edwards interview with Barbara Tribe, 7 August 1985.

17

Deborah Edwards interview with Elizabeth Dehle (Treasure Conlon), 9 April 1984.

18

Uniforms identified by Brad Manera, military historian, Anzac War Memorial.

19

Sisal was imported from Indonesia, the relative proximity of which may help to explain why Australia and New Zealand were the first countries where fibrous plaster was made on a large scale. However this Australian innovation was copied in England and elsewhere from the 1920s – Powerhouse museum website.

20

JW Singer amalgamated with the Morris Art Bronze Foundry in 1929. Unfortunately the company records have been lost for the years between 1912 and 1923.

21

Minutes, meeting of Trustees of the Anzac Memorial Building, 1933.

22

Duncan S James, A Century of Statues: The history of the Morris Singer Foundry, Morris Singer Foundry Limited, Basingstoke, 1984, p. 23.

23

Rayner Hoff, ‘The Processes of Sculpture’, The Technical Gazette, pp. 13–15, from Hoff scrapbook, date unknown,

24

Beck interview with Grounds.

28

L Wigmore, Sculpture for the Anzac Memorial Building, Society of Artists Exhibition, 1932. Spate, If These Dead Stones Could Speak, p. 59.

C Bruce Dellit, ‘Report Accompanying the Designs for the Anzac Memorial’, A rchitecture, 1 August 1930, p. 471.

34

Minutes of meeting of Sub-Committee appointed by the Trustees of the Anzac Memorial Building, 19 November 1931.

35

ibid., 15 February 1932. Hoff wrote a long letter to the Trustees after they tried to lower his payment for the two external sculptures. He had sought legal advice about his right to be paid for the work already done on maquettes, and they finally agreed to pay him a slightly lower amount than originally agreed.

36

‘It May Not Be Completed: Anzac Memorial fund is meagre’, The Sun, 19 February 1933, p. 3.

37

‘Anzac Memorial, the Underlying Ideas – Mr Dellit’s Exposition’, Sydney Morning Herald, 16 September 1932.

38

‘Anzac Memorial Ceremony: Objection to sculpture of nude woman on cross’, Sydney Morning Herald, 16 September 1932.

39

40

‘A National Spirit’, Trust’s letter to The Sun, 15 July 1932.

‘Nude Woman on Cross: RC Church’s attack’, The Newcastle Sun, 14 July 1932.

41

‘In Reply: Artist to critics – Broad view plea’, The Sun, 15 July 1932.

42

43

‘On the Dais’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 July 1932.

263

Daily Commercial News and Shipping Lists, 22 July 1932, p. 6. This shipment left on 23 July with another case sent on 5 August containing one plaster model, presumably Sacrifice. The exterior figures were cast by Norman Grounds and Son, Newtown.

44

45

Edwards interview with Stephen.

Herbert McGrath letter to Eileen Frost (daughter), 22 November 1937, Embling archive.

12

C Bruce Dellit, ‘Rayner Hoff: Power and strength’, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 December 1937, p. 7.

13

Mary Gilmore, Battlefields, Angus and Robertson, 1939, p. 177, notes.

14

46

‘Rob’ interview with Adye Bailey, original tapes courtesy of her daughter Georgina Bolitho.

15

‘In Solemn Remembrance’, Australian Women’s Weekly, 11 November 1933, p. 15.

16

47

S Elliott Napier (ed.), The Book of the Anzac Memorial, Beacon Press, 1933.

48

National Film and Sound Archive, ‘Duke of Gloucester dedicates Anzac War Memorial, Sydney’, 24 November 1934, Title No: 135190.

49

50

‘Memorial Opening’, The Mail, 24 November 1934, p. 5.

15 Gone too soon

Deborah Edwards interview with Nessie Stephen, 5 April 1984. 1

2 Frederick Ninian Lynch, who had a practice in Oxford Street, Waverley, signed a declaration in Hoff’s will to say he had seen the body on 19 November 1937, State Records, probate packet. Delaware was a magnificent Victorian mansion built in 1891 originally called Dalrye. It was converted into a private maternity hospital in 1928. It is likely that Nereida was born there in 1929. 3 Herbert McGrath letter to Eileen Frost, 29 November 1937. The McGraths visited Annis Hoff on 23 November, and she told them of the events leading to Hoff’s death. He says a post-mortem disclosed some pancreas trouble plus heart failure, and speculates about whether earlier medical attention could have saved his life. 4 Information from Dr Jean-Pierre Halpern, University of Sydney. 5

Edwards interview with Stephen.

6

Deborah Beck interview with Diane Masters, 4 July 2014.

DB Waterson, ‘Kinsela, Charles Henry William’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ kinsela-charles-henry-william-10747/text19049. 7

8

Daily Telegraph, 23 November 1937.

‘Rayner Hoff: Tributes at funeral’, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 November 1937, p. 7. 9

10

Sydney Morning Herald, 23 November 1937, p. 7.

Charles Kinsela Funeral Home Records, 1934–39, SLNSW, funeral register 5403/Box 06X. Kinsela kept meticulous records and the huge register has a badly burned leather cover, but the writing inside is still legible. Hoff’s religion is listed as Church of England, and it appears that the Masonic Lodge may have paid for the funeral (which cost £47), as ‘Lodge Carrington’ is listed under Annis’s name. There is also a date in the ‘sundries’ column (12 January 1938), which may be when the ashes were collected by the family. Where his ashes were placed is unknown.

11

264

P Shillito, ‘An Appreciation of Rayner Hoff’, NAS student magazine, p. 4. Douglas R Dundas, ‘The Late Rayner G. Hoff’, The Technical Gazette, June 1938, pp. 16–18. It also pays tribute to Hoff’s colleague Robert Carswell, who had died one week before. Edith McGrath letter to Eileen Frost (daughter), 29 November 1937, Embling papers.

17

Annis Hoff letter to Mrs Albert Frost (Eileen McGrath), 3 December 1937, NAS Archives.

18

19

Edith McGrath letter to Eileen Frost.

Rayner Hoff probate packet, granted 28 January 1938, State Records NSW. Hoff’s will from 1933 contained in these papers is the first time Annis has included the name Rayner in her own name.

20

21

Rayner Hoff probate packet.

Statutory Declaration by Annis Mary Rayner Hoff, 14 January 1938. Rayner Hoff Deceased Estate files, State Records. Annis declared, ‘I had certain moneys available of my own which I could use in this regard, for example on one occasion received a legacy of £250 from my relatives in England.’

22

Deborah Edwards interview with Elizabeth Dehle (Treasure Conlon), 9 April 1984. Dehle recalled that the memorial was not on public display for many years, but was found by Douglas Dundas, who had it re-erected near the Cell Block Theatre.

23

Richard E Apperly and Peter Reynolds, ‘Dellit, Charles Bruce’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, adb.anu.edu.au/ biography/dellit-charles-bruce-9947/text17621.

24

Colin Simpson, ‘Australia is Enriched with Legacy of Sculptor Raynor Hoff’, Sunday Sun, 21 November 1937.

25

Epilogue 1

‘Sculptor Appointed’, Canberra Times, 29 June 1938, p. 2.

Rayner Hoff letter to Eileen McGrath, 29 October 1936, NAS Archives. 2

3 Letters from Herbert and Edith McGrath to Eileen Frost (daughter), December 1937 to September 1938, held by Sylvia Embling (Eileen’s daughter). At first Eileen accepted the position, but had decided against it by September 1938, much to her parents’ disappointment. 4 Deborah Edwards interview with Liz Blaxland, 6 April 1998. 5 Deborah Beck interview with Mary Gale (Jean BroomeNorton’s student and friend), 19 July 2015. 6

heritage.gov.au/cgi-bin/ahpi/record.pl?CHL105352.

7 King George V Memorial, King George Terrace, Parkes ACT, Conservation Study, Freeman Collett & Partners Pty Ltd, Architects & Planners, Canberra, vol. 1, January 1994, p. 5. 8 ‘A Statue for Australia’, Benalla Ensign, 21 August 1952. William Reid Dick, knighted in 1935, had already received an Australian commission, having designed a panel for the front of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1931. ‘Augustus at Nimes’, was a gift to the Gallery by the Gallery Trustee and Sydney architect Sir John Sulman. 9 Duncan S James, A Century of Statues: The history of the Morris Singer Foundry, Morris Singer Foundry Limited, Basingstoke, United Kingdom, 1984, p. 26.

King George V Memorial, Heritage Management Plan, May 2014, p. 26.

10

Minutes of meeting of Trustees of the Anzac War Memorial, 12/38, 1938.

11

Minutes of meeting of Trustees of the Anzac War Memorial, 18/47, 1947. Inspection was on 6 August 1947. It is probable the works viewed were the two unfinished maquettes in Flinders Street. The plaster model for Sacrifice was destroyed in London on Hoff’s advice in 1933.

12

Minutes of meeting of Trustees of the Anzac War Memorial, 29/38, 1938. One plaster maquette for a seated figure (The Pioneer) on the Memorial has survived in the NAS Collection.

13

Minutes of meeting of Trustees of the Anzac War Memorial, 18/52, 1952.

14

Minutes of meeting of Trustees of the Anzac War Memorial, 8/58, 20 January 1958.

15

‘Mystery of the Memorial’, East-Wests Australia, December/February 1984, pp. 4–5.

16

Geoff Kleem, NAS lecturer, was one of Bannerman’s students and photographed the performance.

17

rslnsw.org.au/commemoration/memorials/anzac/centenaryproject.

18

Deborah Beck interview with Rayner and Stephen Henstock, 5 August 2014.

19

20

Annis Mary Hoff, death certificate, 26 May 1961.

Deborah Edwards interview with Nessie Stephen, 5 April 1984. Nessie said Nereida looked like Hoff but had Annis’s build. Sandra was more his build, with Annis’s colour. Nessie was close to Nereida and later visited her in hospital. She described her as ‘having a lovely nature – she was very brave and never complained’.

21

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Bibliography Published sources Allen, Christopher, ‘A Brief History of the National Art School’ in Deborah Beck’s Hope in Hell: A history of Darlinghurst Gaol and the National A rt School, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2005 Apperly, Richard E, and Reynolds, Peter, ‘Dellit, Charles Bruce (1898–1942)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne, 1993 Berthoud, Roger, The Life of Henry Moore, Giles de la Mare Publishers, London, 2003 Bird, Hinton, An Island That Led: A history of Manx education, vol. 2, self-published, 1995 Dundas, Douglas, Douglas Dundas Remembers, Brian Stratton (ed.), Sydney, 1974 Edwards, Deborah, Bertram Mackennal, AGNSW, Sydney, 2007 Edwards, Deborah, Lyndon Dadswell 1908–1986, Wild & Woolley, Sydney, 1992 Edwards, Deborah, This Vital Flesh: The sculpture of Rayner Hoff and his school, AGNSW, Sydney, 1999 Fitzgerald, Robert D, The Letters of Hugh McCrae, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1970 Frayling, Christopher, The Royal College of A rt: One hundred and fifty years of art and design, Barrie and Jenkins, London, 1987 Freeman Collett & Partners, King George V Memorial, King George Terrace, Parkes ACT, Conservation Study, vol. 1, Canberra, 1994 Gilmore, Mary, Battlefields, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1939 Glad, Helen, Norman Lindsay Gallery, Springwood, National Trust of Australia, Sydney, 2009 Grishan, Sasha, Australian A rt: A history, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2013 Hoff, Rayner, Sculpture of Rayner Hoff, Sunnybrook Press, 1934 Hoff, Rayner, The Work of Eileen McGrath, Letterpress students at Sydney Technical College, 1931 Horrocks, Roger, Len Lye: A biography, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2001 Hughes Turnbull, Lucy, Sydney: Biography of a city, Random House, Sydney, 1999 Inglis, KS, Sacred Places: War memorials in the Australian landscape, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2008 James, Duncan S, A Century of Statues: The history of the Morris Singer Foundry, Morris Singer Foundry Limited, Basingstoke, UK, 1984 Jones, Carol A, A History of Nottingham School of Design, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, 1993 Kelly, Max, ‘Pleasure and Profit: The eastern suburbs come

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of age 1919–1929’ in Jill Roe (ed.), Twentieth Century Sydney, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1980 Kerr, Joan, Heritage: The national women’s art book, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1995 Lawrence, DH, The Letters of DH Lawrence, James T Bolton (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979 Lindsay, Norman, Howarth, RG, and Barker, AW, Letters of Norman Lindsay, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1979, p. 259. Lindsay, Rose, A Model Life, Lin Bloomfield (ed.), Odana Editions, Bungendore, NSW, 2001 Lingwood, Lemon (ed.), Jarrold’s Illustrated Handbook to Nottingham, Midland Railway Co., Nottingham, 1906 Loffler, Don, Still Holden Together, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2009 Lucas, Clive, ‘Wilkinson, Leslie (1882–1973)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne, 1990 Malan, AH (ed.), Lady Middleton, Wollaton Hall, Other Famous Homes of Great Britain and Their Stories, Putnam’s, 1902 McDonald, Patricia R, Barbara Tribe: Sculptor, Craftsman House, Sydney, 2000 McQueen, Humphrey, Social Sketches of Australia: The terrible twenties, Penguin, Ringwood, Victoria, 1991 Moore, William, The Story of Australian A rt, vol. I, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1934 Murch, Ria, A rthur Murch: An artist’s life 1902–1989, Ruskin Rowe Press, Avalon Beach, NSW, 1997 Napier, S Elliott (ed.), The Book of the Anzac Memorial, New South Wales, Beacon Press, Sydney, 1934 Needham, Geoffrey, and Thomson, Daryl, Men of Metal: A chronicle of the metal casting industry in South Australia, 1836–1986, self-published, Adelaide, 1987 O’Donovan, Donal, God’s Architect: A life of Raymond McGrath, Kilbride Books, Ireland, 1995 Rees, Lloyd, The Small Treasures of a Lifetime: Some early memories of Australian art and artists, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1969 Richardson, Donald, Creating Remembrance: The art and design of Australian war memorials, Common Ground Publishing, Champaign, IL., 2015 Richardson, Donald, ‘Henschke, Albert Julius (1888–1955)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography Rowbotham, Sheila, Edward Carpenter: A life of liberty and love, Verso, London, 2008 Scarlett, Ken, Australian Sculptors, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1980 Slack, Stuart, Streets of Douglas: Old and new, The Manx Experience, Douglas, 1996 Smith, Bernard, ‘Lindsay, Norman Alfred (1879–1969)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1986 Spearritt, Peter, Sydney Since the Twenties, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1978

Stephen, Ann (ed.), Visions of a Republic: The work of Lucien Henry, Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, 2001

Country Life, 1924

Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, The British School at Rome: One hundred years, The British School at Rome, London, 2001

The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 1932–35

Waterson, DB, ‘Kinsela, Charles Henry William (1886–1944)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, 2000

Financial Review, Sydney, 1976

Whitworth, Douglas, A Century of Nottingham, The History Press, Gloucestershire, 2013

The Daily News, Perth, 1923 Fabrications, Sydney, 2007 Health and Physical Culture, 1931 Hobart Mercury, Tasmania, 1948

Wilde, WH, ‘Gilmore, Dame Mary Jean (1865–1962)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography,1983

Lincolnshire Chronicle, United Kingdom, 1895

Wolfers, Howard, ‘The Big Stores Between the Wars’ in Twentieth Century Sydney: Studies in urban and social history, Jill Roe (ed.), Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1980

New York Times, 1990

Online sources

The Sun, Sydney, 1933

Ancestry, search.ancestry.com.au

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The Archibald Knox Society: Chronology, n.d., archibaldknoxsociety.com/page_112136.html

Sunday Mail, Brisbane, 1931–35

Australian Museum, australianmuseum.net.au/story-of-the wunderlich-aboriginal-tableau

Sydney Mail, 1924

Deborah Tout-Smith, Museum Victoria: Society of Artists, Sydney, New South Wales, 2004, collections. museumvictoria.com.au/articles/2458 Design & Art Australia Online: Victoria Ethel Cowdroy, 2011, daao.org.au/bio/victoria-ethel-cowdroy/biography/ Fenland Wildfowlers Association: History of the Fens, 2013, fenlandwa.org.uk/historythefens.html Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database Mark Dunn, Dictionary of Sydney: Kings Cross, 2011, dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/kings_cross Powerhouse Museum: Photographs, window displays, Farmers department store, 1932– 47, powerhousemuseum. com/collection/database/?irn=398479#ixzz4G97PGJD2 State Records NSW, Tilly Devine and the Razor Gang Wars, 1927–31, gallery.records.nsw.gov.au/index.php/galleries/ people-of-interest/tilly-devine-the-razor-gang-wars Journals, newspapers and periodicals

Adelaide Advertiser, South Australia, 1927 Architecture, 1930 ART-NETWORK, 1986 The Australasian, 1936 The Australian, 1968 Australian Women’s Weekly, 1966 The Building News and Engineering Journal, United Kingdom, 1915 The Bulletin, Sydney, 1925 Canberra Times, ACT, 1938 Construction and Local Government Journal, New South Wales, 1923

Manx Sun, Isle of Man, 1892–94 The Nottingham Guardian, United Kingdom, 1927 Reveille, Sydney, 1935

Sunday Times, Sydney, 1926 Sydney Morning Herald, 1922–80 The Technical Gazette, 1930–38 Victorian Society Newsletter no. 81, Isle of Man, 2009 Films

National Film and Sound Archive, Talkie Season Opens: Wintergarden Theatre has the honour of being the first theatre in the world to present a completely new invention in talking picture equipment, Title no. 50834 National Film and Sound Archive, Duke of Gloucester Dedicates Anzac War Memorial, Sydney, 24 November 1934, Title no. 135190 Unpublished manuscripts and theses Cunliffe-Charlesworth, Hilary, ‘The Royal College of Art: Its influence on education, art and design’, unpublished thesis, Royal College of Art, August 1991 Edwards, Deborah, ‘Love and Life: The sculpture of Rayner Hoff and his school 1923–1937’, Master of Philosophy Thesis, University of Sydney, February 1991 Harvey, EA, ‘It was a Damn Good School’, unpublished manuscript, NAS Archives, 1978 Horton, Bill, ‘History of the Workers’ Art Club: New Theatre League 1932–1942’, unpublished manuscript, 1980 Hotchkiss, Lynda, The Hoff family of Lincolnshire, report by G&LH – Search, January–April 2016 Manera, Brad, Senior Historian and Curator, lecture on Hoff’s War Service, Anzac Memorial, Hyde Park Sydney, 1 November 2013 Ramsland, John, and Mooney, Christopher, ‘Apollo Must Contemplate a World of which He Has Never Dreamed’, Paper for the Independent Scholars Association of Australia Inc., 2008 conference Rowe, Richard J, ‘A Rowe family in Australia 1900–2000’, unpublished, April 2006

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Archives

Rayner Hoff's students

Australian War Memorial Archive, Canberra British School at Rome Archive and Library, Rome Edmund and Joanna Capon Research Library, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Fryer Library, University of Queensland Government Architect’s Office, Public Works, New South Wales Lincolnshire Archives, United Kingdom Manx Museum, Isle of Man, United Kingdom Manx National Heritage Archives, Isle of Man Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales National Art School Archives, Sydney National Gallery of Australia Research Library, Canberra National Library of Australia, Canberra Nottinghamshire Archives, United Kingdom Royal College of Art Archives, London State Library of Victoria, Melbourne State Records, New South Wales Sydney City Council Archives, Sydney Victoria and Albert Archives, Blythe House, London Waverley Municipal Library, Sydney

Rayner Hoff taught many students in his 14 years at the National Art School. Following is a list of some who have been confirmed. Most of those listed below studied sculpture, but some majored in painting or commercial illustration. Many studied part-time, or did not complete the course. Anita Aarons, Adye Bailey, Beryl Beattie, Elizabeth Blaxland, Rita Bloomfield, Helen Brett, Jean Broome, Elizabeth (Treasure) Conlon, Frank Costello, Victoria Cowdroy, Lyndon Dadswell, Lucy Dahlem, Alison Duff, Ian Evans, Sheila Faulkner, Enid Fleming, Marjorie Fletcher, James Gleeson, Jean Hallstrom, Elaine Haxton, Arthur Horner, Llewellyn Isles, Loma Latour, Yvonne Le Gros, Annis Leubli, Frank (Guy) Lynch, Beth Macdonald, Mavis Mallison, Nancy Mann, Eileen McGrath, Raymond McGrath, Joan Morrison, Arthur Murch, Lorna Nimmo, Coral Nerelle, Frank Norton, Rosaleen Norton, Joan Panting, Carl Plate, Freda Robertshaw, Mollie Ruhr, Jean Savage, Joshua Smith, Treania Smith, Mary Soady, Otto Steen, Nessie (Agnes) Stephen, Delphine Stephens, Dorothy Thornhill, Ralph Trafford-Walker, Barbara Tribe, George Wallace, Violet Warren, Gwenna Welch, Coral White, Gwyneth Williams, Dulcie May Wilmott, Beryl Young

Sculpture students, c1932, with Barbara Tribe in the centre Courtesy Don Mitchell

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Acknowledgements When I received a NSW Premier’s History award in 2012 for my last book, Set in Stone, I knew what my next project would be. I had been interested in researching Rayner Hoff’s life for some time, but realised I would need to travel to England in order to do so. This award gave me the confidence and the means to do this. Over the last four years, I have had two trips to the United Kingdom and Italy, conducted countless interviews and spent many hours researching in libraries, galleries and archives. There are two people I would like to thank who have contributed more to the book than any others. One is Rayner Henstock, Hoff’s namesake and grandson. Although he is a quiet and private man, he has borne my constant questions, visits and phone calls with patience and good humour. He has been generous with his time and allowed me access to Hoff’s library, family photographs, letters, scrapbooks and artworks. I hope that by writing the story of his grandfather’s life, I can repay him for his infinite generosity. The second is Deborah Edwards, well known as a curator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and authority on Hoff’s sculpture. While completing her Masters at the University of Sydney, she conducted interviews with Hoff’s students in the 1980s and these have been an invaluable firsthand source of information. She also gave me access to all her research papers and documentation, and her book, This Vital Flesh: The sculpture of Rayner Hoff and his school, has been my constant companion during the four years of my research. In 2013, I received a grant from the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts for a residency at the Royal College of Art in London. This meant I could access Hoff’s personal file and papers at the school where he studied in the 1920s. I’d particularly like to thank the Archives and Collections Manager at the Royal College, Neil Parkinson, who was so helpful. During this trip I also visited the Isle of Man, and met the archivist and the curator at the Manx Museum in Douglas. I’d like to thank Wendy Thirkettle and Yvonne Cresswell for their knowledge and great help while I was there and since. Thanks also to my sister Tracey Beck, who accompanied

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me on this visit and helped with many other Hoff discoveries, as well as scanning images in the United Kingdom. I met many of Hoff’s relatives in England, and was shown around Nottingham and Wollaton Hall by his great-nephew, Jarrod Hoff. Thanks to Jarrod, his father Christopher and to Amy Hoff’s children Philip and Margaret Riley, and grandson Mike Riley, who gave me some wonderful insights into Rayner’s early life. Thanks to former NAS student Todd Fuller, who first accessed Hoff’s file at the British School at Rome (BSR) for me. I eventually had a short stay at the BSR in 2015, as part of my professional development through the NAS. Staying in the same building where Hoff took up his Rome Scholarship in 1923 gave me an understanding of his life in Italy, and I enjoyed researching in the wonderful library there. Thanks to the National Art School, the BSR and archivist Alessandra Giovenco, and librarian Valerie Scott for their assistance while I was there. My research in the United Kingdom was limited in time, but I was very lucky to have the rigorous researcher and historian in Nottingham, David Hallam, to assist me once I returned to Australia. David has been so generous with his time while digging deep into the family history of the Hoff and Briggs families in the United Kingdom. I’d also like to thank Annis’s nephew Robert Briggs, who kept his father’s negatives and albums for so many years and shared them with me. It was a delight to meet both David and Robert, who took me on a road trip to Sutton-in-Ashfield where I visited the church in which Rayner and Annis Hoff were married and saw where Annis had lived. In Australia, it has also been a pleasure to meet Rayner Henstock’s partner Helen Beale, and Hoff’s other grandson, Stephen Henstock, and his extensive family. I hope I have sparked a renewed interest in their talented forebear. As well as visiting public collections, I was fortunate to be welcomed into the homes of the families of many of Hoff’s students and friends, where they have kept the artworks and photographs which I was able to view firsthand. These include the relatives of John Moorfield, Samuel Rowe, Victoria Cowdroy, Lyndon Dadswell, Jean Broome, the Grounds family, Beth Macdonald, Marjorie Fletcher, Julius Henschke, Adye Bailey, Arthur Murch,

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Enid Fleming and many others. They all lent me photographs to scan, and I was particularly lucky to find Eileen McGrath’s daughter Sylvia Embling in the United Kingdom, who showed me the extraordinary photos and letters her mother had kept regarding her work on the Anzac Memorial. Although I have reproduced over 100 photographs in this book, I have in fact scanned over 600 images relating to Hoff’s life and work. Choosing the final photographs was a painful task, and I apologise to those who lent me photos that could not be reproduced. Thanks also to the people who read my manuscript and were so helpful with their suggestions. Jim Croke, Therese Kenyon, Hannah Ianniello, Chloe Schwank, Jayne Dyer and Julia Horne all gave me invaluable advice. Other readers of relevant chapters included Neil Parkinson, Yvonne Cresswell, Dr Jean-Pierre Halpern and David Hallam. Thanks to my son James Croke for his enthusiasm for the project and advice on the photographs and to my parents Philip and Hilary Beck for their unwavering support and encouragement. I have been assisted by the staff of the Anzac Memorial in Sydney, particularly Brad Manera, who was of great help with information on Hoff’s service in the British Army. The architect Matthew Devine also gave me access to documents and plans of the Anzac Memorial. I have spent many hours in the State Library of New South Wales and had great assistance from the staff at the Edmund and Joanna Capon Research Library and Archive at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, especially head librarian Steven Miller. I’d particularly like to thank NewSouth Publishing for taking on this mammoth project, especially Elspeth Menzies, Rosie Marson and Emma Driver who calmly dealt with my protests at cuts of photos and text. Thanks also to the meticulous editor, Joanne Holliman, and the excellent designer Louise Cornwall. I have had the constant support and encouragement of the staff of the National Art School while writing this book. With the discovery of Hoff’s former studio on site, he has now been acknowledged by the art school with the naming of the studio as the Rayner Hoff Project Space, which is regularly used by many current students and staff to exhibit work.

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Index Page numbers in italic indicate images 1914 (Hoff, 1934, watercolour) 230, 231 Aarons, Anita 123 Aboriginal Australians 152–54, 156, 158 Aboriginal Head (Hoff, 1925, terracotta) 153, 158 Academy of Art in Australia 199–200 Adelaide War Memorial 154, 157, 159, 160 Allsop, Ray 159 Ambassadors Club 152, 155 Annand, Douglas 100 Anzac Memorial see also Dellit, C Bruce appointment of sculptor 204–7 architectural competition 204–5 The Book of the Anzac Memorial (Eliott ed.) 230 controversies surrounding 223, 226–27, 229, 252 early proposals for 203 fundraising appeal 203–4, 230 Hoff’s assistants 100, 133, 140, 211–13, 214, 215 Hoff’s commission and role 206–7, 210–13, 215, 219, 223–27, 229–30, 232, 237–38 making the sculptures 213, 215, 219 official opening 230, 232, 233 photos 202, 203, 208–9, 212, 216–17, 218, 220, 221, 222, 225, 228, 233, 250 proposal for completion 252 rejected sculptures 224–27, 225, 230, 239, 248–49, 250, 252 Anzac War Memorial, Hyde Park (Dellit, 1930, watercolour) 221 Archibald Prize 80–81 Art Gallery of New South Wales 65, 81, 100, 110, 173, 174, 199, 242 Artists’ Balls 55, 191–92, 194 Ashby, Thomas 69 Ashton, Julian 116, 144 Atalanta (Hoff,1923, plaster) 73, 75 Aurousseau, George 108, 115 Australian Academy of Art 178 Australian Art Association 199 Australian Museum 153 Australian Venus (Hoff, 1925–26, marble) 117, 157, 174, 176, 242 Authors’ and Artists’ Ball 195 AW Dobbie & Co. 157, 159, 160 Bacchanalia (Tribe, 1936, plaster) 136, 138, 139 Bagot, Walter 154 Bailey, Adye 119, 164 Balfour, Lawson 91 Ballarat, SS 78, 79, 80 balls and dances 54–55, 101, 191–92, 194–95 Balmus, Wal 136, 154 Bannerman, Cameron 252 Barrier Reef holiday 101 beachwear 195

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Bean, CEW 207, 210, 219 Beauchamp, Earl 133, 134, 146 Bertram Mackennal (Cazneaux, 1927, photograph) 124 Blakemore, Rose 115 Blaxland, Liz 123, 141, 161, 164 Blaxland Galleries 195, 204 Bloomfield, Rita 100, 102, 219 Board of Education (England and Wales) 66–67 The Book of the Anzac Memorial (Eliott ed.) 230 Book of the Dead 150 Bowles, William Leslie 163–64, 249 Brancusi, Constantin 67 Bretton, Joan see Britton, Joan Briggs, Annis Mary see Hoff, Annis Briggs, John Reginald Stuart (‘Jack’) 35, 41, 67, 68, 77 Briggs, Oswald 35, 41, 67 British School at Rome 67, 69–71, 70, 120 Britton, Joan 157, 223 Britton, Kitty 159 Broadhurst, Fanny 108 Broome, Jean (later Broome-Norton) 123, 135, 135–36, 141, 198, 244, 245–47, 246, 247, 253 Brown, Edith 115 Buist, Arthur 113, 211, 212, 214, 215, 244, 246 Bunny, Rupert 43 Bunting, Diane (later Masters) 88, 95–96, 236 Bunting, George 95, 180, 240 car mascots 146, 149, 150, 170, 171 Carpenter, Edward 31–32 Carswell, Robert 115, 140, 183 Carter, Norman 146, 200, 201, 242 Catholic Church 226, 229 Cazneaux, Harold 95, 116–17, 121, 125, 154, 210 photos by front cover, opp. title page, 104, 120, 124, 156, 228 Celebrity’s Choice (radio programme) 201 Cenotaph (Martin Place, Sydney) 119–21 Chartres 72 Chelsea Arts Balls 54–55 ‘Cilla’ (maid) 97 cinemas 159, 161, 196 Clarke, Alan 199 Coles, A Phipps 150 Cologne 45 commissions Anzac Memorial, Sydney 206–7, 210–13, 215, 219, 223–27, 229–30, 232, 237–38 Australia Hotel 161 Australian Museum 153 Deluge: Stampede of the Lower Gods 151–52 first commissions 58 Francis Mond Memorial 58 Holden insignia and badge 146, 149, 150 Infantry Brigades Service Teams Trophy 163 James Farrer Memorial, Queanbeyan 161 Kinselas Funeral Parlour 236–37 Liberty Theatre 161 Manly Hotel 161

National Federation of Fruit and Potato Trades Association 58 National War Memorial, Adelaide 154, 157–59 Physics Building, University of Sydney 177 portrait commissions 163 Royal Arch Masonic Temple 150–51 Victoria Centenary Celebration Medal 161–62 Wintergarden Theatre, Rose Bay 159, 161 Conlon, Treasure 87, 116, 152, 157, 198, 208–9, 211, 214, 220 Contemporary Art Society 201 Coole, Elizabeth Amy see Hoff, Elizabeth Amy Coronation Medal 201 Cowdroy, Victoria (‘Vicky') 95, 178–80, 182, 239–40 Figure from Life (1927, plaster) 180, 183 Croll, Robert 200 Cromagnon (Hoff, 1925, bronze) 153 Crucifixion of Civilisation (Hoff, c1932, plaster maquette) 224–27, 225, 230, 239, 248–49, 250, 252 Dadswell, Lyndon 129, 132, 141 Dalley, W Bede 146, 196 Dalou, Aimé-Jules 48 Darlinghurst Gaol 109 David Jones (department store) 100, 194, 242 Davies, Roy 249 Davison, Fred 204 Dechaineux, Lucien 116 Decorative Portrait — Len Lye (Hoff, 1925, marble) 175 Dellit, C Bruce 112, 161, 179, 204–6, 219, 226–27, 227, 229, 230, 232, 232, 236, 237–38, 242 watercolour by 221 Deluge: Stampede of the Lower Gods (Hoff, 1927, plaster) opp. title page, 151–52, 155 Dick, Sir William Reid 246 Dobbie’s Foundry 157, 159, 160 Dubbo War Memorial 165 Dumbell’s Banking Co Ltd 19 Dundas, Douglas 100, 123, 125, 127, 130, 238, 249 East Sydney Technical College 81, 109–11, 115 see also National Art School Egyptian Room frieze 150–51 Eldershaw, John 200 Else, Joseph 29, 49 ESTC see East Sydney Technical College Étaples artists’ colony 43 Eurydice (Hoff, 1932, bronze) 143 Evatt, HV (‘Doc’) 197, 247–48, 253 Everett, Chas 150 Farmers (department store) 100–101, 102, 163, 181, 195, 204, 252 Faun and Nymph (Hoff, 1924, bronze) 143 Field Survey Companies (Royal Engineers) 43–45 Figure from Life (Cowdroy, 1927, plaster) 180, 183 Fincher, Bob 89, 90 Fitton, Doris 195 Fleming, Enid 136 Smithy (1932, plaster) 137

Fletcher, Marjorie 119, 123, 135, 135 Kathleen (1933, bronze) 119 Florence (Hoff, 1923, watercolour) 71, 72 Foskett, Henry 164 Fox, E. Phillips 43 Frampton, Sir George 65 Francis Derwent Wood (Beresford, 1922, photograph) 53 friendships Robert Carswell 183 Victoria Cowdroy 179–80 C Bruce Dellit 237–38, 242 Mary Gilmore 238 Norman Lindsay 167–68, 170, 172, 178–79 Len Lye 172–74, 176 Hugh McCrae 167, 178–79 Leslie Wilkinson 177 Gael (Hoff, 1924, clay) 147, 148 Gallagher, Jack 97 Garnett and Son (stonemasons) 246, 248 George V Memorial, Canberra 101, 163–65, 244, 245–48, 247 Gilmore, Billy 187–88 Gilmore, Mary 183–84, 186, 186–89, 189, 201, 238 Gloucester, Duke of 230, 232 Gore-Edwards, Michael 119 Gore-Edwards, Roberta 119 GR Lumb and Sons 150 ‘The Grange’, Radway 72 Great War 41–45 see also war memorials Grounds, Harry 213, 216–17, 218 Grounds, Warren 219 Grounds family 215, 219, 246 Hall, KW 197 Hardiman, Alfred 69–70, 70 Harrison, Joseph 30 Hart, Barry 53 Harvey, Edmund A 127 Henry, Lucien 105, 108 Henschke, Albert ‘Julius’ 157, 174, 176, 177 Henstock, Rayner 255 Henstock, Sandra see Hoff, Sandra Margaret Rayner Henstock, Stephen 255 Hepworth, Barbara 52 Herbert, Harold 200 Hercules, Achelous and Deianeira (Hoff, 1923, bronze) 75 Heyson, Hans 200 Hill, Alfred 146, 163 Hinton, Howard 146 Hoff, Alice (sister) 17–18 Hoff, Amy (sister) 19, 50 Hoff, Annie Ethel ( cousin) 19 Hoff, Annis (née Briggs, wife) art education 37, 39, 35 as artist 85 childhood 35, 37 death 254 friendships 75, 180, 239–40

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and Hoff’s death 236, 239–41 love of photography 37 opinion on men 197–98 photos of 34, 36, 38, 39, 50, 59, 86, 89, 251, 253 sculpture of 74, 75 visit to England 91, 93 Hoff, ‘Be’ see Williams, Rosamund Beatrice (‘Be’) Hoff, Bertha (cousin) 19 Hoff, ‘Dorrie’ see Hoff, Margaret Dorothy Hoff, Elizabeth Amy (mother) 14, 17, 20, 50, 72, 101 Hoff, George (father) 14, 16–19, 20, 21–22, 25, 41, 42, 60, 72 Hoff, George Rayner —BIOGRAPHY, CHARACTER AND VIEWS (in chronological order) see also friendships; residences ancestry 15–16 birth 15, 18 childhood 14, 18–19, 20, 23 character 12–13, 125, 139, 162, 178, 195 influence of Isle of Man on 15, 19 interest in mythology and paganism 12, 15 as book collector 11, 30, 45, 77, 179 early education 19, 21, 22, 24 military service 40, 41–45, 42, 45 marriage 49–50 family life 51, 60, 67, 72, 85–103, 95, 97, 101, 181, 198 possibility of prosecution 66–67 travels in Europe 67, 71, 72 moving to Sydney 77–78, 80–81 love of sunbaking and swimming 85, 95, 96, 98–99 love of theatre 140, 196 love of dances and balls 55, 101, 190, 191–92, 193, 194–95 as Freemason 151 views on Aboriginal culture 153 vitalist beliefs 12, 31–32, 143, 152, 207, 224 views on Australian physique 136 views on beachwear 195 views on women 197 as public figure 197–201 death, funeral and tributes 235–43 will and estate 241 —CAREER (in chronological order) see also commissions; National Art School as apprentice stonemason and carver 24–26 sketches and sketchbook 25, 58 on Australian physique 136 at Nottingham School of Art 28, 29–31 military mapmaker 45–46 at Royal College of Art 47, 47–49, 51–53, 55, 56–57, 60, 61, 66–67 exhibitions of works 55, 143, 146, 152, 179, 224, 240, 241–42 prizes and awards 30, 64–65, 143, 173–74, 201 exhibitions 55 as Rome Scholar in Sculpture 63–67, 69–72, 75, 120 film clip 159, 161 on sculpture/architecture relationship 53, 176–77

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links with Royal Academy of Arts 55, 65, 119–20 appointment to post at ESTC 65–66, 71–72, 81 role and influence at ESTC 81, 101, 110–11, 115, 125, 129, 136, 139–41, 238 income and salary 78, 91, 100, 141, 225 restoration of artworks 198–99 Anzac Memorial commission 206–7, 210–13, 215, 219, 223–27, 229–30, 232, 237–38 sculpture output 13, 143, 163, 165 standing and legacy 75, 162, 197, 199, 238, 242–43 —PHOTOS OF (in chronological order) childhood 14, 20, 23 Nottingham 28, 46 wartime 40, 42, 45 London 56–57, 59, 61, 62, 76 on SS Ballarat 79 family and social life 84, 86, 90, 96, 98, 98–99, 166, 190, 193, 278–279 at work as sculptor cover, frontispiece, 104, 131, 134, 147, 156, 190, 193, 202 as public figure 200, 227, 232 —PORTRAITS OF oil painting 146, 147 sculpture 133, 133 —WORKS see also portrait busts by Hoff; relief sculptures by Hoff 1914 (Hoff, 1934, watercolour) 230, 231 Aboriginal Head (Hoff, 1925, terracotta) 153, 158 Atalanta (Hoff, 1923, plaster) 73, 75 Australian Venus (Hoff, 1925–26, marble) 117, 157, 174, 176, 242 Cromagnon (Hoff, 1925, bronze) 153 Crucifixion of Civilisation (Hoff, c1932, plaster maquette) 224–27, 225, 230, 239, 248–49, 250, 252 Decorative Portrait — Len Lye (Hoff, 1925, marble) 175 Deluge: Stampede of the Lower Gods (Hoff, 1927, plaster) opp. title page, 151–52, 155 Eurydice (Hoff, 1932, bronze) 143 Faun and Nymph (Hoff, 1924, bronze) 143 Florence (Hoff, 1923, watercolour) 71, 72 Gael (Hoff, 1924, clay) 147, 148 Hercules, Achelous and Deianeira (Hoff, 1923, bronze) 75 Idyll: Love and Life (Hoff, 1923–26, marble) 117 Imperia (Hoff, 1926, plaster) 168 Jack Briggs (Hoff, 1923, photograph) 68 The Kiss (Hoff, 1923, bronze) 142, 143, 201 Labour (Hoff, 1922, plaster) 63, 64, 75 Lady Middleton (Hoff, c1910, plaster) 27 Lion (Hoff, c1930, bronze) 149 Mary Gilmore (Hoff, 1934, bronze) 189 medals and medallions 58, 60, 144, 144, 161–62, 177 Mother and Child (Hoff, 1923, plaster) 74, 75, 239 Pacific Beach (Hoff, 1930–32, wood relief panel) 195 Pan (Hoff, 1937, marble) 242, 243 Portrait (Hoff, 1920, plaster) 55 Portrait of Norman Lindsay (Hoff, 1924, copper) 145, 146 Portrait of Samuel Rowe (Hoff, 1924, plaster) 185 relief sculptures 25–26, 27, 55, 58, 150–51, 151–52 Renascence (Hoff, 1919–20, plaster relief panel) 55

Renascence (Hoff, relief sculpture) 55 Ride of the Valkyries (Hoff, plaster relief) 161 Sacrifice (Hoff, 1921, bronze relief) 58 Sacrifice (Hoff, 1932–34, bronze) front cover, ii, 206, 222, 223, 229 Salome (Hoff, 1924, bronze) 201 Sandra (Hoff, 1923, bronze) 143 Sculpture of Rayner Hoff (Hoff ed.) 197 Shakespeare (Hoff, 1935, plaster) 196 Victory after Sacrifice (Hoff, c1932, plaster maquette) 224, 239, 248–49 Woomera (Hoff, 1933, clay version; 1934, bronze) 154, 156 XOPOZ [or Circular Dance] (Hoff, 1922, plaster) 55, 113, 114 Youth (Hoff, c1930, bronze) 157, 159, 160 Hoff, Joseph (uncle) 16 Hoff, Lilian (sister-in-law) 50 Hoff, Margaret Dorothy (‘Dorrie’, sister) 19, 50, 50 Hoff, Nereida Rayner (daughter) 88, 95, 96, 103, 195, 198, 239, 251, 254 Hoff, Rayner see Hoff, George Rayner Hoff, Richard (grandfather) 16 Hoff, Sandra Margaret Rayner (daughter) 60, 77, 89, 239, 253–54 photos of 76, 84, 86, 89, 90, 96, 98–99, 103, 194, 251 Hoff, Sydney (brother) 42, 50, 50–51 Hoff, Thomas (‘Tom’, brother) 18, 31, 50, 87, 89, 91, 100, 101, 117, 168, 252–53 photos of 42, 50, 84, 98–99, 120 Hoff with Woomera (Cazneaux, 1933, photograph) 156 Holden car insignia and badge 146, 149, 150 Hood, Sam 230, 232, 233(caption), 234(caption) Hoof, Thomas 16 Hook, Alfred 204 Hotel Australia 161 Hunter, Frederick 97 Idyll: Love and Life (Hoff, 1923–26, marble) 117 Imperia (Hoff, 1926, plaster) 168 Infantry Brigades Service Teams Trophy 163 Isle of Man 16–19 Jack Briggs (Hoff, 1923, photograph) 68 Jagger, Charles Sergeant 48, 71 James Bourlet & Sons Pty Ltd 75 James Farrer Memorial, Queanbeyan 161 Jardine, Cec 199 Jarvie, FA 159 John Sulman Medal 161 Kathleen (Fletcher, 1933, bronze) 119 ‘The Kennal’, 123, 126 King George V Memorial, Canberra 101, 163–65, 244, 245–48, 247 King’s Jubilee Medal 201 Kingsford-Smith, Charles 136 Kinselas Funeral Parlour 234, 236–37 The Kiss (Hoff, 1923, bronze) 142, 143, 201 Knight, Adam 37

Knight, Madge 34, 37, 38 Knox, Archibald 17 Labour (Hoff, 1922, plaster) 63, 64, 75 Lady Middleton (Hoff, c1910, plaster) 27 Lambert, George 51, 167 Lambert, Maurice 204 Lanercost (Cumbria) 21 Lanigan, Bill 87, 211, 212, 215 Lanteri, Edward 48 Lawrence, DH 31–32, 52 Laybourne Smith, Louis 154 Lazzerini & Company Ltd 24 Le Gros, Yvonne 244, 246 Leist, Fred 55, 123 Liberty Theatre 161 life models and life modelling 91, 117, 118, 119, 122, 123, 126, 135–36 Life Study — ‘Be’ (McGrath, 1925, patinated plaster) 117 Lindsay, Norman 117, 119, 145, 146, 167–68, 169, 170, 171, 172, 178–79, 196 Lindsay, Rose 168, 170 Lion (Hoff, c1930, bronze) 149 Lister, Lister 192 Lloyd, F Graham 65 Lloyd Jones, Charles 199 Lumb, Frank 151 Lutyens, Edwin 67 Lye, Len 172–74, 175, 176 Macdonald, Beth 123, 135, 135, 198 MacDonald, JS 196 Macintosh, Gregory 108, 115, 123 Mackellar, Dorothea 197 Mackennal, Sir Bertram 55, 81, 119–21, 124 Maillol, Aristide 67 Mallinson, Mavis 157 Manly Hotel 161 Mann, GVF (Victor) 65, 81, 173 March of the Dead (Anzac Memorial panel) 207, 213, 216–17 Marsh, Harold 153 Mary Gilmore (Hoff, 1934, bronze) 189 Masonic Temple, College Street 150–51 Mayo, Daphne 111, 200, 204–6, 205 McCrae, Hugh 97, 146, 166, 167, 178–79, 180, 183, 184, 201, 238 McGrath, Eileen 123, 132–33, 141, 196, 211, 212, 239, 245 Life Study — ‘Be’ (1925, patinated plaster) 117 photos of 134, 202, 208–9, 214, 215, 220 Portrait of Rayner Hoff (1932, plaster) 133 McGrath, Raymond 204 McInnes, William (‘Billy’) 201 McKell, Sir William 247 medals and medallions 58, 60, 144, 144, 161–62, 177 Menzies, Robert G 199, 200, 247 Merimbula 181 Messrs Kell & Rigby 210 Middleton, Lady 24, 25–26, 27 Mitchinson, Alec 151

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Mitchinson, Colin 152 Mond, Francis 58 Mond, May Constance Viola 60 Montford, Paul 129, 163–64 Moore, Henry 53, 54 Moore, John D 204 Moorfield, Frances 247, 253 Moorfield, John 123, 125, 139, 211, 219, 240, 245 photos of 128, 214, 218, 227, 244 Morris Singer Foundry 152, 188, 213, 246 Mother and Child (Hoff, 1923, plaster) 74, 75, 239 Murch, Arthur 129, 139, 141, 206 Murdoch, Keith 197 Mutch, Thomas 109 Nangle, James 109, 146 Naples 71 National Art Gallery of New South Wales see Art Gallery of New South Wales National Art School (NAS) buildings and facilities 109, 112–13, 113, 114, 115, 121, 123, 126, 129, 140 diploma course 111, 116, 133 dramatic club 140 historical background 105, 108–10 Hoff memorial 242, 243 Hoff’s appointment and arrival 65–66, 71–72, 81 Hoff’s role and influence 12, 110–11, 115, 125, 129, 136, 139–41, 238 Hoff’s students 123, 129, 132–33, 136, 139, 141, 198, 199, 268 The Kennal 123 life modelling 117, 119, 123, 135–36 Mackennal and 119–21 naming of 110–11 sculpture department 112–13, 114, 115, 123, 125 standards and reputation 116 students’ social life 129, 135, 140, 194–95 teaching staff 115, 121, 123, 125, 127–28, 131, 140–41 National Art Students Club (NASC) 110, 129, 194 National Federation of Fruit and Potato Trades Association 58 National War Memorial, Adelaide 154, 157, 159, 160 Naworth Castle 21 Nicholls, Sydney 195 Norton, Rosaleen 117, 119 Nottingham 22, 31–32 Nottingham School of Art 29–32, 33, 34, 37, 39 Orange, Sir Hugh 66 Pacific Beach (Hoff, 1930–32, wood relief panel) 195 Packer, Frank 197 paganism in art 152 Pan (Hoff, 1937, marble) 242, 243 Paris 67, 72 Paris International Exhibition (1937) 201 Payne, EJ 204 Peace (Hardiman, bronze) 70, 71 Peach, Joseph 115

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Philip, Margaret 25 photography 37 Pite, Beresford 52 pointing machines 25, 53–54, 213, 215 policemen, as sculpture students 199 portrait busts by Hoff 60, 144, 146, 153, 163, 173–74, 176, 177, 179, 181 images 145, 158, 175, 185, 189 Portrait (Hoff, 1920, plaster) 55 Portrait of Norman Lindsay (Hoff, 1924, copper) 145, 146 Portrait of Rayner Hoff (McGrath, 1932, plaster) 132 Portrait of Samuel Rowe (Hoff, 1924, plaster) 185 postcard (passengers on Ballarat) 79 Prau, Doreen 119, 122 Prix de Rome see Rome Scholarship prosecution threat 66–67 Rae, Iso 43 Rayner, as Christian name 18 Rayner, Richard (maternal grandfather) 18 Rayner Hoff at East Sydney Technical College (Cazneaux, 1924, photograph) 104 Rayner Hoff (Briggs, 1923, photograph) 62 Rayner Hoff with Deluge (Cazneaux, 1927, photograph) opp. title page Rayner Hoff with his sculpture Sacrifice (Cazneaux, c1934, photograph) front cover RCA (Royal College of Art) 47–49, 51–53, 55, 60, 66–67 Rees, Lloyd 80 relief sculptures by Hoff 25–26, 55, 58, 63, 75, 150–51, 151–52, 161, 195, 207, 211, 213, 242 images 27, 64, 155, 202, 208–9, 212, 216–17, 243 Renascence (Hoff, 1919–20, plaster relief panel) 55 residences London 51, 60, 67 Sydney 85, 87, 94–95, 241 Returned and Services League (RSL) 252 Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) 203–4, 219 Ride of the Valkyries (Hoff, plaster relief) 161 Riley, Margaret 25, 87 Riley, Roy 41, 42 Rix, Hilda 43 Robb, LA 219 Roberts, Tom 51 Robertson, Tom 211 Rome Scholarship (Prix de Rome) 63–67, 69–72, 75, 120 Rothenstein, William 49, 52 Rowe, Samuel 111, 115–16, 133, 134, 140, 180–81, 185 Rowell, William 200 Royal Academy of Arts 55, 65, 119, 191 Royal Arch Masonic Temple 150–51 Royal College of Art (RCA) 47–49, 51–53, 55, 60, 66–67 Royal Society of British Sculptors 143 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 30–31 Rubbo, Dattilo 116 Sacrifice (Hoff, 1921, bronze) 58 Sacrifice (Hoff, 1932–34, bronze) front cover, ii, 206, 222, 223, 229

Saddle Road, Braddan, Isle of Man 16 Salome (Hoff, 1924, bronze) 201 Sandra (Hoff, 1923, bronze) 143 Schmidt, Florence 51, 52 School of Arts 105, 108 sculptural portraits see portrait busts by Hoff Sculpture of Rayner Hoff (Hoff ed.) 197 Sesquicentenary celebrations 100, 101 Shakespeare (Hoff, 1935, plaster) 196 Shea, Ernest 196–97 Shillito, Phyllis 238 Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne 129, 132 Simpson, Colin 242 Smith, Edward 91, 115 Smith, Oxnard 192 Smith, SH 81 Smith, Spartacus 115 ‘Smithfield Grange’, Coogee 85 Smithy (Fleming, 1932, plaster) 137 Society of Artists balls 191–92, 194 exhibitions 143–44, 146, 152, 157, 168, 173, 179, 224–25, 241 Hoff’s involvement in 167, 191–92, 235 medallion 144, 144 Soderson, Emil 112 Souter, DH 151, 167, 188, 192 A Spanish Girl (Balfour, 1926, oil on canvas) 91, 92 Sphinx (Lindsay and Hoff, c1925, silvered metal) 117, 120, 170, 171 ‘St Helena Cottage’, Braddan, Isle of Man 17–18 Steen, Otto 129, 140, 211, 213, 215, 227 Stephen, Nessie 75, 110, 116, 140, 192, 198, 229, 235–36 Stevens, Bertram 232 Storrington Parish Church 58, 165 Strickland. Lilian 50, 51 Sunday Sun Infantry Brigades Trophy 163 Sunnybrook Press 196–97 Swift, George 58 Sydney in 1920s 80–81, 82–83 Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts 105, 108 Sydney Technical College 65, 105, 108–10 see also East Sydney Technical College; National Art School Sydney – Circular Quay (c1920, photograph) 82–83

Victoria Centenary Celebration Medal 161–62 Victory after Sacrifice (Hoff, c1932, plaster maquette) 224, 239, 248–49 vitalist view of life 12, 31–32, 143, 152, 207, 224 Waite, Margaret Edith Rachel 63 Walker, Nellie 153 Walker, Ralph Trafford 129 Walters, Edgar C ‘Pop’, 89, 115 war memorials Dubbo War Memorial 165 National War Memorial, Adelaide 154, 157, 159, 160 Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne 129, 132 Storrington Parish Church 58, 165 Waterhouse, BJ 81, 196 Watkins, JS 116, 195 Whyte, Frank 223 Wigmore, Lionel G 224 Wilkinson, Leslie 77, 81, 177–78, 204 Williams, Gwyneth 113 Williams, Rosamund Beatrice (‘Be’) 89, 91, 92, 117, 118, 119, 252 Wilson, William Hardy 71 Wilson, Robert Francis 93 ‘Winbourne’ (guesthouse) 89–90 Wintergarden Theatre, Rose Bay 159, 161 Wollaton Hall (Nottingham) 21, 24–25 women Hoff’s views on 197 prominence in Anzac Memorial sculptures 224 Wood, Francis Derwent 51–52, 53, 55, 65 Woodford, James Arthur 29–30, 52, 63, 75 Woomera (Hoff, 1933, clay version; 1934, bronze) 154, 156 The Work of Eileen McGrath (Hoff ed.) 198 World War I 41–45 Wunderlich, Ernest 77, 153 Wunderlich’s (ceiling manufacturers) 125, 181 Wynne Prize 173–74 XOPOZ [or Circular Dance] (Hoff, 1922, plaster) 55, 113, 114 Yangar (aka Jimmy Clements / King Billy) 153 Youth (Hoff, c1930, bronze) 157, 159, 160

Technical and Working Men’s College 108 Thomas Grounds and Sons 215 Thornhill, Dorothy 127, 130 Tom Hoff with Sphinx, ESTC (Cazneaux, 1924, photograph) 120 Tribe, Barbara 71, 123, 136, 139, 140, 141, 152, 161, 211, 212 photos of 138, 208–9, 215, 227 Underwood, Leon 53 University of Sydney 177, 198 Ure Smith, Sydney 167, 200, 200–201, 241 Victoria and Albert Museum 58, 197

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Hoff family on the Nepean River, c1925

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