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Douglas Allan Green  (1921 in Ballarat – 2002) was an Australian graphic designer, artist and teacher

Early life and training

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Born in Ballarat, Green's father was Bert H. L. Green.[1]

He was a commercial artist while a student at the Melbourne Technical College. He showed paintings, including a work, described by Herald art critic Basil Burdett as a "fresh, honest water-colour sketch," in the third Heidelberg art exhibition in 1940.[2] He then enlisted at age twenty and was a sergeant in New Guinea and the Philippines with an Australian army survey unit during World War II.[3][1] As a student of the Technical College, he joined an exhibition of their work in November 1944 at the Melbourne Athenaeum, amongst other service personnel; George Allen, Ray Ewers, Stanley Hammond, William Dargle, Murray Griffin, Reginald Rowed, K. W, D. Jack, Wilfred McCulloch, Alan Moore, and Harold Freedman. The Age reviewer of the show identified Green as "a gifted artist, whose best efforts are: Della's Tobacco Burns, Barron Falls and Falls, Adelaide River, N.T.. This painter has versatility and a technique capable of unlimited expansion."[4]

As a returned soldier,[5] Green enrolled at the National Gallery school from 1944 to 1947, and concurrently at the George Bell School, 1946–7. He showed watercolour with the Victorian Artists Society, again noticed favourably by The Herald critic in 1946,[6] and 1947.[7]

His painting Second Class, showing the interior of a railway carriage incorporated portraits of fellow students John Brack, with whom he shared a studio on the corner of Bourke and Queen Streets,[8] (Grahame King, according to Christopher Heathcote)[9] Helen Maudsley and Fred Williams, won him the NGV Travelling Scholarship of £350 ($24,460.00 at 2022 value) a year for two years with a maximum of £200 additional for fares,[10] in 1947.[3] The Argus in an article titled 'Problem in Art Awards' framed his win as a triumph for those favouring modernism over the favourite of the traditional faction, Judy Perrey.[11] Hansen writes of Second Class that while other artists were "representing white-collar workers as cocky and absurd automata, Douglas Green produced a more sympathetic vision of their tedious, fatiguing existence."[12] Heathcote remarks that in 1947 "it was considered raucously moderne, some viewers being shocked by the rounded modelling and everyday subject matter." The work is held in the collection of Warrnambool Art Gallery.[13] Arriving in England he attended the London County Council School of Arts and Craft.[14]

Career

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From his residence at 21 Roland Gardens South Kensington, and with his wife Helen, they returned to Melbourne in January 1952 aboard the Strathmore,[15] Green worked first as a graphic designer, then as an art teacher with the Victorian Education Department. He produced and exhibited trompe l'oeil paintings of plant forms and exhibited more successfully in the 1980s, including at Pinacotheca gallery.[16] His work was seen in The Face of Australia, touring exhibition, 1988,[12] and Classical Modernism: The George Bell Circle, at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1992[8]

Late in his career, in the 1990s, Green lived in Castlemaine where he made coloured drawings of dead mistletoe.[17]

Awards

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  • NGV Travelling Scholarship, 1947

Collections

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References

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  1. ^ a b National Archives of Australia; Canberra, Australia; Second Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1939-1947; Series: B883
  2. ^ "Art Exhibition At Heidelbera". Herald. 1940-10-05. p. 13. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  3. ^ a b "Travelling Art Scholarship". Sydney Morning Herald. 1947-12-19. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  4. ^ "Service Students' Exhibition". Age. 1944-11-29. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  5. ^ "Douglas Green :: biography at :: at Design and Art Australia Online". Design and Art Australia Online. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  6. ^ "Artists' Society Revives With A Show Which Reveals Promise". Herald. 1946-04-26. p. 6. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  7. ^ "Art Show Lacks Major Works". The Herald. 1947-04-25. p. 8. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  8. ^ a b St John Moore, Felicity; Bell, George (1992). Classical Modernism : The George Bell Circle. Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria. p. 113. ISBN 9780724101559. OCLC 27548944.
  9. ^ Heathcote, Christopher (2002-09-01). "Douglas Green, 1921-2002.(Obituary)". Art and Australia. 40 (1). Art and Australia Pty. Ltd: 76(1). ISSN 0004-301X.
  10. ^ "Ex-AIR Man Wins Art Scholarship". Daily News. 1947-12-20. p. 9. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  11. ^ "Problem in Art Awards". Argus. 1947-12-20. p. 43. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  12. ^ a b Hansen, David (1988). The Face of Australia: The Land & the People, the Past & the Present ; Australia 1788 - 1988. Sydney: Fine Arts Press. pp. 112–3, 183. ISBN 0-86917-014-7.
  13. ^ a b "Second Class". Warrnambool Art Gallery. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  14. ^ McCulloch, Alan; McCulloch, Susan; McCulloch Childs, Emily (2006). The new McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art (4th ed.). Fitzroy: AUS Art Editions ; The Miegunyah Press. p. 477. ISBN 9780522853179. OCLC 80568976.
  15. ^ The National Archives; Kew, Surrey, England; BT27 Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and Successors: Outwards Passenger Lists; Reference Number: Series BT27-164521
  16. ^ "Pinacotheca (Melbourne, Vic.) : Australian Gallery File". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 2021-08-22.
  17. ^ Watson, David M; Hulley, Robyn (2011). Mistletoes of Southern Australia. Collingwood, Vic.: CSIRO Publishing. ISBN 9780643095939.
  18. ^ "Douglas Green". Art Gallery of Ballarat.
  19. ^ Green, Doug (1951). "Etruscan Dancer Tarquinia". Castlemaine Art Museum Collection Online. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
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