Autobiography of My Mother (24 page)

Rita's mother liked to meet the artists for whom her daughter posed. The mother was just as beautiful as the daughter: older and a little careworn, but beautiful. I've always regretted that I didn't ask Rita's mother if I could draw her that day.

Rita of the Nineties
is one of Norman's most famous paintings of Rita. Rita remembers Norman taking her up to Henderson's in Pitt Street to buy the material for the dress; this was during the war and he had saved up his food coupons to pay for it. Henderson's store was well known for its speciality dress materials. Norman chose plum-coloured taffeta with enough for a matching hat. Rita later wore the dress to an Artists' Ball, the one to which Percy Lindsay came as a Roman in a toga.

As a wedding present Norman gave Rita a length of pink satin, which he had probably first used as a drape. With the material was a note telling her that she was too beautiful to be in a kitchen and to make herself something nice out of the satin.

Norman worked so hard that after a full session painting an oil of Rita he was exhausted at three o'clock.

Usually he did a pencil drawing or a charcoal study first, this was put down on canvas, then he started painting. He worked in two or three tones to begin with, a method called impasto. The lights are put on thick, the shadows kept thin. He would add a rich note of colour, say just a touch of pure vermilion, with the point of his brush.

Rita was his favourite model but there were many others. Norman never needed to look for models; they came
looking for him. They weren't paid much, only a few shillings a sitting, but they loved posing for him.

Norman said you got the best out of a model by praising her good points. He never made a model hold a pose overlong, as they did in the art schools. If the word went round that Norman was in town, not just the regular models but girls who had never posed before appeared at the studio looking for work; a model's sister or her best friend would decide she, too, would like to pose for Norman.

I have kept a notebook with the names and addresses of Norman's models and it has one hundred and thirty names in it. Next to the model's name is a brief description in Norman's handwriting: ‘Gloria, aquiline nose, fair hair.' Often underneath it reads something like, ‘Jeannie, Gloria's friend.'

Norman didn't turn anyone away. If a girl arrived, she was given a sitting. He would make a pencil study but if he didn't like the girl, she was not asked back. He drew girls of all shapes and sizes, from Solly, the Nordic blonde with strong arms and legs and beautiful big feet who taught swimming at a harbour baths, to Duck Sweetie, who was tiny and what Norman called a ‘pocket Venus'.

Duck Sweetie wasn't her real name, but that's what we called her. ‘Duck Sweetie' was the name of the shooting gallery where she worked at Luna Park. She had to stand posed or poised above a tank of water; if a customer hit a target he got to duck Sweetie, and she tumbled into the water. She was tired of constantly being ducked like this and catching cold so she decided to take up modelling. At least then she wasn't always wet.

Amber, another model, was Dalmatian. Her people owned a fish shop in New Zealand. Amber was very beautiful. Her
family expected her to marry someone suitable and carry on the family business. She had come to Sydney for a bit of a fling before she settled back to cleaning fish for the rest of her life.

The dark girl you see in Norman's paintings was little Olive. Olive was Ethiopian, born on the island of Mauritius and the most captivating creature. She had dusky skin with a sheen on it like a ripe plum, frizzy hair that stood out about ten inches around her head, a small waist, big hips and a funny husky voice. Everyone loved drawing and painting Olive, because her stories were so amusing.

Norman's favourite Olive story concerned the Ethiopian Prince. Everyone knew the Ethiopian Prince – he had been posing round all the studios. Very flash he was, dripping with rings and bracelets, and musical, too. He was a pianist and received many invitations to play at snob Darling Point and Vaucluse parties, or so he told us. He also assured everyone non-stop that he was truly a prince and only posed on the side.

Olive came into the studio and Norman asked her if she had met the Ethiopian Prince. ‘Met him!' Olive said scornfully. ‘He's not an Ethiopian Prince. He's me uncle's brother.' I don't know why she didn't say he was her uncle, but ‘me uncle's brother' the Ethiopian Prince became a standing joke with us.

Noreen, yet another model, came from an address in Woolloomooloo. There was nothing wrong with that, but Olive told us that Noreen's house was no ordinary house. In fact, her mother was a madam. Noreen was rather tough-looking; she could assume a ferocious expression. But she had beautiful tawny golden skin, and turned the loveliest Rubens-like back, with two dimples on her shoulder blades
and two more above her bottom. Noreen's back can be seen in many of Norman's oil paintings.

Noreen regaled us while she posed with stories of Woolloomooloo life. When she was younger, her mother had locked her in an attic bedroom at night but Noreen used to open the skylight, climb onto the roof and walk along to a fire escape ladder. She would scramble down the ladder and go off into the night wherever she liked. In the morning, she climbed back to her room by the same means.

Norman returned to Springwood during the war, but still came down to the studio for a few days' painting. One night he was awakened by an urgent knocking on the outside front door. Norman hurried down the two flights of stairs to see what the matter was. On the doorstep stood Noreen, with a bashful and very young American sailor.

Noreen explained to Norman that the sailor wanted to marry her, but was insisting that Noreen should give him a reference first. (Norman used to shriek with laughter when he told this story.)

‘What sort of reference do you want?' he asked.

‘A character reference,' said the young sailor, who had suddenly found his tongue. ‘Like when you go for a job.'

‘Certainly,' Norman said. He was so tickled by the request he went upstairs straight away and wrote out a reference saying that Noreen had given excellent service when he had employed her; he thoroughly recommended her and wished her well in any future position.

Reference in hand, Noreen disappeared happily with the young sailor. We never saw her again, so we never found out if they married or not.

Norman also had some fine male models. Don Juan in his
Don Juan
painting was Michael. Michael was intelligent and
good-looking, but during the Depression modelling was the only work he could find. The Depression caused a lot of people to work as artists' models who in easier times might have found other employment.

When
Don Juan
, which was inspired by Byron's epic poem of the same name, was exhibited at the Macleod Gallery on the top floor of the
Bulletin
building, Michael took his girlfriend, thinking she would be thrilled to see him looking so handsome in the painting. But instead of admiring his appearance, she slapped his face.

‘To think you stood there posing with all those naked women,' she upbraided him, and ran out of the gallery.

This was unfair. Norman only ever worked with one model at a time. For
Don Juan
, as for his other large paintings, he did a series of pencil studies of the composition first, then each model in turn came to pose while he painted that particular figure. (Some people even thought he used to have the jaguars and leopards in paintings such as
Crete
running loose in the studio. Norman went over to the zoo and drew the animals before he painted them in back at the studio.)

Michael came mooching round to the studio after the exhibition, hoping that Norman might be able to set things right by convincing his girl that Michael hadn't posed with any women, dressed or undressed. But his girlfriend couldn't be induced to visit the scene of the crime and Michael remained out of favour.

Michael's story didn't have a happy ending. When war broke out, Michael enlisted. He said goodbye to Norman the night before he left to fight in New Guinea. That was the last we heard of Michael. We supposed he was killed in the fighting.

Norman's other male model, James Robb, ‘Old Rob', used to call himself ‘Norman's Principal Pirate'.

Old Rob, who scrubbed Norman's floors as well as posing for him, was an ex-sailor. Norman was good at persuading people to tell him their life stories and he also encouraged them in any artistic venture. He had Old Rob writing his autobiography.

Rob had been a seaman in the days of sailing ships, which appealed to Norman, who had an overwhelming interest in any kind of ship, but especially sailing ships. He was always working on ship models, which ranged from an ancient Roman galley to copies of the cutters described in the novels of his beloved Joseph Conrad. Old Rob managed to get about one-third of his life story down in between posing and his other chores.

He loved pulling faces and play-acting for Norman. He was very proud of being ‘Norman's Principal Pirate' and many of the male figures with fierce expressions are Old Rob.

The black-veiled woman at the back of
Don Juan
was Joyce Delamare. Delamare was an Irish girl with large violet-coloured eyes and red-brown hair. She had been a showgirl in the famous musical
Chu-Chin-Chow
which was written and first produced on the English stage by an Australian, Oscar Asche, and ran from 1916 to 1921 in London. Delamare was in the back row of the chorus because she was so tall.
Chu-Chin-Chow
was a hit here, too. Everyone knew the songs from it; my brother King used to stride round the lounge room of our flat singing in his deep voice, ‘I am Chu-Chin-Chow from China'.

After the London season, Asche brought his company, including Delamare, to tour Australia. When the tour
finished Delamare stayed on. I think she would have liked to continue acting but she had to settle for modelling. Despite her height, she was a very gentle creature, very fey. In Ireland, she told us with utter sincerity, she used to see fairies. But in Australia she never managed to see one, she concluded sadly. We all loved Delamare because of her gentleness.

She used to correspond regularly with Lord Alfred Douglas in England and she showed us his letters. Lord Alfred Douglas, whose relationship with Oscar Wilde had caused the latter's trial, sent her a book of poems he had published which Delamare didn't like. She wrote back to him saying so. She was only speaking her mind as an old friend; she didn't mean to offend him. But Lord Alfred Douglas wanted adulation, not criticism, and after that letter he never wrote to Delamare again.

Delamare often posed for Norman in Bridge Street. Norman also employed her to clean up the studio and sometimes she cooked his breakfast. Delamare became even more fey and vague as the years passed, and also more depressed. ‘I can't bear the thought of growing old,' she used to say. ‘I would rather commit suicide than grow old.'

Norman would pay her for posing; she would walk out into the street and let the money fall from her hand. She seemed to have lost the will to live. Norman tried to cheer her up and talk her out of her depression, telling her that it was silly for such a beautiful woman to talk of suicide. But then he went up to Springwood for a few days.

I asked her to help me clean up my studio, thinking she might like some extra money. I waited and waited but Delamare didn't turn up. At lunchtime I went out to buy some food and saw the news stands full of placards. ‘Artist's
model kills herself', ‘Model found dying'. I got a terrible shock.

I almost ran up to St Vincent's, crying all the way, I was so upset. When I arrived, the Reverend Mother told me it was over, and that Delamare was dead. People in the house where she lived had heard groans coming from her room and called an ambulance. The ambulance rushed her to St Vincent's but it was too late. She had left a note on her door: ‘Not at home – dead'. Delamare had always had a grim sense of humour. She had just reached her fortieth birthday.

People are always speculating what went on with Norman surrounded by these beautiful women. Norman was too busy painting for amours with models. Far from being a seducer, Norman was, upon occasion, a matchmaker.

A girl who worked for a Macquarie Street doctor asked Norman to paint her. She was engaged to be married to the doctor but he was hesitant about setting the wedding date. The girl thought sitting for Norman might perhaps arouse a spark of jealousy, or that when her reluctant fiancé was shown the painting he might realise what a good thing he was onto.

After the pencil drawing was completed, the girl asked if the doctor could inspect it before Norman started on the oil. The doctor was duly impressed by the drawing. At the sitting next day the girl was ecstatic; they were to be married the following week and the doctor wanted to buy the painting. Thanks to the painting, we presumed, they lived happily ever afterwards.

Norman liked big women. He said so frankly. All small men do, he believed. Norman himself wasn't short, but he was very slight. ‘The balance of nature' he called it.

Norman was perturbed if the balance of nature was
upset. A new model arrived, a tall girl who, like Delamare, had been a showgirl in the back row of the chorus.

‘She's engaged,' Norman whispered agitatedly to me after a few sittings with the new model. I stared at him, surprised at the look of concern on his face.

‘Her bloke is six feet tall! It won't do, you know,' Norman insisted passionately after she had gone. ‘The balance of nature is kept by the tall women marrying short men, and the little women marrying great, tall men. This marriage hasn't a chance. It won't last, upsetting the balance of nature. They're too tall, it won't last.'

I can see Norman's models clearly even now. It makes me think of François Villon's line ‘Where are the snows of yesteryear?' I'm glad these girls didn't disappear like the snows of yesteryear, but live on in Norman's paintings.