WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.200 In 1933, a wealthy, highly decorated high society 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:09.119 painter just packed her life into a car and she 00:00:09.119 --> 00:00:11.500 drove straight into the brutal drought stricken 00:00:11.500 --> 00:00:14.439 heart of the Australian outback. Wow. Yeah, but 00:00:14.439 --> 00:00:16.260 she wasn't out there looking for inspiration 00:00:16.260 --> 00:00:18.859 for like her next masterpiece. She was actually 00:00:18.859 --> 00:00:21.160 looking to build a massive water pipeline. It 00:00:21.160 --> 00:00:23.399 is just such a striking image, isn't it? I mean, 00:00:23.640 --> 00:00:25.559 you expect an award winning artist from that 00:00:25.559 --> 00:00:28.199 era to be, you know, safely tucked away in a 00:00:28.199 --> 00:00:31.420 Parisian studio somewhere, sipping coffee, painting 00:00:31.420 --> 00:00:34.119 portraits of the elite. But here she is out in 00:00:34.119 --> 00:00:36.200 the dirt and the blistering heat, completely 00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:38.380 redefining what it means to be a creator and 00:00:38.380 --> 00:00:41.140 a citizen. Exactly. So welcome to our deep dive. 00:00:41.399 --> 00:00:43.380 Today we're looking at an incredible stack of 00:00:43.380 --> 00:00:45.579 source material centered on the Wikipedia article 00:00:45.579 --> 00:00:48.359 of Violet Teague. She was a pioneering Australian 00:00:48.359 --> 00:00:51.820 artist who lived from 1872 to 1951. An amazing 00:00:51.820 --> 00:00:54.719 life. Truly. And our mission today is to dig 00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:57.079 into that extraordinary boundary pushing life. 00:00:57.579 --> 00:00:59.679 We're going to explore how she defied the conventions 00:00:59.679 --> 00:01:03.219 of her era by blending rigorous classical training 00:01:03.219 --> 00:01:06.659 with radical activism. And completely pioneering 00:01:06.659 --> 00:01:09.950 new artistic mediums along the way. Yes. Okay, 00:01:09.950 --> 00:01:13.129 let's unpack this. Because being well -informed 00:01:13.129 --> 00:01:15.670 for you listening, it isn't just about memorizing 00:01:15.670 --> 00:01:18.370 historical dates. It is about understanding how 00:01:18.370 --> 00:01:21.629 one person's relentless curiosity can actually 00:01:21.629 --> 00:01:24.870 reshape multiple disciplines at once. And Violet 00:01:24.870 --> 00:01:27.450 Teague's curiosity was absolutely relentless. 00:01:27.609 --> 00:01:30.310 I mean, it really was. But to understand how 00:01:30.310 --> 00:01:32.129 she was able to break so many rules in the art 00:01:32.129 --> 00:01:34.090 world, you have to look at her foundation first. 00:01:34.170 --> 00:01:35.790 Because she had to master those rules before 00:01:35.790 --> 00:01:37.530 she could break them. Right, exactly. You have 00:01:37.530 --> 00:01:39.299 to know the architecture of the box. before you 00:01:39.299 --> 00:01:41.200 step outside of it. So let's trace her journey 00:01:41.200 --> 00:01:44.719 a bit. She was born in Melbourne in 1872, and 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:47.780 interestingly, her father, James Teague, was 00:01:47.780 --> 00:01:49.799 a homeopath. Which is an interesting detail. 00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:52.239 It is. And while that might sound like just a 00:01:52.239 --> 00:01:55.000 random biographical fact, practicing homeopathy 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:58.719 in the 1870s required this intense, meticulous 00:01:58.719 --> 00:02:01.140 observation of minute symptoms. Oh, I see where 00:02:01.140 --> 00:02:02.819 you're going with this, like a highly holistic 00:02:02.819 --> 00:02:05.280 view of the patient. Exactly. You can almost 00:02:05.280 --> 00:02:08.120 see how she inherited that incredibly observant, 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:10.479 detail -oriented way of looking at the world. 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:12.539 That is a great connection. She was definitely 00:02:12.539 --> 00:02:15.500 raised to look closely. Sadly, her mother passed 00:02:15.500 --> 00:02:17.419 away when she was an infant, so she was raised 00:02:17.419 --> 00:02:20.139 by her father and his second wife. in a very 00:02:20.139 --> 00:02:22.879 cultured environment. She had a governess, she 00:02:22.879 --> 00:02:25.060 learned French and the classics, finished at 00:02:25.060 --> 00:02:26.879 the Presbyterian Ladies College in Melbourne. 00:02:27.699 --> 00:02:30.560 But her true visual education really ignited 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:32.219 when she traveled to Europe as a young woman. 00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:35.340 And traveling from Australia to Europe in the 00:02:35.340 --> 00:02:38.379 1890s was not a quick flight. It was a massive, 00:02:38.539 --> 00:02:42.000 months -long commitment by ship. Oh, a huge journey. 00:02:42.139 --> 00:02:44.840 Those early European tours were deeply formative 00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:47.419 for her. Imagine being a young aspiring artist 00:02:47.419 --> 00:02:50.039 from colonial Melbourne, right? Right. Your only 00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:52.580 exposure to the great masters was probably through 00:02:52.580 --> 00:02:55.979 like small flat black and white book reproductions. 00:02:56.020 --> 00:02:58.099 Yeah, just little prints. Exactly. Yeah. And 00:02:58.099 --> 00:03:00.400 suddenly you were standing in galleries across 00:03:00.400 --> 00:03:03.990 Germany, France, Belgium. the Netherlands, and 00:03:03.990 --> 00:03:05.770 England. That must have been mind -blowing. Totally. 00:03:06.569 --> 00:03:08.969 The sources note she specifically recalled visiting 00:03:08.969 --> 00:03:11.750 Spanish galleries and being completely captivated 00:03:11.750 --> 00:03:14.789 by Velasquez, his incredibly lifelike horses, 00:03:14.889 --> 00:03:18.189 and the vibrant coloring of Raphael. Seeing that 00:03:18.189 --> 00:03:20.849 in person, seeing the actual scale and the texture 00:03:20.849 --> 00:03:22.889 of the brush strokes, the physical presence of 00:03:22.889 --> 00:03:25.909 the paint, I mean, it rewires your visual vocabulary 00:03:25.909 --> 00:03:28.889 entirely. It really does. sets an impossibly 00:03:28.889 --> 00:03:30.969 high bar. But she didn't just look in a go -home. 00:03:31.210 --> 00:03:33.629 She put in the grueling work to reach that bar. 00:03:34.090 --> 00:03:37.409 She spent years in formal training. From 1893 00:03:37.409 --> 00:03:40.909 to 1896, she's in a Brussels studio under the 00:03:40.909 --> 00:03:44.050 French artist Ernest Blanquerin. Right. Then 00:03:44.050 --> 00:03:46.789 she heads to England to study at Hubert von Herkimer 00:03:46.789 --> 00:03:49.879 School. Finally, she returns to Melbourne and 00:03:49.879 --> 00:03:52.699 enrolls at the National Gallery of Victoria Art 00:03:52.699 --> 00:03:55.360 School, the NGV. But there's a fascinating twist 00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:57.180 there. Yeah, as I was reading through the sources, 00:03:57.300 --> 00:03:58.780 I noticed this too. While she's getting this 00:03:58.780 --> 00:04:02.500 very formal instruction at the NGV, she is simultaneously 00:04:02.500 --> 00:04:04.879 studying at the Melbourne School of Art. Yes, 00:04:05.080 --> 00:04:07.060 and that dual enrollment is a crucial distinction. 00:04:07.310 --> 00:04:09.710 The Melbourne School of Art was run by E. Phillips 00:04:09.710 --> 00:04:13.090 Fox and tutor St. George Tucker. Right? They 00:04:13.090 --> 00:04:15.270 were teaching the liberal, progressive methods 00:04:15.270 --> 00:04:17.410 of the French Impressionist schools they'd attended. 00:04:18.170 --> 00:04:21.009 It was a stark contrast to the rigid, traditional, 00:04:21.529 --> 00:04:23.970 anatomy -focused methods of the NGV. It's like 00:04:23.970 --> 00:04:26.519 she's living a double life. On one hand, she's 00:04:26.519 --> 00:04:28.439 getting the strict Academy -style training at 00:04:28.439 --> 00:04:31.879 the NGV, which is kind of like working an incredibly 00:04:31.879 --> 00:04:34.480 strict corporate job where you have to wear a 00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:36.720 suit every day and learn the underlying code 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:38.800 of the business. That's a great way to put it. 00:04:39.019 --> 00:04:42.079 But then, Fox and Tucker establish a summer school 00:04:42.079 --> 00:04:44.600 at Chartersville, which was actually Australia's 00:04:44.600 --> 00:04:47.680 first recognized summer school of art. They take 00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:49.740 over this old mansion above the Yar River, and 00:04:49.740 --> 00:04:52.720 it's full of artists painting plein air. And 00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:55.560 for anyone unfamiliar, plein air literally means 00:04:55.560 --> 00:04:58.180 painting in the open air. Instead of sitting 00:04:58.180 --> 00:05:01.240 in a dark control studio painting a posed model, 00:05:01.720 --> 00:05:04.000 these artists were dragging their easels outside. 00:05:04.019 --> 00:05:06.220 Into the elements. Right, into the elements to 00:05:06.220 --> 00:05:08.899 capture the immediate raw sunlight of the Australian 00:05:08.899 --> 00:05:11.339 landscape. With the harsh sun drying the paint 00:05:11.339 --> 00:05:13.980 quickly and the wind blowing, forcing you to 00:05:13.980 --> 00:05:16.980 use rapid, confident brushstrokes, it's like 00:05:16.980 --> 00:05:19.680 she left that strict corporate job to go join 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:23.279 a chaotic, fast -paced startup hackathon. Yes. 00:05:23.459 --> 00:05:25.720 Where everyone is just throwing ideas at the 00:05:25.720 --> 00:05:28.060 wall and building the product in real time. She 00:05:28.060 --> 00:05:29.819 might have even been a tutor there, actually. 00:05:30.319 --> 00:05:32.620 What's fascinating here is that this dual education 00:05:32.620 --> 00:05:36.439 is exactly why Teague became so incredibly adaptable. 00:05:36.519 --> 00:05:39.620 later in life. She wasn't locked into one singular 00:05:39.620 --> 00:05:41.480 way of seeing the world. Right, she had both 00:05:41.480 --> 00:05:44.660 toolkits. Exactly. The National Gallery School 00:05:44.660 --> 00:05:46.959 taught her discipline, proportion, and technique. 00:05:48.040 --> 00:05:50.100 The Chartersville Summer School taught her light, 00:05:50.600 --> 00:05:53.699 immediacy, and emotional resonance. Because she 00:05:53.699 --> 00:05:57.319 fluently spoke both visual languages. She was 00:05:57.319 --> 00:05:59.839 never intimidated by a new medium. She already 00:05:59.839 --> 00:06:02.019 knew how to synthesize totally different approaches. 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:04.180 Precisely. And she really did synthesize them. 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:06.339 Because her willingness to experiment didn't 00:06:06.339 --> 00:06:09.180 stop at just how she applied oil paint. to a 00:06:09.180 --> 00:06:12.180 canvas. It pushed her to introduce entirely new, 00:06:12.339 --> 00:06:15.000 highly technical artistic mediums to the Australian 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:17.139 public. Like her work with Japanese woodblocks. 00:06:17.339 --> 00:06:19.779 Yes. Let's look at the woodblocks. Printing from 00:06:19.779 --> 00:06:22.819 a carved woodblock obviously has a massive, centuries 00:06:22.819 --> 00:06:25.300 -long history in Japan. Oh, of course. But in 00:06:25.300 --> 00:06:27.620 Australia, at the turn of the 20th century, it 00:06:27.620 --> 00:06:31.680 was virtually unknown as a fine art form. Teague 00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:33.879 became the first Australian to demonstrate a 00:06:33.879 --> 00:06:37.029 sustained interest in and a real mechanical mastery 00:06:37.029 --> 00:06:40.529 of this incredibly difficult technique. And it 00:06:40.529 --> 00:06:43.120 is so physically demanding. I was looking into 00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:45.240 how this actually works. And to make a colored 00:06:45.240 --> 00:06:47.879 woodblock print, you can't just paint on a block 00:06:47.879 --> 00:06:51.019 and stamp it. You have to carve a separate individual 00:06:51.019 --> 00:06:54.060 wooden block for every single color in the image. 00:06:54.279 --> 00:06:56.139 It's unbelievable. And then you have to line 00:06:56.139 --> 00:06:58.959 up the paper perfectly on every single block 00:06:58.959 --> 00:07:02.120 using these tiny registration marks so the colors 00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:04.360 don't overlap in the wrong spots. It requires 00:07:04.360 --> 00:07:07.319 insane precision. It is an unforgiving medium. 00:07:07.500 --> 00:07:09.980 One slip of the carving knife or just a millimeter 00:07:09.980 --> 00:07:12.480 of misalignment on the paper and the entire print 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:15.060 is ruined. It takes a mathematical level of planning 00:07:15.060 --> 00:07:17.319 combined with a highly delicate artistic touch. 00:07:17.500 --> 00:07:21.259 Which makes her 1905 project so wild. She collaborates 00:07:21.259 --> 00:07:23.379 with her friend Geraldine Reed out of her Collins 00:07:23.379 --> 00:07:25.720 Street studio, and they publish a book together 00:07:25.720 --> 00:07:27.920 called Nightfall in the Thai Tree. Such a great 00:07:27.920 --> 00:07:31.500 title. Picture this. It's a 32 page haiku style 00:07:31.500 --> 00:07:34.399 text. It tells the story of the simple life of 00:07:34.399 --> 00:07:37.519 bushland rabbits, and it features 16 colored 00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:40.639 woodblock illustrations. Our sources note that 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:42.779 this collaborative little book is the the very 00:07:42.779 --> 00:07:45.300 first example of colored woodblock printing in 00:07:45.300 --> 00:07:48.439 Australia. It's also considered the first Australian 00:07:48.439 --> 00:07:51.360 artist's book. It's a beautifully intimate project. 00:07:51.980 --> 00:07:53.839 The subject matter Bushland Rabbits might seem 00:07:53.839 --> 00:07:56.100 quaint, but it was essentially a Trojan horse 00:07:56.100 --> 00:07:59.300 for highly complex, avant -garde printmaking 00:07:59.300 --> 00:08:01.920 techniques. Yeah, that's true. But then... She 00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:04.300 scales her ambitions up to something monumental. 00:08:04.519 --> 00:08:06.939 She ventures into highly unusual territory for 00:08:06.939 --> 00:08:09.100 Australian art at the time, Protestant altar 00:08:09.100 --> 00:08:10.959 paintings. Wait, hang on. I'm trying to map out 00:08:10.959 --> 00:08:13.279 her career path in my head, and I am getting 00:08:13.279 --> 00:08:15.660 absolute whiplash. I know, it's a lot. She goes 00:08:15.660 --> 00:08:19.319 from strict European Academy training to a delicate, 00:08:19.480 --> 00:08:21.920 highly technical haiku book about rabbits, and 00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:24.980 then pivots again to massive Protestant altar 00:08:24.980 --> 00:08:28.079 pieces. She gets a commission in 1910 for a church 00:08:28.079 --> 00:08:31.170 in Wanan where her friend, Jesse Trail, designs 00:08:31.170 --> 00:08:34.889 the frame. Then in 1921, she exhibits a massive 00:08:34.889 --> 00:08:37.309 altarpiece at King Lake, billed as a memorial 00:08:37.309 --> 00:08:39.929 to soldiers who died in World War I. That's right. 00:08:40.409 --> 00:08:42.750 How do these wildly different things belong to 00:08:42.750 --> 00:08:45.490 the same artist? Well, it does look completely 00:08:45.490 --> 00:08:48.070 disjointed if you only look at the surface. But 00:08:48.070 --> 00:08:49.789 if you look at the underlying philosophy, it 00:08:49.789 --> 00:08:52.850 makes perfect sense. OK, how so? It's a testament 00:08:52.850 --> 00:08:55.610 to her core belief that the medium should serve 00:08:55.610 --> 00:08:58.649 the message, not the other way around. If the 00:08:58.649 --> 00:09:01.230 message is a quiet personal observation of nature, 00:09:01.730 --> 00:09:04.789 you use a delicate Japanese woodblock. Ah, I 00:09:04.789 --> 00:09:07.570 see. Right. But if the message is communal grief 00:09:07.570 --> 00:09:10.450 and memorializing lost soldiers, you create a 00:09:10.450 --> 00:09:13.429 towering public altarpiece. She refused to let 00:09:13.429 --> 00:09:16.009 the art market or societal expectations dictate 00:09:16.009 --> 00:09:18.929 her tools. She chose the exact tool that the 00:09:18.929 --> 00:09:21.070 human experience required in that specific moment. 00:09:21.210 --> 00:09:23.470 Here's where it gets really interesting, because 00:09:23.470 --> 00:09:26.090 while she's playing with these niche experimental 00:09:26.090 --> 00:09:29.070 mediums back home in Australia, she is simultaneously 00:09:29.070 --> 00:09:32.149 dominating the very traditional, highly competitive 00:09:32.149 --> 00:09:35.559 global stage. Yes, she was. She isn't just some 00:09:35.559 --> 00:09:38.299 local, eccentric, trying -out hobbies. She is 00:09:38.299 --> 00:09:41.000 a world -class master playing the elite game 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:44.379 and winning. Absolutely. She exhibited regularly 00:09:44.379 --> 00:09:47.000 at the Paris Salons, which were the absolute 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:49.220 epicenter of the global art world. You had to 00:09:49.220 --> 00:09:51.080 conquer Paris. If you wanted to be recognized 00:09:51.080 --> 00:09:53.440 internationally, you had to. And as early as 00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:56.440 1897, her portrait of Colonel Reed brought her 00:09:56.440 --> 00:09:58.980 major accolades from the Société des Artistes 00:09:58.980 --> 00:10:02.399 Français. But her real triumph came a bit later. 00:10:02.649 --> 00:10:05.470 The piece that really cemented her legacy. Yes, 00:10:05.629 --> 00:10:08.950 her famous 1911 painting, The Boy with the Palette. 00:10:09.029 --> 00:10:11.210 Just a powerhouse of a painting. It really is. 00:10:11.250 --> 00:10:13.090 It's a portrait of a young art student named 00:10:13.090 --> 00:10:15.950 Theo Scharf. The painting has these incredibly 00:10:15.950 --> 00:10:18.750 rich dark tones that make the boy's face and 00:10:18.750 --> 00:10:21.149 the palette he's holding just pop off the canvas. 00:10:21.429 --> 00:10:23.889 You can really see that early influence of Velazquez 00:10:23.889 --> 00:10:26.730 she absorbed in Europe. The confident brushwork, 00:10:26.830 --> 00:10:28.850 the dramatic lighting. And the judges in Paris 00:10:28.850 --> 00:10:32.090 clearly saw it too. In 1920, it won a silver 00:10:32.090 --> 00:10:34.590 prize at the Old Salon in Paris. Think about 00:10:34.590 --> 00:10:36.570 the logistics of that achievement for a second. 00:10:37.269 --> 00:10:39.970 An Australian woman based in Melbourne paints 00:10:39.970 --> 00:10:43.009 a portrait ships it across the world and takes 00:10:43.009 --> 00:10:46.090 silver in Paris against the best painters on 00:10:46.090 --> 00:10:49.570 earth. It's incredible. The judges loved it because 00:10:49.570 --> 00:10:52.850 it combined flawless technical mastery with deep 00:10:52.850 --> 00:10:56.029 psychological presence. The boy isn't just a 00:10:56.029 --> 00:10:58.789 model. He looks like a real breathing person 00:10:58.789 --> 00:11:00.909 staring right back at you. And it didn't stop 00:11:00.909 --> 00:11:03.490 in Paris either. The painting was later hung 00:11:03.490 --> 00:11:06.379 at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Following 00:11:06.379 --> 00:11:09.899 that 1920 Paris Salon, the celebrated Australian 00:11:09.899 --> 00:11:12.700 artist Rupert Bunny, who was a massive deal at 00:11:12.700 --> 00:11:15.779 the time, huge deal, he wrote to Teague specifically 00:11:15.779 --> 00:11:17.559 to tell her that The Boy with the Palette was 00:11:17.559 --> 00:11:20.919 one of the best works in that entire year's exhibition. 00:11:21.220 --> 00:11:24.059 That peer validation is immense. It proves that 00:11:24.059 --> 00:11:26.759 her unconventional path, her dabbling in wood 00:11:26.759 --> 00:11:29.419 blocks and altarpieces didn't dilute her technical 00:11:29.419 --> 00:11:31.620 oil painting skills. It actually enhanced them. 00:11:31.720 --> 00:11:34.159 She brought completely unique perspective to 00:11:34.159 --> 00:11:36.879 a very traditional format. So she had conquered 00:11:36.879 --> 00:11:40.019 the elite salons of Europe. But instead of settling 00:11:40.019 --> 00:11:42.740 into a comfortable, lucrative life as a high 00:11:42.740 --> 00:11:45.840 society portraitist in Melbourne, she leveraged 00:11:45.840 --> 00:11:48.539 all of that elite cultural capital for something 00:11:48.539 --> 00:11:51.220 entirely physical and grounded. Which brings 00:11:51.220 --> 00:11:54.539 us to the outback. Yes, to what is arguably her 00:11:54.539 --> 00:11:57.200 ultimate masterpiece. It wasn't on canvas or 00:11:57.200 --> 00:12:00.480 paper at all. It was her activism. The year is 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:04.049 1933. Teague her sister una and their friendly 00:12:04.049 --> 00:12:06.750 artist Jesse trail who designed that altar frame 00:12:06.750 --> 00:12:09.830 earlier Yeah, they decide to travel to the hermansburg 00:12:09.830 --> 00:12:12.639 mission in Central, Australia And we have to 00:12:12.639 --> 00:12:14.940 picture what a road trip into the outback looked 00:12:14.940 --> 00:12:18.460 like in 1933. There are no paved highways. There 00:12:18.460 --> 00:12:21.059 are no gas stations every few miles. No air conditioning. 00:12:21.340 --> 00:12:23.840 No. They're driving cars like Model A Fords over 00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:25.759 rutted dirt cracks, carrying their own petrol 00:12:25.759 --> 00:12:28.360 and tins, dealing with boiling radiators, suffocating 00:12:28.360 --> 00:12:31.139 dust in the lethal heat. It was a physically 00:12:31.139 --> 00:12:34.080 grueling, genuinely dangerous expedition. It 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:36.500 was an incredible undertaking. And while she's 00:12:36.500 --> 00:12:38.759 there at the mission, she actually befriends 00:12:38.759 --> 00:12:41.399 the famed Aboriginal artist Albert Nup. They 00:12:41.399 --> 00:12:43.759 go on painting excursions together, right? Yeah, 00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:46.000 they share techniques. And they become so close 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:48.399 that he later names one of his children after 00:12:48.399 --> 00:12:51.340 her. But amidst this artistic connection, she 00:12:51.340 --> 00:12:53.980 discovers a horrific reality on the ground. The 00:12:53.980 --> 00:12:56.879 drought. Yes. The area had recently suffered 00:12:56.879 --> 00:12:59.799 a severe prolonged drought. And as a result of 00:12:59.799 --> 00:13:02.799 the extreme water shortage, a third of the aboriginal 00:13:02.799 --> 00:13:05.480 population at the mission had died. It was a 00:13:05.480 --> 00:13:08.399 humanitarian crisis of devastating proportions. 00:13:08.970 --> 00:13:11.389 Now, a lot of artists might have painted a tragic 00:13:11.389 --> 00:13:13.230 picture of the drought, sold it in Melbourne, 00:13:13.649 --> 00:13:15.830 and called it a day. Teague didn't do that. No, 00:13:15.889 --> 00:13:18.529 she mobilized. She and her sister organized an 00:13:18.529 --> 00:13:20.850 exhibition specifically to raise money for a 00:13:20.850 --> 00:13:23.450 water pipeline to transport clean water from 00:13:23.450 --> 00:13:25.850 a distant spring straight to the mission. And 00:13:25.850 --> 00:13:27.809 this is where her elite status becomes a weapon 00:13:27.809 --> 00:13:30.590 for good. She uses her standing in the art community 00:13:30.590 --> 00:13:34.590 to get the absolute heavyweights to donate works 00:13:34.590 --> 00:13:36.850 for this exhibition. She gets pieces from Frederick 00:13:36.850 --> 00:13:40.240 McCubbin. E. Phillips Fox, Han Tyson, and Jesse 00:13:40.240 --> 00:13:43.120 Trail. They end up raising more than 2 ,000 pounds. 00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:46.559 Now, to put that into context, this is the 1930s, 00:13:46.620 --> 00:13:48.159 right in the middle of the Great Depression. 00:13:48.820 --> 00:13:51.559 2 ,000 pounds was an astronomical amount of money. 00:13:51.580 --> 00:13:54.159 Oh, absolutely massive. She essentially realized 00:13:54.159 --> 00:13:56.919 that the high society art market was full of 00:13:56.919 --> 00:13:59.519 wealthy people who would buy paintings no matter 00:13:59.519 --> 00:14:02.080 the economic climate. So she hacked the system. 00:14:02.440 --> 00:14:05.659 She used the art market as an ATM for humanitarian 00:14:05.659 --> 00:14:09.360 aid, trading canvas and oil paint for literal 00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:11.970 steel pipe. and digging equipment. And it worked. 00:14:12.529 --> 00:14:15.929 The pipeline was laid in 1935 from Caparola Springs 00:14:15.929 --> 00:14:18.710 directly to the mission. It's a stunning example 00:14:18.710 --> 00:14:21.570 of applied empathy. She literally used art to 00:14:21.570 --> 00:14:23.909 bring life -saving water to the desert. But her 00:14:23.909 --> 00:14:25.649 activism wasn't just limited to fundraising, 00:14:25.830 --> 00:14:28.070 it was also fiercely intellectual and political. 00:14:28.269 --> 00:14:30.750 Teague has been identified by scholars as one 00:14:30.750 --> 00:14:33.649 of Australia's first female art critics. She 00:14:33.649 --> 00:14:36.029 wrote essays and commentary. Right. But more 00:14:36.029 --> 00:14:38.909 radically, she used her pen to challenge the 00:14:38.909 --> 00:14:41.330 dominant, very comfortable colonial narratives 00:14:41.330 --> 00:14:44.129 of her era. She wrote a series of letters to 00:14:44.129 --> 00:14:47.090 major newspapers, The Argus, The Age, and The 00:14:47.090 --> 00:14:49.870 Herald, to announce the Hermansburg Group exhibition. 00:14:50.509 --> 00:14:52.769 But in these letters, she went much further than 00:14:52.769 --> 00:14:55.200 just promoting the art show. She definitely did. 00:14:55.779 --> 00:14:57.879 She argued that Aboriginal people had survived, 00:14:57.879 --> 00:15:01.559 quote, 100 years of our occupation and that they 00:15:01.559 --> 00:15:04.440 were cheated of their inheritance by colonialism. 00:15:04.539 --> 00:15:06.700 Which was a shocking thing to say in print back 00:15:06.700 --> 00:15:09.100 then. It really was. And just as a quick note 00:15:09.100 --> 00:15:12.379 for you listening, as we dig into these 1930s 00:15:12.379 --> 00:15:15.200 newspaper archives, our goal here isn't to take 00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:17.899 a political stance or endorse the rhetoric of 00:15:17.899 --> 00:15:20.519 the era. We're simply looking objectively at 00:15:20.519 --> 00:15:22.399 the facts of what Teague wrote in the source 00:15:22.399 --> 00:15:24.840 text. Of course. just reporting what she wrote. 00:15:25.620 --> 00:15:27.379 Exactly. And when you look at those letters, 00:15:27.620 --> 00:15:30.840 the sources note she was openly defying the eugenicist 00:15:30.840 --> 00:15:33.659 justifications of her time. Those were theories 00:15:33.659 --> 00:15:36.340 that falsely claimed that aboriginal people were 00:15:36.340 --> 00:15:39.960 in an innately inferior dying race. She was publicly 00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:42.759 calling out the systemic injustice of colonialism 00:15:42.759 --> 00:15:45.179 in major dailies. If we connect this to the bigger 00:15:45.179 --> 00:15:48.159 picture, the sheer courage it took to write those 00:15:48.159 --> 00:15:51.799 specific words in the 1930s cannot be overstated. 00:15:51.899 --> 00:15:54.480 She was a respected figure in elite society. 00:15:55.220 --> 00:15:57.120 Her paintings were bought by the very people 00:15:57.120 --> 00:15:59.200 who benefited most from that colonial system. 00:15:59.320 --> 00:16:02.700 She had a lot to lose. Exactly. For a public 00:16:02.700 --> 00:16:05.360 figure of her stature to publicly frame European 00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:08.919 settlement as an occupation and to fiercely attack 00:16:08.919 --> 00:16:12.570 eugenicist theories. She was an absolute outlier. 00:16:12.990 --> 00:16:15.470 She risked alienating the entire society that 00:16:15.470 --> 00:16:17.769 funded her life. But again, she used her privilege 00:16:17.769 --> 00:16:20.110 and her platform as a tool, just like she used 00:16:20.110 --> 00:16:21.870 a carving knife on a woodblock. That's a great 00:16:21.870 --> 00:16:23.690 way to think about it. She was a true polymath 00:16:23.690 --> 00:16:26.450 of purpose, a globally recognized portraitist, 00:16:26.690 --> 00:16:29.750 a printmaking pioneer, an art critic, and a fierce 00:16:29.750 --> 00:16:32.269 boots on the ground activist. And her legacy 00:16:32.269 --> 00:16:34.649 is still incredibly visible today. Yes, it is. 00:16:34.929 --> 00:16:37.580 If you go to the Canberra suburb of Cook, you 00:16:37.580 --> 00:16:40.139 can walk down Teague Street, which is named in 00:16:40.139 --> 00:16:42.379 her honor. And her work is still being celebrated 00:16:42.379 --> 00:16:44.659 right now. In fact, she is featured in a major 00:16:44.659 --> 00:16:48.429 exhibition titled Dangerously Modern. Australian 00:16:48.429 --> 00:16:52.370 women artists in Europe 1890 to 1940, which runs 00:16:52.370 --> 00:16:54.870 all the way through September 2025 at the Art 00:16:54.870 --> 00:16:57.230 Gallery of South Australia. Dangerously modern. 00:16:57.350 --> 00:16:59.769 What a perfect encapsulating phrase for her. 00:16:59.870 --> 00:17:02.289 Isn't it? She was dangerous to the status quo 00:17:02.289 --> 00:17:05.109 precisely because she refused to be categorized. 00:17:05.210 --> 00:17:07.089 She just wouldn't stay in the neat little box 00:17:07.089 --> 00:17:09.140 society built for her. So what does this all 00:17:09.140 --> 00:17:11.500 mean? Why does Violet Teague's story matter to 00:17:11.500 --> 00:17:14.140 you listening today? I think her life proves 00:17:14.140 --> 00:17:16.539 that true mastery doesn't mean staying in your 00:17:16.539 --> 00:17:19.119 lane. Definitely not. We live in a world where 00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:22.420 we are constantly told to pick a specialty, to 00:17:22.420 --> 00:17:25.460 brand ourselves, to find a niche, and stick to 00:17:25.460 --> 00:17:27.880 it forever. It's all about hyper specialization 00:17:27.880 --> 00:17:30.769 now. Right. But Teague shows us that you can 00:17:30.769 --> 00:17:33.049 master the rigid classical rules of the academy 00:17:33.049 --> 00:17:35.710 and still write delicate haikus about rabbits. 00:17:36.349 --> 00:17:38.230 You can be the darling of the Parisian elite, 00:17:38.670 --> 00:17:41.269 winning silver medals, and still drive a rattling 00:17:41.269 --> 00:17:44.049 Ford into the outback to physically build a water 00:17:44.049 --> 00:17:47.089 pipeline. It means using your skills, your curiosity, 00:17:47.549 --> 00:17:49.410 and whatever privilege you have been handed to 00:17:49.410 --> 00:17:52.269 explore the entire world, and crucially, to leave 00:17:52.269 --> 00:17:54.829 it tangibly better than you found it. She observed 00:17:54.829 --> 00:17:57.390 the world deeply, both the beautiful parts and 00:17:57.390 --> 00:17:59.789 the broken parts, and she wasn't afraid to reflect 00:17:59.789 --> 00:18:02.109 back the parts of it that made her own society 00:18:02.109 --> 00:18:05.190 profoundly uncomfortable. And that leaves us 00:18:05.190 --> 00:18:08.710 with a lingering question to mull over. Violet 00:18:08.710 --> 00:18:11.410 Teague was considered a radical outlier for stating 00:18:11.410 --> 00:18:14.309 truths about colonial occupation in the 1930s, 00:18:14.309 --> 00:18:16.650 truths that aggressively challenged the comfortable 00:18:16.650 --> 00:18:19.609 mainstream narratives of her day. If an artist's 00:18:19.609 --> 00:18:21.609 job is to observe the world and reflect it back 00:18:21.609 --> 00:18:25.119 to us, what outlier are artists reflecting today 00:18:25.119 --> 00:18:27.200 that our mainstream might still be ignoring.