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Gallery buildings and garden

Marodian Gallery, 1950-51

The first gallery Brian and Marjorie Johnstone established was the Marodian Gallery. It opened on December 8, 1950 in Upper Edward Street, Brisbane City, and took its name after a pastoral property owned by Marjorie's family, the Mants.

Perhaps in the nature of a trial, it was a joint venture between the Johnstones and interior decorator Hugh Hale and was located in one room in the back of Hale's city shop. It showed small, attractively framed art works, at first fairly conservative in style and imagery.

However in September 1951, an exhibition of Donald Friend pen and wash drawings, followed by another featuring Arthur Boyd paintings, led to a parting of the ways between Hale and Johnstone. Johnstone chose to find a new venue from which to hang his shingle.

The Johnstone Gallery, Brisbane Arcade, 1952-57

The next Johnstone Gallery, a former air raid shelter in the basement of the Brisbane Arcade, was more adventurous in d�cor, artistic choices and location. As Australasian Post saw it:

...Although the [Johnstone] gallery is in the main block of the city, a stranger trying to find it needs a little knowledge of bushcraft. Reaching the Brisbane Arcade, the visitor is advised to go underground via a stone stairway near the Adelaide Street entrance of the building, turn left just before reaching the garbage tins, and enter alongside the little office of Mr Johnstone.

(Australasian Post, April 10, 1952)

Brian and Marjorie leased the low-budget space and set about transforming its windowless, damp, dusty and rubbish-laden interior into an appealing gallery that would be in marked contrast to the conservative and old-fashioned Marodian Gallery.

Brisbane Arcade

The Johnstone Gallery

The new gallery opened on 5 February 1952, with d�cor as modern and bright as it was inexpensive. The exterior was boldly striped, with "The Johnstone Gallery" spelt out on an awning in white letters over a dark background, and potted palms at the entrance. Inside, calico curtains lined the walls of the single small room, and there were roll-down bamboo blinds and sturdy cane uprights used as dividers. Sea-grass mats softened the concrete floor, and indoor plants gave a stylish and exotic, yet warm, domestic ambiance. The gallery space was lit from overhead by plain fluorescent lights, and small items of furniture displayed modern ceramics. Cane and rattan chairs provided minimal seating.

Brian and Marjorie Johnstone and Margaret Olley

The Johnstone's exhibition program showed a similar leap of faith and confidence. Laurence Hope and Sidney Nolan had solo exhibitions in the first year, as did Carl Plate and Donald Friend; Michael Kmit had his first Brisbane exhibition. By the time the gallery closed on 19 December 1957 after an exhibition of work by Jon Molvig, Brian's confidence was high and the marketplace responsive. However, he was hospitalised with a bout of tuberculosis and it was ten months before the Johnstones could reopen their business.

The Johnstone Gallery, 6-8 Cintra Road, 1958-72

The Johnstones opened the Home Salon, designed by architect Stewart Reid, at their Bowen Hills home in 1954, which they saw as complementary space to their city gallery, "an extension of city hours to include weekends".

A much more radical move, however, was the relocation of their main operation to this firmly suburban setting in 1958. They extended the gallery from their weatherboard Queenslander-style cottage into the house next door via the construction of an adjoining passageway.

It was this venue that became synonymous with the Johnstones' charisma and success, and where they developed display methods to a high art. Walls were painted dark or white, with theatrically placed curtains, furniture, ceramics and arrangements of dried flowers, sticks or plants. The gallery at Cintra Road had a seemingly irresistible combination: a semi-domestic setting with the ambience of a private home, modern designer wares, good quality contemporary art, and dramatic d�cor. Placement, lighting, curtains, and the nature of the space with its twists, turns and vistas all played a role in showing art to its greatest advantage. Visitors discovered paintings posed around every corner, up each small flight of stairs. Each room became part of a series of revelations, building to a dramatic climax in the large final room.

A seductive tropical garden in luscious shades of green surrounded the buildings and formed an integral part of the exhibition spaces. The Johnstone Gallery was the first Australian gallery located in a garden setting, a feature almost universally commented on by visitors from other parts of Australia and overseas. Vogue Australia described the garden as, "...a delight of contrasting form and foliage, with rice trees, pandanus, banana trees and leafy plants making an ideal setting for sculpture." ("Art in Vogue", Vogue Australia, June/July 1964)

Sculpture Garden

Shillam sculptures

Brian Johnstone and Lindy

It was not until 1963 that the Johnstones completed their own bedroom extension and segregated domestic spaces (until then screened by curtains) from public spaces. Their living environment was quite radical for the times: a sleeping area on the upper level and a sitting room with built-in day lounges and exotic garden views on the lower. The lower level also incorporated an indoor garden separated from the outdoors by flyscreen mesh walls, the overall effect being "somewhere between treehouse and conservatory, with no barrier to the sounds and smells of the tropical garden save sliding glass doors just beyond the bed." (Vogue's Guide to Living, November 69-February 70. p. 83)

Brian and Marjorie Johnstone's bedroom In February 1964 they created "Gallery F" underneath the house, initially to display young artists. By 1967, however, this had become "the Lower Gallery", and was used in a more flexible manner.

In 1968 the gallery closed for exhibitions while Brian and Marjorie enjoyed a sabbatical. During this period they constructed the Collectors' Gallery, together with some additions to their residence. They extended again in 1970, and in May 1971, on the gallery's 20th anniversary, launched the 6th Annexe (the Courtyard Gallery).

The Annexe was designed by architect Vitale Gzell and included a wall to showcase paintings of up to 20 feet in length. One of the best known works to be hung there was Robert Dickerson's Lunch on the grass (Homage to Manet), 1970. Other galleries spaces at this time included the Storeroom Gallery and the Studio Gallery.

It was only 18 months later, on December 19, 1972 that the gallery closed permanently.