We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.
Isaac Walter Jenner / England/Australia 1836–1902 / Queensland natives, the Currigee Oyster Company’s Station, Stradbroke Island, Moreton Bay 1897 / Oil on canvas / 25 X 46cm / Purchased 1990 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Isaac Walter JennerQueensland natives, the Currigee Oyster Company’s Station, Stradbroke Island, Moreton Bay 1897
On Display: QAG, Gallery 10
In Isaac Walter Jenner’s Queensland natives, the Currigee Oyster Company’s Station, Stradbroke Island, Moreton Bay 1897, the artist applies the English picturesque ideal to the Queensland coastline.
The work is an image of life on Stradbroke Island at the turn of the century. In the foreground, a group of men on a raft are harvesting oysters while Aboriginal figures are silhouetted along the shoreline.
The inclusion of Aboriginal people was rare for colonial painters in Brisbane. Along with the men on the raft, they give a sense of humans at ease in the landscape, which is typical of the picturesque ideal.
The long history of oyster harvesting in Moreton Bay originates with the traditional custodians — the Quandamooka people — whose shellfish-rich diet is evident from the middens that can be found on the bay side of the island.
Currigee was part of the Moreton Bay Oyster Company which operated from 1874 to the 1950s, drawing on the expertise of the Quandamooka people. In the 19th century the company had a high profile and delivered oysters throughout Australia.
Isaac Walter Jenner holds an important place in Queensland’s colonial art history. Self-taught, he had some success in England before moving to Brisbane in 1883. Jenner was a founding member of the Queensland Art Society in 1887 and lobbied consistently for the establishment of a national gallery in Queensland.
Jenner taught art at Miss O’Connor’s School, Oxley, and from 1887 had a private teaching studio at the Brisbane Technical College. His studio at Taringa attracted leading Queensland artists and he is known to have encouraged artist JJ Hilder.
When the Queensland National Art Gallery opened in 1895, Jenner was one of the first three artists to present a painting to the gallery: Cape Chudleigh, Coast of Labrador 1893, reworked 1895.