Robert Smith and Wendy Crellin at his Welcome to Wonthaggi in 2017. The esteemed art historian and collector was drawn to a working class town with a collectivist character By Catherine Watson
NOTED art historian Robert Smith came so close to seeing the inaugural exhibition of the art collection he gifted to his adopted town of Wonthaggi.
The exhibition was due to open at the Wonthaggi Union Theatre on March 30 until the corona virus lockdown forced its postponement. Robert (Bob) Smith died in Wonthaggi just three weeks later, on April 22.
His great friend, Wendy Crellin, who helped bring the collection – and Bob – to Wonthaggi, says she is consoled by the fact that he achieved what he set out to do. In 2016 he gifted his collection of around 600 works to Wonthaggi and in 2017, at the age of 89, he came to live here.
NOTED art historian Robert Smith came so close to seeing the inaugural exhibition of the art collection he gifted to his adopted town of Wonthaggi.
The exhibition was due to open at the Wonthaggi Union Theatre on March 30 until the corona virus lockdown forced its postponement. Robert (Bob) Smith died in Wonthaggi just three weeks later, on April 22.
His great friend, Wendy Crellin, who helped bring the collection – and Bob – to Wonthaggi, says she is consoled by the fact that he achieved what he set out to do. In 2016 he gifted his collection of around 600 works to Wonthaggi and in 2017, at the age of 89, he came to live here.
“He wanted his collection to go to a small rural town,” Wendy says. “And he came to love this community. He couldn’t get over how warm people were. The girls in the supermarket got to know him. He’d walk up the street and people would say hello. He liked that.
“He felt that affinity because it was a working class community. Much of Bob’s collection is social culture, about working class people.”
The first key to his generous gift is Noel Counihan, the famous Australian socialist realist painter and printmaker, and the six weeks Counihan spent in Wonthaggi in 1944. He lived with a mining family and each day went underground to sketch the miners at work. In 1947, he produced a set of six linocuts called The Miners.
The following year, a young Western Australian labourer called Bob Smith paid 10 shillings for two Counihan silkscreen prints. In 1963, by which time he was working in a public gallery, Bob began a friendship with Counihan, and in 1981 he published a major catalogue of Counihan’s prints which drew plaudits from the Australian art world.
The second key to the gift is Wendy Crellin, a leading light of the Bass Coast arts scene. In the lead-up to Wonthaggi’s centenary in 2010 the Bass Coast Artists Society decided they would buy a set of Counihan’s Miners series. Wendy wrote to Bob for advice and later invited him to Wonthaggi to deliver an illustrated lecture on the artist.
And so a firm friendship was born, between Bob and Wendy and her husband John. “He was stimulating company,” Wendy recalls. “After a conversation with Bob you wanted to go and read more and research more. He was an excellent teacher. He allowed you to broaden your thought.
“He could be arrogant but he was never pretentious. He spoke of his art as something to be shared, to enlighten people. He believed that art belongs to the community and not in private ownership.”
Bob became a frequent visitor to Wonthaggi, developing such an affection for the town that he began to talk about moving here for his final years and donating his collection.
In 2016, when he did so. he wrote to Wendy: “I can hardly wait for the moment when I inform Michael Counihan [Noel’s son] that 87 of Noel’s works will be at the centre of an important public collection – at the location of those dramatic mining events and associated individuals so superbly captured by Noel in the 1940s.”
In 2017, the council hosted a welcome to Wonthaggi for Robert Smith in the old Wonthaggi post office. It included the official launch of his collection, including limited edition prints, works on paper, paintings, sculptures, ceramics and photographs, and the premiere of Mick Green’s short documentary film, Speaking of Art: The Robert Smith Collection.
In Speaking of Art, Bob talks cheerfully about his poor beginnings and a father who wasn’t very interested in children. The saving grace was his grandparents, who introduced him to the world of books. Eventually that love of books led him to the world of art and theatre. He became a university lecturer, an art historian, an art collector with a love of Shakespeare.
Later, he was working at the Queensland Gallery when he was sent to an auction to buy an important Picasso painting. He bought the painting for the gallery and for himself he bought a modest little Picasso drawing – two hands clutching a bunch of flowers – which is now part of our collection.
Closing in on 90, an elfin figure with a crooked schoolboy grin, Smith commanded the room as he laid out his precious prints on the floor with a great flourish and some lofty words.
With Smith refusing to give up the microphone, the event certainly didn’t go according to script but those of us in the room felt a sense of wonder and pride at what we were getting: not just the collection but the man.
As Wendy Crellin put it in her introduction, “Bob has come to live among us and give us his collection.”
Looking back on the occasion, she recalls her nervousness. Bob could be difficult, especially in his final years as his health and memory declined. A little paranoia crept in, and no one ever knew what he would say.
But the great trust he had in Wendy remained constant. In the final months, when he was in care, he could no longer remember her name but he never forgot that she was his great friend, always welcoming her visits with a huge smile.
When we finally get to see the inaugural exhibition, it promises great riches, with 26 works drawn from the collection by curator Ken Scarlett OAM, an expert in Australian art and sculpture. It includes an illustrated catalogue with commissioned essays from Ken Scarlett and Professor Ken Wach, with extracts from the writings of Bernard Smith and Robert Smith, and a summary of Smith’s career by Ron Wilks.
The long-term dream is a Bass Coast regional art gallery to house the Robert Smith collection and our own now substantial collection of works by local artists. That’s now a step closer with the old secondary school site in McBride Avenue available to host a cultural precinct incorporating a gallery, a library and a theatre.
“He felt that affinity because it was a working class community. Much of Bob’s collection is social culture, about working class people.”
The first key to his generous gift is Noel Counihan, the famous Australian socialist realist painter and printmaker, and the six weeks Counihan spent in Wonthaggi in 1944. He lived with a mining family and each day went underground to sketch the miners at work. In 1947, he produced a set of six linocuts called The Miners.
The following year, a young Western Australian labourer called Bob Smith paid 10 shillings for two Counihan silkscreen prints. In 1963, by which time he was working in a public gallery, Bob began a friendship with Counihan, and in 1981 he published a major catalogue of Counihan’s prints which drew plaudits from the Australian art world.
The second key to the gift is Wendy Crellin, a leading light of the Bass Coast arts scene. In the lead-up to Wonthaggi’s centenary in 2010 the Bass Coast Artists Society decided they would buy a set of Counihan’s Miners series. Wendy wrote to Bob for advice and later invited him to Wonthaggi to deliver an illustrated lecture on the artist.
And so a firm friendship was born, between Bob and Wendy and her husband John. “He was stimulating company,” Wendy recalls. “After a conversation with Bob you wanted to go and read more and research more. He was an excellent teacher. He allowed you to broaden your thought.
“He could be arrogant but he was never pretentious. He spoke of his art as something to be shared, to enlighten people. He believed that art belongs to the community and not in private ownership.”
Bob became a frequent visitor to Wonthaggi, developing such an affection for the town that he began to talk about moving here for his final years and donating his collection.
In 2016, when he did so. he wrote to Wendy: “I can hardly wait for the moment when I inform Michael Counihan [Noel’s son] that 87 of Noel’s works will be at the centre of an important public collection – at the location of those dramatic mining events and associated individuals so superbly captured by Noel in the 1940s.”
In 2017, the council hosted a welcome to Wonthaggi for Robert Smith in the old Wonthaggi post office. It included the official launch of his collection, including limited edition prints, works on paper, paintings, sculptures, ceramics and photographs, and the premiere of Mick Green’s short documentary film, Speaking of Art: The Robert Smith Collection.
In Speaking of Art, Bob talks cheerfully about his poor beginnings and a father who wasn’t very interested in children. The saving grace was his grandparents, who introduced him to the world of books. Eventually that love of books led him to the world of art and theatre. He became a university lecturer, an art historian, an art collector with a love of Shakespeare.
Later, he was working at the Queensland Gallery when he was sent to an auction to buy an important Picasso painting. He bought the painting for the gallery and for himself he bought a modest little Picasso drawing – two hands clutching a bunch of flowers – which is now part of our collection.
Closing in on 90, an elfin figure with a crooked schoolboy grin, Smith commanded the room as he laid out his precious prints on the floor with a great flourish and some lofty words.
With Smith refusing to give up the microphone, the event certainly didn’t go according to script but those of us in the room felt a sense of wonder and pride at what we were getting: not just the collection but the man.
As Wendy Crellin put it in her introduction, “Bob has come to live among us and give us his collection.”
Looking back on the occasion, she recalls her nervousness. Bob could be difficult, especially in his final years as his health and memory declined. A little paranoia crept in, and no one ever knew what he would say.
But the great trust he had in Wendy remained constant. In the final months, when he was in care, he could no longer remember her name but he never forgot that she was his great friend, always welcoming her visits with a huge smile.
When we finally get to see the inaugural exhibition, it promises great riches, with 26 works drawn from the collection by curator Ken Scarlett OAM, an expert in Australian art and sculpture. It includes an illustrated catalogue with commissioned essays from Ken Scarlett and Professor Ken Wach, with extracts from the writings of Bernard Smith and Robert Smith, and a summary of Smith’s career by Ron Wilks.
The long-term dream is a Bass Coast regional art gallery to house the Robert Smith collection and our own now substantial collection of works by local artists. That’s now a step closer with the old secondary school site in McBride Avenue available to host a cultural precinct incorporating a gallery, a library and a theatre.