Ex-Sydneysider STUART PEARSON looks at Bathurst and its future from the perspective of a new resident.
WEALTH is still flowing from our gold rush towns - only it's in the form of art, not nuggets.
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Around Australia, there are several locations that owing to their scenery, architecture, human activity or spirituality, have become centres of artistic creativity.
The harbour and beaches of Sydney; harsh inland landscapes of central Australia; scenic views from our mountain ranges, and evocative old towns have all attracted many artists over the years.
Hill End and Sofala are two closely located settings that need to be added to this list of nationally significant artistic locations.
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In 1947, Russell Drysdale and Donald Friend, then moderately known painters, were looking to escape the stultifying confines of post-war Sydney. After reading an intriguing article in The Sydney Morning Herald describing the defunct gold rush towns of Hill End and Sofala, they decided to drive out and have a look for themselves.
What they found amazed them. The light intensity of the Australian bush and the ramshackle appearance of the near-deserted old gold rush town of Hill End proved irresistible.
They rented a house for the long term and set about painting some of their best works, such as Sofala, The Cricketers and The Horsemen.
Drysdale and Friend wrote glowing letters about the location to fellow artists back in Sydney and were soon joined periodically by other painters, such as Margaret Olley, Jean Bellette, Paul Haefliger, David Strachan, Fred Jessup and Jeffrey Smart. Hill End grew to become an artists' colony of national importance.
Between 1947 and 1957, this group of artists painted some of the most haunting images of Australia ever produced. There was no unifying style about the works created - some were modern, others impressionistic, while a few were even classical - but all the images on the canvas were still derived from the same harsh Australian landscape that has shaped artists for thousands of years, since the Dreamtime of the First Nations.
Following from the days of Drysdale and Friend over 70 years ago, new artists have been drawn to this location by its romantic mix of ghost-town landscape and gold-rush mining heritage. These include Brett Whiteley, John Olsen, Wendy Sharpe and John Firth-Smith.
The first wave of artists from the 1950s also left an enduring legacy in another way. Jean Bellette bequeathed her Hill End cottage to the State of New South Wales in 1967. Donald Friend's partner Donald Murray lived in another nearby cottage until his death in 1988, after which it too passed into the hands of the state government.
Since the 1990s, both cottages have been managed by Bathurst Regional Council, which established an artist-in-residence program to perpetuate the presence of artists in this evocatively charged location.
To date, more than 300 artists from around Australia and the world have taken up the opportunity of short-term placements in the Hill End cottages.
The names Hill End and Sofala have a magical appeal, and the locations deserve to be nationally recognised.
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (BRAG) already has a large collection of art that relates to Hill End and its artists, going back to a drawing by John Hardman Lister of Our Cradling Place - Turon River in 1851.
There are works by Friend, drawings by Drysdale, paintings by Bellette, Haefliger and other works from the 1940s and 1950s. There are also substantial holdings of works by artists who have undertaken residencies in Hill End in what were once the homes of Donald Friend and Jean Bellette.
In fact, the Artists of Hill End collection represents one quarter of BRAG's substantial permanent collection.
Further, there are also works by current artists such as Luke Sciberras and Rosemary Valadon who have made Hill End their permanent home
According to Sarah Gurich, current director of BRAG, Hill End "is unique in the Australian visual art landscape as a site of sustained artistic response spanning eight decades and three generations of Australian artists".
What a brilliant opportunity this presents to Bathurst Regional Council and the people of this wonderful city. Imagine BRAG promoting to the world one of this nation's largest and most significant collections of artworks from Hill End and Sofala.
People would come from across the nation and indeed the world, to see this truly remarkable collection of national importance and Bathurst would continue to grow as a centre for art in regional Australia.
Think of the kudos. Think of the reputation. Think of the cultural tourism dollars this would bring to the city.
