Northcote

The colour screen print Red Brick Bridge Over Darebin Creek depicts a charming view of the City of Darebin from the mid-twentieth century. With rolling hills and vegetation, it stands as a remarkably rural vista compared to the suburbia and light industrial setting of today. Created from 15 stencils, it is from an edition of 38.

Alan Sumner MBE (1911-1994) was born in Northcote, and was a significant Australian painter, printmaker, teacher and stained glass designer. After studying at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, RMIT and the George Bell School in the early 1930s, he travelled to Europe and the UK, furthering his training at the Grand Chaumière and the Courtauld Institute. On his return to Melbourne, he took up an apprenticeship as a stained glass designer with Brooks, Robinson & Co, before becoming a designer for E.L. Yencken & Co. Sumner taught painting at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1947 to 1950 and spent nine years as Head of the School from 1953 onward. He had a studio in Wellington Street, Collingwood, and completed around 100 stained glass window commissions for buildings including the Church of the Epiphany, Northcote, and St Gabriel’s, Reservoir. Sumner produced a large range of colour, multiple stencil screenprints on paper, of which many are held in major public collections around the country.

On the Way captures a moment in time as three women pass each other in front of an assortment of colourfully painted shops along the main shopping strip in High Street, Northcote. Dressed in bright winter clothes and sensible shoes, the shoppers have a distinct look about them: one strides purposefully towards her destination pushing her jeep in a determined fashion, another checks the contents of her trolley as she manoeuvres it around, while a third, holding a canvas bag, stands quite still as she tries to decide which way to go next.

Mary Hammond is a social observer. She depicts the lives of ordinary people going about their everyday tasks. Themes of feminism and social justice pervade her work. She is fascinated by the role of women caring for their families and shopping is a major theme. Hammond’s eye for detail is intimate and personal; she sketches and paints real people enabling us to examine, with compassion, the community in which we live.

Hammond’s artwork is held in private and public collections including the Australian War Memorial, State Library of Victoria and Artbank.

On the Way © Mary Hammond

The painting Summer Storm features the Merri Creek. It illustrates this iconic waterway in this area detailing the native vegetation and the intrusion of the power lines and skyscrapers. The painting also makes reference to Giorgione’s painting The Tempest paying tribute to the power of nature as the lightning bolt on the horizon seems to have carved out the creek. The site of this painting is from Yarra Bend Park where NMIT is located. It was all once part of City of Northcote. The new boundaries put all of the open space south of Heidelberg Road into the City of Yarra. So it is very near Darebin's border. The area is easy to walk to from nearby car parks. It shows the view of the city that we have from the City of Darebin.