Queer Australian Art and KINK acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional owners and custodians of the lands and waters of this continent. KINK conducts its work on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong peoples of the Kulin Nation in Naarm Melbourne, the Turrbal and Jagera peoples in Meanjin Brisbane and the Gadigal lands of the Eora Nation, Sydney. We pay respect to elders past, present, and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded.

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Don't Forget to Remember by Amelia Barikin, Courtney Coombs, Callum McGrath, Spiros Panigirakis, and Tim Riley Walsh, published 02.05.2024

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Justin O'Brien

Born in Hurstville, New South Wales, Australia.

Bio

Justin Maurice O'Brien (1917-1996) was a teacher and painter born in Hurstville, NSW, in 1917. He studied with Edward Smith between 1930 and 1936. During the Second World War, he served in Palestine and Greece before being captured at Ekali and interned firstly in Athens and then Torun in Poland. In 1944 he was among a group of prisoners of war sent to Barcelona in exchange for German prisoners and soon after returned to Australia to be demobilised. During captivity O'Brien was inspired by the Byzantine art of the countries in which he was held and this influenced his own art practice. The pictures he managed to paint in Torun, with materials supplied by the Red Cross, formed the nucleus of his first Australian exhibition, held in Sydney with another ex-prisoner, his friend Jesse Martin. After the war he taught at Cranbrook School, before leaving Australia again in 1963 to spend four months on the Greek island of Skyros with artists Jeffrey Smart and Brian Dunlop. After moving permanently to Rome in 1967, he returned to Australia and held exhibitions every two years. His work is now held in State and University collections throughout Australia and in the National Gallery of Australia, as well as the Vatican Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome.

Although O’Brien was described as "unpretentious, easy-going, loyal, and affectionate", his homosexuality "coloured his life, nearly causing him to have a nervous breakdown in his younger years" [1]. Curator Barry Pearce recalled that "he painted sweet confections of the human condition but I think he painted them as a balm for something inside himself. He held himself back sexually for a reason—partly because it was forbidden by the Catholic Church and partly because it was illegal. Jeffrey [Smart] said that Justin was an alcoholic for a reason'' [2].

[1] Marian Rotelli, Memories of Justin O’Brien, letter to Martin Sharp, 24 February 1997. Cranbrook School Archive, NSW.
[2] Barry Pearce, in Steve Meachem, "Fulfilled pledge caps curator's career", Sydney Morning Herald, December 17, 2010.

Based in

Rome, Italy

Resources

Website
Further reading: "The Virgin enthroned (Altar piece triptych)"

Artworks

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