the promised land the art of lawrence daws - Sunshine Coast Council

THE PROMISED LAND 

THE ART OF LAWRENCE DAWS

Cover: Cain and the Promised Land II, 1983, mixed media and collage and oil on canvas, 170.0 x 296.5 cm (overall). 

Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. Gift of the artist through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2009 

THE PROMISED 

LAND:THE ART OF 

LAWRENCE DAWS 

A CALOUNDRA 

REGIONAL ART 

GALLERY TRAVELLING 

EXHIBITION

Published in 2010 by 

Caloundra Regional Art Gallery, Sunshine Coast Regional Council 

22 Omrah Avenue / PO Box 117, Caloundra QLD 4551 

T—07 5420 8299 F—07 5420 8292 

E—artgallery@sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au 

www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/caloundragallery 

© The Artist, Artworks by Lawrence Daws 

© Arthur Boyd – Artwork reproduced with the permission of Bundanon Trust 

© Catalogue Foreword, John Waldron 

© Catalogue Essay, Bettina MacAulay and Desmond MacAulay 

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be 

reproduced without prior written permission of the copyright owners. Requests and inquiries concerning 

reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Publisher. 

Note on Artworks 

All illustrated artworks are by Lawrence Daws unless otherwise noted. 

Dimensions of the works are given in centimetres (cm), height preceding width. 

National Library of Australia 

ISBN 978-0-9805736-1-9 

Published for the exhibition The Promised Land: The Art of Lawrence Daws 

Project Team 

Gallery Director 

Lead Curator 

Co-Curator 

Catalogue Essay 

Public Program Officer 

Exhibition Coordinator 

Exhibition Assistant 

Communication Coordinator 

Designer 

Photography 

Printing 

John Waldron, Sunshine Coast Regional Council 

Bettina MacAulay 

Desmond MacAulay 

Bettina MacAulay and Desmond MacAulay, MacAulay Partners, Brisbane 

Robert Natoli 

Jenny Spencer 

Chris Brophy 

Helen Perry 

Lara Clarke 

Mick Richards Photography and public galleries lending artworks 

3E Innovative, Brisbane www.3e.net.au 

Published for the Exhibition The Promised Land: The Art of Lawrence Daws at the Caloundra Regional Art Gallery 

20 January – 7 March 2010 and travelling in celebration of the Gallery’s 10 th Anniversary to: 

Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane / 29 April – 27 June 2010 

Redcliffe City Gallery / 7 July – 7 August 2010 

Tweed River Art Gallery, Murwillumbah / 13 August – 26 September 2010 

Hervey Bay Regional Gallery / 6 December 2010 – 31 January 2011 

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville / 7 February – 10 April 2011 

Gladstone Regional Art Gallery / 16 April – 28 May 

Wollongong Regional Gallery / June – July 2011 

S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney / 12 August – 18 September 2011 

Caloundra Regional Art Gallery is a Sunshine Coast Regional Council arts initiative. This exhibition is supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian Government 

program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of Australian cultural material across Australia. 

Eerie Mountain, 1987, oil on canvas, 173.0 x 173.0 cm, Collection: Brent A. Ogilvie 

3

FOREWORD 

JOHN WALDRON 

The Caloundra Regional Art Gallery is proud to present 

The Promised Land: The Art of Lawrence Daws. This major touring 

exhibition is the most significant curatorial undertaking by the 

Gallery to date and is the signature event marking the Gallery’s 

tenth year. 

Although born in Adelaide, Lawrence Daws has lived and worked 

in South-East Queensland for the past thirty-nine years and is 

a long-term resident of the Glasshouse Mountains, Sunshine 

Coast. Given that the greater part of his sixty year professional 

life has been spent in Queensland, he can legitimately be viewed 

as a major Queensland artist. His works are included in many 

state and national public collections and in recognition of his 

extensive contribution to the Queensland visual arts sector 

he has been awarded two honorary doctorates by Queensland 

universities; Griffith University in 1992; and the University of the 

Sunshine Coast in 2000. 

This exhibition provides the first opportunity to honour 

Lawrence’s achievements in his home region. An exemplar 

initiative it has been chosen to launch the Gallery’s tenth year 

celebrations. The Gallery’s adventurous 2010 program has been 

designed to highlight its dynamic ability, meaningful contribution 

and far-reaching influence. Showcasing the work of the region’s 

leading artists and building awareness of their achievements 

and contributions is an important regional gallery role. 

In his long career, Lawrence has had numerous solo exhibitions, 

an early retrospective at the Art Gallery of South Australia 

(1966) and more recently, in 2000, a survey exhibition at the 

Brisbane City Gallery. However, none of these exhibitions has 

toured beyond Australian capital cities, nor has he ever had 

a solo show in a Queensland regional gallery. This exhibition 

provides the first opportunity for regional audiences to access 

a representative and retrospective sample of works by this 

significant Australian artist. The exhibition of paintings, prints 

and drawings will tour to a total of nine public and university 

galleries in Queensland and New South Wales, finishing at 

Sydney’s S.H. Ervin Gallery in late 2011. 

The necessity for this exhibition was first discussed in 2004, upon 

my appointment as Gallery Director, with Robert Heather, the, then 

Executive Director, Regional Galleries Association of Queensland. 

It remained an idea until the Gallery triggered funding in 2007 

from Museum and Gallery Services Queensland and the Australia 

Council’s Touring Exhibition Partnership Program. 

Mandala III, 1962, oil on canvas, 136.8 x 137.1 cm 

4 Collection: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased 1964 

5

I would like to thank all of those who have been involved with the 

development of the exhibition. Its success has been due to the 

dedication and professionalism of the team; the valued support 

and encouragement received by many; and the knowledge that 

what we were doing was important for Lawrence, the Sunshine 

Coast and Australia’s art heritage . 

The Gallery has been privileged to work with Bettina MacAulay 

as lead curator. Bettina’s professionalism, based on her 

significant experience has ensured that the high quality 

exhibition was achieved. Together with Desmond MacAulay, 

Bettina has written an insightful catalogue essay that will ensure 

it a lasting legacy. I thank them both and thank the Gordon 

Darling Foundation for their financial support for the catalogue. 

I also acknowledge the support of Dr Philip Bacon AM of Philip 

Bacon Galleries who has made a meaningful contribution to the 

exhibition. This is another valued example of his support for the 

public gallery sector. 

Appreciation goes to all the private and public collections that 

have loaned works. For many the two year tour is a long time to 

part with prized works. In particular I thank Brent Ogilvie who 

provided motivation and support from the ontset. 

I acknowledge Visions of Australia, an Australian Government 

program and the Queensland Government’s Arts Queensland for 

providing funding assistance for the exhibition tour. Presenting 

this exhibition to regional audiences is an important goal and I 

thank these funding bodies for making this possible. 

Most significantly I thank Lawrence Daws. Not only for providing 

access to his art and studio but also for providing calm, 

encouraging contact during the time. It has been a privilege to 

develop this exhibition with Lawrence and the Gallery team. 

John Waldron 

Gallery Director 

Cultural Heritage & Collections Manager 

Sunshine Coast Regional Council 

LAWRENCE DAWS 

EXHIBITING CAREER 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 

COLLECTIONS 

EXHIBITING CAREER 

Lawrence Daws’s first public exhibition was in 1954 with Group 4 

at the Victorian Artists’ Society Gallery, Melbourne. Group 4— 

Daws, Donald Laycock, Clifton Pugh, and John Howley—exhibited 

at Brisbane’s Johnstone Gallery in 1955 and again at the VAS in 

1956. Also in 1956 Daws’s work was included in the Pacific Loan 

Exhibition at San Francisco. In 1957 he was awarded an Italian 

Government Scholarship, in conjunction with Flotta Lauro and 

Lloyd Triestino shipping companies and the Dante Alighieri 

Society, to study in Italy. 

Early in his career Lawrence Daws’s work was selected by Bryan 

Robertson for the landmark 1961 Recent Australian Painting 

exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery. This was followed by 

inclusion in the Biennale des Jeunes in Paris. In 1962 Daws and 

two of his artist friends, Brett Whiteley and Charles Blackman, 

and fellow exhibitors in the Whitechapel, had their first London 

solo exhibitions at the Matthieson Gallery. Daws received an 

Honourable Mention at Brazil’s 1963 São Paulo Art Biennial 

(Bienal de São Paulo). 

Lawrence Daws’s work has been included in about forty group 

exhibitions at public and private galleries and more than seventy 

solo exhibitions in Australia and overseas. The Cage screenprint 

was in London’s Tate Gallery exhibition Images of Ourselves 

in 1980, and in 2002 Daws was invited to participate in the 

exhibition Shanghai in the Eyes of overseas artists in China. Major 

public gallery solo exhibitions include a 1966 Retrospective at 

the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; a Survey in 1984, at 

Bendigo Art Gallery, Latrobe University Gallery, and Golden Age 

Gallery, Ballarat, Victoria; Lawrence Daws, Broken Hill City Art 

Gallery (1985) and Lawrence Daws: Asylum in Eden. Thirty years in 

Queensland, Brisbane City Gallery (2000). 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 

Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane, 2008, 2005, 2002, 1999, 1996, 

1993, 1990, 1987, 1982, 1979, 1978, 1977, 1975 

Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney, 2008, 2006, 2000, 1997, 1994, 

1991, 1988, 1983, 1980 

Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide, Survey Exhibition, 2008 

Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne, 2007 

Nevill Keating Tollemache Ltd, London, 2003 

Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, 2001 

Sam Hill-Smith Gallery, Adelaide, 2000 

BMG Fine Art, Adelaide, 1992 

Bonython-Meadmore Galleries, Adelaide, 1988, 1986 

Bonython Gallery, Adelaide, 1982, 1978, 1969, 1967, 1964, 

1963, 1961 

Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney, 1977, 1973, 1970, 1065 

Skinner Galleries, Perth, 1973, 1967, 1965, 1962, 1961 

Realities Gallery, Melbourne, 1973 

Johnstone Gallery, Brisbane, 1972, 1970, 1969, 1968, 1966, 

1963, 1957 

South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne, 1969, 1966, 1964 

Matthiesen Gallery, London, 1962 

La Salita Gallery, Rome, 1959 

Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 1959 

Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 1959, 1956 

Royal Society of Arts Gallery, Adelaide, 1958, 1956 

COLLECTIONS 

The artist’s work is in the Collections of the National Gallery 

of Australia, all Australian State Galleries, most Australian 

University Collections, and in many regional gallery Collections 

in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, as well as a 

substantial number of corporate and private Collections. 

Major mural works are located in the Supreme Court, Brisbane, 

the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, and the 

Australian National University, Canberra. 

International public collections which hold his work include 

Auckland City Art Gallery, New Zealand, Tate Gallery, London, 

The Royal Society, London, The Victorian and Albert Museum, 

London, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Yale 

University, Connecticut, USA, Art Gallery of Ontario (Musée des 

Beaux-arts de L’Ontario), Canada, Shanghai Art Gallery, China, 

and the National Gallery of China, Beijing, China. 

Mandala V, 1962, oil on canvas, 137.0 x 137.0 cm 

Private Collection, courtesy Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane 

6 7

THE PROMISED 

LAND:THE ART OF 

LAWRENCE DAWS 

BETTINA MACAULAY 

AND DESMOND 

MACAULAY 

8 9 

The Plain of Shinar, 1982, oil on hardboard, 137.0 x 160.0 cm 

Collection: the artist

THE PRESENT EXHIBITION SURVEYS 

WORK FROM SIX DECADES, SELECTED 

FROM THE OEUVRE OF THE SENIOR 

AUSTRALIAN ARTIST AND PAINTER’S 

PAINTER, LAWRENCE DAWS. 1 

It has been suggested elsewhere that the portent and menace, 

conflict and potential catastrophe implicit in his early and midcareer 

works have been overtaken by a late serenity. Three 

months before the Millennium the artist spoke of having reached 

a calm plateau, and in mid-2002 of feeling a certain serenity at 

last’. 2 Has resolution been achieved? Or is the body of artistic 

work analogous to a geometric prism, in that both ends of 

the mature work have something in common? Daws himself 

describes the contrast of serene and disturbing imagery as an 

exploration of his own shifting emotions. 3 Has imagery in the 

artist’s late career been subsumed in visual schema reaching 

deeper introspective and contemplative levels? 

Dénouement and promised are words with special resonance 

here. Dénouement implies completion. It means an untying of 

the knot, a theatrical unravelling, the resolving of conflicts, and 

catharsis. Among other matters of substantial import, promised 

contains the opposing possibilities of denial and fulfilment, 

utopia versus dystopia. This essay attempts to discriminate 

among ideas about the trajectories of the artist’s early and late 

thought and influences, in part from the perspectives offered by 

a group of key works from the period 1978-1983. This group of 

works culminates in the large double panel painting Cain and the 

Promised Land II (1983), which inspired the exhibition title. 

Beginning in 1954, the exhibiting career of Lawrence Daws now 

extends over 56 years. 4 By an accident of timing, and with a 

Pythagorean nicety, the group of works from 1978-1983 falls at 

the centre of this long exhibiting history. These works are also very 

close to the mid-point of Lawrence Daws’s production of artworks. 

By 1983 the complexity, depth and deployment of the artist’s 

influences, themes, motifs, and mature use of symbol and 

metaphor were well established. Especially prominent were 

transformative ideas from Jung, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, 

and Hermann Hesse, and images derived from reflections 

on sacred geometry, architecture, Piero della Francesca, 

paleogeography and geological formations, mandalas, alchemy, 

Tarot, German Idealism, the Bible, the artist’s extensive travels 

and his reading of European writers. 

Sungazer III (detail), 1961, oil on canvas, 173.0 x 167.0 cm 

10 Collection: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased 1964 

11

Among Lawrence Daws’s juvenilia were watercolour landscapes, 

including some at Hahndorf (Hans Heysen was an early mentor), 

quarry scenes in conté, architectural studies in pencil, a pencil 

and watercolour study of a church, and watercolours of the 

Flinders Ranges. While in his early twenties, in 1948-49, Daws 

went to work for an oil company in New Guinea. During his 

sojourn there, he thought about giving up his studies in Adelaide 

in engineering and architecture in favour of art. 5 In New Guinea 

Daws was particularly open to Emil Ludwig’s Goethe: The History 

of a Man, which displayed ‘a slow-moving panorama of the 

landscapes of his soul’. 

Returning to Australia to study from 1950-53 at the National 

Gallery School in Melbourne, Daws began an enduring 

engagement with Piero della Francesca, whose work the artist 

continues to revere. On graduating from art school, Daws worked 

for a time with a Melbourne mining consultancy, firstly ‘drawing 

up maps, but later going out on short trips—sampling, mapping, 

surveying and laying out drill holes in the remote outback’. 6 

The sum of these experiences gave Daws a passion for the 

numinous in art and deep respect for the aesthetic and 

mathematical brilliance of Piero, whose perspectival example, 

particularly in the floor of The Flagellation of Christ c.1455-60 and 

his grid methods, is apparent in such works by Daws from 1954- 

56 as The Northern Star Mine, The Sad Lubra, The Unassimilated, 

and On the Tanami Plain (1954); The Purple Poppy Field, Oenpelli, 

Golgotha, The Crucifixion, and Night Landscape (1955); and 

Astrolabe II and Perspective Drawing (1956). Piero’s Flagellation 

is ‘the perfect union between architecture and painting. 

...[It] should be understood as a mysterious combination of 

mathematics and painting’. 7 In retrospect, given Daws’s areas 

of study, exposures to Outback and remote landscapes, interest 

in Renaissance art and the Italian ‘primitives’, and a growing 

absorption with inner worlds, it seems natural that he would 

gravitate to a reflective and insightful engagement with Piero. 

And that, in due course, he would employ an image scanner and 

computer as aids to composition. 

The Quattrocento painter’s ability to combine unusual lighting, 

viewpoints and colours in his works with a refined aesthetic 

and a spiritual quality and enigmatic stillness that is at times 

disturbing continues to fascinate Lawrence Daws and influence 

his work. Weston noted that ‘the landscape background of the 

sublime Nativity [Piero’s The Nativity 1470-75] was to profoundly 

influence the Owl Creek paintings’. 8 Piero’s ‘oneness’ appeals 

to Daws: ‘It’s quite a mystical experience when you feel at one 

with everything. ...I’d give my whole life to live in a Piero della 

Francesca painting’. 9 

Late in 1957, on arriving in Rome to take up an Italian 

Government Flotto Lauro-Dante Alighieri Scholarship, Daws 

was deeply disappointed. He experienced social decay, 

tiredness, corruption, and vague feelings of threat in nuclearage 

Europe, dashing expectations of stability and cohesion. 

Against this, Daws felt the spiritual elevation that resulted from 

viewing Piero’s works in Florence. Lawrence Daws developed 

a consuming interest in unity, in wholeness, but, as Emerson 

had pointed out a century earlier, ‘an inevitable dualism bisects 

nature, so that each thing is a half, and suggests another thing 

to make it whole’. 10 

In 1958, Daws united significant symbolic elements in Omphalos 

and Omphalos II. The title refers to a ‘sacred stone, of a rounded 

conical shape, in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, fabled to mark 

the central point of the earth’; and to soul and the world’s 

spiritual centre. Some ancient pottery, has a shield boss or 

omphalos sculpted with the head of Pan, the Greek rural deity 

also regarded as the author of panic, of ‘sudden and groundless 

terror seizing upon beasts or men’. 11 In the Omphalos works, 

Lawrence Daws indirectly unites ideas and emotions: of spirit, 

centeredness, mystery, mythology, terror, and menace. 

Following his 1962 Mandala works Daws incorporated mandalalike 

elements from his 1963 Tarot series in a number of paintings 

and studies in the later 1960s, together with other constituents 

which appear in Tarot card images. Tarot-derived components 

appear variously in the titles of works and progressively in motifs 

Cain Series, 1982, gouache and collage on foamcore, 10.0 x 22.0 cm 

Private Collection 

from the 1960s to the late 1990s, for example in allusions to 

Tarot Majors 1963 (referring to the artist’s Sketchbook designs 

for cards of the Tarot Major Arcana). In his 1963 oil The Hermit 

Daws reverses the mandala shape of his Sketchbook image of 

the Hermit, placing it above an egg (orphic or cosmic), indicative 

of Tarot meditation and Jungian wisdom; and hinting at its 

associations with snakes. 

In The Cage II 1970, Daws references his Star, Sun and 

Moon Tarot images, giving equal space to sky and ground in 

expressing the tensions arising from psychological conflict, 

dream, nightmare, energy, and regenerative possibilities. 

Daws’s earlier visit to Anakie, the gemfields west of Emerald 

in Queensland, produced a number of works, including the 

major Joe Shannahan paintings and the Anakie screenprints. 

Among the latter, the 1965 Anakie III is suggestive of harmony 

and integration, which also references his Tarot Star image, 

as does an unfinished 1965 drawing, Anakie. Stargazer 1986, 

recalling Tarot Star imagery, displays a certain restlessness and 

unpredictability. 

The artist’s early cerebral investigations were transformed, 

both systematically and intuitively, into symbolic visualisations 

involving fire and light, conflict and tenderness, threat, 

oppression, evil and belief, catastrophe, chaos and entrapment, 

juxtaposed with or counterpointed by dream, fantasy, emotion, 

and consolatory gestures. From the 1960s, these recurring 

patterns become increasingly complex—labyrinthine in the 

12 13

artist’s search for wholeness. The symbols in The Labyrinth I 

1970, from the mining disaster series, explore conscious and 

unconscious states, rational response, fear and the panic of 

miners trapped underground. Tiny fleeing figures, snaking fire 

and flame and cage-like shapes inhabit many later works in redeveloped 

forms. 

An inward turn and search for harmony evident early in Daws’s 

career were in close accord with Jung’s essential message: 

‘value your inner life’. 12 In Jung’s analytical psychology, 

Individuation is ‘a process of differentiation, having for its goal the 

development of the individual personality’. 13 Through this process, 

consciousness and the collective unconscious of the psyche are 

integrated and wholeness of the individual self is established. 14 

In The Unholy Bible: Blake, Jung and the Collective Unconscious, 

writing of the conflict between Reason and Imagination, the 

Jungian analyst June Singer described the Individuation Process 

as the essence of analysis. 15 Over-reliance on logic and science, 

Jung believed, should be tempered by properly attending to the 

unconscious and the spiritual realm. The process of psychic 

growth and maturation, of integration and Individuation, presents 

the individual with widely different situations and tasks according 

to the particular point reached in life. 16 

A flood of ideas in the mid-1960s led Daws to explore violence 

and war. The war combine drawings of 1963-64, which recall 

World War I imagery, demonstrate the metaphoric uses to which 

the artist put images collected from a great variety of sources. 

A complex symbolic language is also evident in the 1964-66 

Faces of Violence works. Further ideas were generated in the 

artist’s Joe Shannahan (1965-67) and other works dealing with 

mining incidents: 17 

The emphasis is on metaphor visual statements which hint 

none too subtly at themes of death and rebirth, journeying 

through inner turmoil towards some distant sanctuary. 

Fire themes recur and, from this series, develop some of the 

most poignant images of Daws’s entire oeuvre—the Dolley 

Pond series of 1968 and the Vulnerability Suite, and The Battle 

of Deliverance from the Mother paintings. 

From internal mêlêe to the wider battles of human tribes, 

Daws continued to wrestle with diverse obstacles to inner calm. 

Throughout the artist’s career, themes of conflict have been 

ubiquitous. Violence may be inspired by humans or by nature: by 

individuals and groups, and by the geological record of intense, 

unending upheavals. Obviously no direct connection or causal 

link may be drawn between Daws’s subjects and his symbolic 

exploitations of history and anecdote; but it is instructive that 

conflict is a theme with multiple variations in his oeuvre. To the 

idealist, said Emerson, events are seen as spirits. 18 

Concomitant with the subtleties of Daws’s artistic probing are 

reminders of the view of the French theorist and provocateur 

Jean Baudrillard, who wrote that ‘The world is not dialectical— 

it is sworn to extremes, not to equilibrium, sworn to radical 

antagonism, not to reconciliation or synthesis. This is also the 

principle of evil’. 19 Plausible alternative views, such as Jung’s 

about synthesis, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s about analysis 

enabling synthesis to become a habit of mind, have served to 

complicate the artist’s ideas about paths to tranquillity. 

Daws believes that the Cain and the Promised Land series had its 

genesis in Morocco, 20 where Paul Hare, a diplomat friend who had 

served as US Consul in Brisbane in 1975-76, was Director of the 

Peace Corps from 1977-79. 21 The artist arrived in Morocco during 

a particularly unsettled phase, probably contributing to his feeling 

that there was ‘a powerful feeling of death and violence about 

North Africa’. 22 By mid-1978, during his visit, the Algerian-backed 

Polisario Front began shooting down French and Moroccan 

military aircraft with Soviet missiles. 23 With Hare’s assistance, 

Daws spent some weeks viewing the architecture of Fez, Rabat, 

Marrakesh, and visiting old cities, the geologically unstable Atlas 

Mountains, small fortified towns, and the arid desert. 

Geological formations in Moroccan hill town 1978 resonate 

with the frequency of fractured landforms, testimony to the 

magnitude of the earth’s violent history, found in every period 

of Daws’s output. For millennia, mountains have been sacred 

in world cultures, particularly so in those Eastern philosophies 

which attracted Daws’s interest. The artist’s recollected and 

continuing fascination with geological trauma is evident in his 

Glasshouse Mountains paintings and studies, and in his current 

Artist’s Choice exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery. For this 

exhibition he selected works with geological significance by 

his early mentor Hans Heysen, and by Russell Drysdale, Lloyd 

Rees, Peter Booth, and Dorrit Black; and disparate works by 

‘fellow artists from art school days, and from artists I have met 

and admired during the following 60 years’. 24 Of Booth’s work 

Untitled 2002, Daws notes Booth deals with ‘a very stark world: 

one in which brothers kill brothers on a global scale. The land is 

denuded by pestilence and war’. 

The frequent coincidence or near-concurrence of Daws’s 

overseas travel with conflict is remarkable. Daws travelled by 

car to Germany and Russia in 1961, a year which saw the sealing 

of the East and West Berlin border, shutting off escape for 

thousands of refugees, and Russia’s explosion over the Arctic 

of the world’s largest ever nuclear device, provoking world 

condemnation. 25 As Neville Weston points out, art had become 

‘very big business in the US’ by the time of Daws’s 1962 visit to 

New York, with artworks ‘part of the frightening battle for world 

domination, with modern American paintings being shipped 

around the capitals of the world as part of the cold war’. 26 

In 1964, Daws travelled in Cambodia, where he was ‘appalled 

at the great sense of violence lying just below the surface’. 27 It 

was the year Prince Sihanouk threatened to recognise North 

Vietnam, and accepted Soviet and Chinese military assistance 

and materiel. Daws also visited Malaysia the same year at the 

mid-point of Konfrontasi, the undeclared war between Malaysia 

and Indonesia over Borneo. 

Daws travelled to India, Kashmir and Ladakh in 1985, when 

the full extent of the Bhopal tragedy of December 1984 was 

becoming recognised as the world’s worst industrial disaster, 

eventually killing tens of thousands. In 1985 the Indian 

Parliament passed the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities 

(Prevention) Act, addressing terrorist threats in the Punjab. 

The same year, the Dalai Lama inaugurated the Shanti Stupa 

in the mountainous region of Ladakh to promote world peace. 

Daws could reach no closer to Tibet than Ladakh, known as 

‘Little Tibet’. His visit to China in 1989 occurred not long before 

the Tiananmen Square massacre, which caused outrage around 

the world. Also in 1989 the Berlin Wall fell. 

Fire, conflict and cosmic violence have been literal 

accompaniments in the life of the artist, who continues in the 

21 st century to transmute them metaphorically. Jung wrote that 

fire engenders affects (that is, feeling and the dispositions of 

mood or desire) and emotions, producing combustion and light: 28 

[Emotion] ‘is the alchemical fire whose warmth brings 

everything into existence. ...[Emotion] is the moment when 

steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is 

the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from 

darkness to light or from inertia to movement without Emotion. 

The first 18 years of Lawrence Daws’s residence in Queensland, 

on Bribie Island and at Owl Creek, coincided with an era of 

corruption, denial of civil liberties and political violence, both 

overt and covert, which affected the lives of many citizens. 

Daws’s handling of experience resembles that of the 17 th century 

Anglo-Welsh poet Henry Vaughan, who in 1650 and 1655 published 

the two parts of Silex Scintillans, religious poems in which a 

dialectic of order and disorder confronts the tumults of the English 

Civil War background and the poet’s own turmoil. The arrangement 

of poems is marked by a Pythagorean order. The title refers to the 

‘flashing flint’ on the title page of Silex I. A thunder bolt strikes at a 

heart-shaped flint, from which tear-drops and flames are struck, 

and faces become visible within an opening in the heart’s wall. 

‘Certain divine rays break out of the soul in adversity, like sparks of 

fire out of the afflicted flint.’ 29 To Vaughan, who was much indebted 

to the ‘hermetic philosophers’ or Alchemists, the ‘transmutation’ 

of man came to mean spiritual regeneration, a fervently held belief 

on which Silex expounds. 30 

The Cain and the Promised Land series is closely associated with 

Lawrence Daws’s continuous search for inner composure which, 

14 15

Sketchbook (Cain and the Promised Land), c.1983, pencil and pen on paper 

Collection: the artist 

like Canaan, the land promised to Abraham and his posterity, will 

prove felicitous, generating happiness and complete satisfaction. 

A mountain (Pisgah) is important to the Biblical story of the 

Promised Land, being the site from which Moses views it. 

In the Cain series, Daws expresses another step on his 

journey to regeneration through a ‘recurring nightmare’, and 

a pessimistic view of human anxiety that ‘man cannot handle 

freedom; he wants to be caged, even in Eden’. 31 For Daws, ‘this 

experience of anxiety and threat is not negative. He believes it 

is necessary to live through anxious or dangerous situations 

to arrive at a state of peace—the process of suffering and 

insight being necessary in his view for the forging of a whole 

personality.’ 32 Daws dismisses the idea that he analyses things 

from a psychological perspective. 33 

Speaking in a video explication of Cain and the Promised Land II, 

Daws mentions rediscovering a drawer full of ink, charcoal and 

crayon studies of Moroccan camel drivers from 1978, and the 

chance finding of a reproduction of an odd painting by John Glover. 

The Glover set Daws thinking about rainbows and Eden: 34 

[Glover’s] use of rainbows, especially in the curious Mount 

Wellington with Orphan Asylum, seems more than an 

illustration of atmospheric effects when one considers the 

darkness of the foreground and the brilliance of the distance 

where the sun has cut through the clouds and the rainbow, 

God’s promise to man, divides the two. Perhaps it is not an 

exaggeration to consider an allegory. 

An asylum, as Weston points out, offers sanctuary but quickly 

becomes a prison, and Eden is easily lost. 35 The rainbows in 

Daws’s Asylum in Eden and especially in Asylum in Eden I (both 

1982), evoke traditional associations with imaginative bridges— 

to the heavens which may dispense hope and allay fears, but 

also sanction the whims of martial gods. The artist continued to 

employ the rainbow motif, variously in gold and black, referring 

to the unconscious, into the 1990s. 36 

In Asylum in Eden I a golden-yellow rainbow may symbolise 

yellowcake. It arcs energetically towards a tumulus-shaped 

mound topped by a red cage, a symbol of entrapment familiar in 

this and variant forms in earlier and later works. The tumulus 

and its purpose appear with greater clarity in Daws’s charcoal 

Study for Asylum I, where each arcade cuts into its sloping 

base and houses a tall, imprisoning gate in front of what Daws 

describes as ‘dungeons’. These are not evident in the large oil, 

where the tumulus shape and the three monoliths beyond are 

veiled atmospherically. This effect emphasises the rainbow’s 

implied promise and threat, introduces mystery, heightens a 

feeling of menace and alienation while softening any immediate 

confrontation, and adds an uncertain pathos to the foreground’s 

repetitive shapes reminiscent of ossified humans and serried 

geological ranks. Daws’s frequent use of atmospheric veiling is 

apparent in works from the 1960s to the present. 37 

Elements of the 1982 charcoal study One Cubic Kilometre were 

transferred into the two-panel 1982 oil and collage Cain and the 

Promised Land I. It is curious that the title One Cubic Kilometre 

so often in scientific literature refers (even if obliquely) to 

transformative terrestrial or cosmic events involving water 

in oceanic quantity, volcanism, or the study of particles from 

remote reaches of the Universe. Once revelatory in a Biblical 

sense, the connotations of Apocalypse have since World War 

1 increasingly denoted a disaster for human society or the 

environment, especially on a cataclysmic global scale. 38 As often 

in the work of Lawrence Daws, one is reminded here, and—for 

example—in Landlocked Iceberg 1980, of the work and interests 

of the 19 th century geologist Charles Lyell. 39 Figure and Iceberg 

1993 shows Daws’s persistent need to work through the depths 

of his chosen imagery. 

Daws’s 1978 and 1980 oils of symbolic mountains (the View of 

the Himalayas from the Glasshouse Mountains group) prefaced 

the Cain and the Promised Land series. It was, Nancy Borlase 

remarked, as if the higher his ambition and achievement 

reached, ‘the more rarefied the atmosphere and the more 

miraculous the view’. 40 The shapes of stubby foothills, despite 

their volume, evoke ideas of some central Australian landscapes, 

and equilateral triangles with relationships to infinity. Triangular 

shapes were also present in some of Daws’s earlier landscapes, 

and appear in experiments with abstract works in the early 

1990s. There is a theosophical argument here: 41 

To express the truth of the triangle, is to manifest the 

supreme energy of the universe, and that means the 

bringing of the line of life in ourselves into the line of truth in 

ourselves. This is the true work of existence. Love measures 

the poise, and we know when we have attained it. There is no 

room for finding fault, for recrimination or judgment of our 

neighbor, the battle is with the self. 

Such shapes, and the volcanic monoliths of the Owl Creek 

metaphoric landscapes, are redeveloped in Cain and the 

Promised Land 1982 and 1983 into vertiginous, heavily eroded 

mountainous forms, like cloaked multitudes towering ominously 

over escarpments and great plains. Imagery in these works 

conjoins many of the artist’s concerns. The Biblical story of Cain, 

and the consequent eternal killing of tribe by tribe, are united 

with many of the artist’s familiar symbols: marshalled crowds, 

trains (similar to the cane trains of the Glasshouses region), 

arched womb-like tunnels, red cages (representing a Fall from 

a state of grace to decadence), bars, fire and brimstone, the egg 

(signifying the Jewish race and connotations of continuity and 

sacrifice), the swirling mass of humanity at Mecca, and extraterrestrial 

eyes observing fallen mankind. 

Preceding the Cain paintings, The Plain of Shinar 1982 gave 

prominence to the egg, raised on a rhomboidal rock plateau on 

which a crowd of people swarms. Here, the Jewish connection 

relates to Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and the Euphrates 

rivers, where their numbers swelled after Rome finally put down 

Judean revolts in 70 CE. In legend the tower of Babel was erected 

16 17

on the plain, where a king of Shinar participated in one of the 

earliest recorded Middle Eastern wars. The region has long been 

prone to fable, even to supposed Sino-Mesopotamian links. 42 

The lower half of The Plain of Shinar was inspired by images taken 

by Roger Fenton, the celebrated Crimean War photographer who 

toured England in the late 1850s photographing stately homes, 

including Wollaton Hall and Hardwick Hall (both from the 1500s), 

Harewood House, and Mentmore. 43 

With a little diffidence, the artist identified the bare central hills 

of Cain and the Promised Land II 1983 with India. In February 

1983 hundreds were killed in pre-election violence in the northeastern 

Indian state of Assam, resulting from protests against 

voting rights for illegal immigrants with different belief systems. 

Many a deadly fracas arose, chiefly between Hindus and 

Bangladeshi Muslims. 44 Cultural clashes and terrorist attacks 

continue in Assam to the present day. Late in 1984, the year 

before Lawrence Daws visited India, the Indian Prime Minister, 

Indira Gandhi, was assassinated. 

Looking for a symbol of evil for Cain and the Promised Land II, 

Daws replaced a snake-like twisting form and laser light in Cain I 

with the Peruvian bat and a green laser line. He thought it may 

have been ‘quite a nice bat’, but it looked evil. As an instance 

of Jungian synchronicity, perhaps, recent environmental 

degradation of the Amazonian rainforest is causing Peruvian 

vampire bats to bite humans more frequently, resulting in fatal 

infections of paralytic rabies. 45 

A decade after Cain, Daws transformed the tumulus of Asylum 

in Eden I and the laser light of Cain and the Promised Land II. In 

Island III 1993, the tumulus becomes a Tuscan hill landscape 

marooned in a seascape, its major mass and mysteriously 

organised points of light dimly visible below the water. 

Vulnerability, sexuality and the futility of human endeavour seem 

to merge in a dream. 

Over the quarter of a century that has elapsed since the Cain 

series, Lawrence Daws has persistently revisited the symbols 

and metaphors appearing in earlier works, though often 

with modification. Harbour study 2 1993 appears to show an 

innocuous night scene, yet prominently includes the red and 

green lasers (now shipping lights) appearing in Asylum in Eden 

I and Island III. For followers of Daws’s career, such echoes are 

weighted with residual significance. 

The 1979 painting The Red Bridge, derived from the artist’s 

Moroccan visit, is ‘a quotation from the earlier red bridge of the 

Mining period; it uses exactly the same warren truss system. 

The mountains...are the same humping forms as in the Owl 

Creek works. ...They are dark and omnipresent, with a feeling 

of familiar threat, but there is a magnetism about them, and 

the river snakes with an inescapable symbolism’. 46 Another 

critic saw in the work ‘many free, calligraphic marks [bringing] 

to mind Fairweather’s way of letting brushed curves dance 

freely all over a landscape’. 47 Study, Red Bridge 1999, also with 

a warren truss bridge form, plays with Modernism and hints at 

Matisse and other French artists and—unlike the earlier works— 

is painted from a low rather than an aerial viewpoint, as were 

so many earlier works, such as Running Figures 1974. The 1999 

Study prompts a question: could that faint marking on the bridge 

be a train (with its awful implications), or simply its memory in 

the mind of the viewer? 

As with other metaphors, Daws invests mountains with 

contradictory signs capable of inconsistent interpretation as 

his thought moves to fresh problems. By turns his mountains 

have represented menace or tranquility, reiterating the classic 

Glasshouses combination of violence and peace—ancient 

eruptions and volcanic plugs contrasting an arcadian idyll of lush 

rainforest and sub-tropical vegetation. Daws has continued since 

1983 to paint mountains, recognising their spiritual serenity: 

‘Getting mountains going on canvas and in your head is deeply 

satisfying.’ 48 

But these later paintings also convey drama (as in Big Terrace 

1986, with its tortuous rock forms; Landscape 1986, depicting an 

escarped ridge flanked by stone pillars; Threatened Landscape 

1987, reincorporating flaming fireballs in the sky and a red cage; 

the abstract Quarry Road 1988, and Quarry 1991; studies for The 

Black Lagoon 1990; Gayndah Burning 1992; and the exquisitely 

composed Summer 1993, showing a Glasshouses landscape 

with Mt Tibrogargan). The cool palette of the bare, folded 

mountainous shapes confronting the figure in Eerie Mountain 

1987 and the viewer in The Recluse 1996 offer counterpoints to 

the artist’s icebergs. The Italian girl 1996 unites aspects of Piero’s 

countryside, the Glasshouse Mountains and Moroccan landscape. 

The often-remarked relationships between Chinese landscape 

painting and the landscapes of Lawrence Daws are apparent in 

Golden summer 2007, in which a flowering poinciana tree in the 

foreground leads to a misty background vision of Tibrogargan 

and other mountains. In 1985 in a sketchbook, Daws painted 

mountains domesticated at Sellicks Beach, near Port Willunga, 

where the Mount Lofty Ranges fall to the sea. In his late 

landscapes, Daws may combine an intensely dark sky with a 

lighter middle or foreground, as in Seagull I 2005 and Fleurieu 

Peninsula II 2007. 49 Both paintings depict denuded and deeply 

fissured landscapes, and in his Fleurieu works (1988, 1990 and 

2004-2008), Daws paints quarries, eroded landforms, triangular 

and conical motifs, snatches of Piero, hills swelling almost 

organically, a littoral forest, empty downs, beaches with people 

not running, and sea scenes with bluffs. A Port Willunga painting 

with a female figure repeats the corrugated track and grid of 

rectangular drafting lines of the Cain works. 

Soaring above landscapes, the bird in the Omen bird series which 

had its origin in 1971 was actually a seagull, but painted a fearinducing 

black. It is present in the green and red landscapes 

from 1990, and Seagull I 2005 finally removes the omen bird 

from its incognito state. Beginning in the mid-1980s, and most 

prolific from 1985-87, the local subjects of the Domestic Violence 

series, although varying, are linked conceptually. Imagery in the 

series moves diversely from ‘rectangular forms...frames within 

frames and between an interior and an exterior world’. Domestic 

Violence II 1986 proposes ‘a notion of violence in which violence 

is inflicted by and on oneself’. 50 

Perspective, geometry and the example of Piero are evident 

influences in Daws’s Stations of the Cross 1989, undertaken for St 

Stephen’s Cathedral in Brisbane. In planning the Stations of the 

Cross paintings, Daws undertook a meticulous study of the life 

and geography of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. 

In 1992 Daws produced four works showing the English poet, 

artist and mystic William Blake and his wife Catherine nude, at 

tea with the fires of imagination burning. A well-known literary 

anecdote has Blake and his wife sitting unclothed in their garden 

and reciting Milton’s Paradise Lost, with William calling out to 

an unsuspecting visitor ‘Come in! It’s only Adam and Eve, you 

know!’ Lawrence Daws also completed a study of Adam and Eve 

in 1992. Daws’s Blakean interest finds an apposite vehicle in 

the epic Milton a Poem (c.1804-1810/11), in which Blake follows 

Milton in a ‘journey of self-discovery and renewal’, setting out 

to ‘reconfigure the relationship between a living poet and a 

great predecessor. ...Milton unites with his feminine aspect’, in 

preparation for the Apocalyptic ‘overcoming of divisions between 

the sexes...and between human consciousness and its alienated 

projections into the external world’. 51 

The Night Sea Journey series 1993-94 and related works dealing 

with winter and dark sea 1991-93 deal with dark nights of the 

soul which, in Jungian terms, may also offer redemption. Inter 

alia these works generate feelings of loneliness, entrapment 

and despair heightened by a dark watery expanse and the ocean 

liner’s closed hatch, but leavened by the signs of potential 

rescue—lifebuoys and lifeboat. 52 

By 1994 Daws felt he was ‘beginning to approach the stillness 

and simplicity he [had] been searching for in his life and work’. 

The artist was, however, aware of a caveat: 53 

Yet there is still a hint of disturbance and menace in Daws’s 

pictures, seen in the naked female figures (sometimes 

in hostile environments) and the blazes of fire in the sky. 

The artist has also become aware of some disturbing 

images—snake-like tubes and dark smoke—turning up in his 

sketchbook. It may be a sign of what’s to come, he says. 

18 19

Speaking in 1996, Daws said his real journey has always been an 

inner voyage: 54 

[There] are still a few things I need to unravel. ... I’d like to 

get to a certain stillness, a balance in all directions. I’d like 

to paint less but get more into each one—that sense of della 

Francesca’s divinely inspired world. Actually, I wouldn’t mind 

coming out into the sun, not having stuff coming up from the 

dark inners demanding attention. 

Lawrence Daws’s more recent output veers from sunnier works 

to solid flashes of psychic battle: 55 

[In Night Pool 2002]...the dark shadowy atmosphere...coloured 

details glow with heightened intensity. ...In some ways the 

[recent] more boldly brushed paintings...are dependent on the 

tonal impressionism that he learned as a student, bringing 

his work full circle. For Daws, this return to his earliest 

beginnings is a way of deliberately resisting the prospect of a 

tranquillised, lotus-depicting late phase. 

In The Cage 2005, a digital mixed media print, people are 

spotlit as they enter one foreground cage, while hordes enter 

other cages, receding into distant darkness. Sunday Train 

and Charmer, both 2005, re-present fire; and the ambiguous 

vulnerability and power of the nude and the serpent. Three 2007 

works from Daws’s exhibition in 2008 at Greenhill Galleries, 

Adelaide (Fleurieu Peninsula IV, Gull Rock and Chalk Bluff 

Mountain) show the artist reviving and re-combining metaphors, 

and intensifying symbolic connotations. The Trojan Horse 2008 

appears to be modelled on a schemata involving an allegory 

of love, war and deceit. The horse’s dark presence on a lighter 

ground in the upper half of the painting stands above shadowed 

buildings with arcaded shapes, in front of which a crowd of 

humans is, for the most part, not running, but waiting. Barlike 

vertical lines, orange-red on the horse, and sombre toned 

below, hide the prospect of entrapment. The mood seems 

both threatening and regretful, as if looking at questions of 

inevitability and possibility. 

Lawrence Daws literally and metaphorically took the Grand Tour 

in his life and oeuvre. A peripatetic existence was transformed, 

becoming a pilgrimage. As with a traditional religious 

pilgrimage, the artist’s journey has been of considerable 

duration, made to a sacred place as an act of devotion. What 

follows could be thought of as a coda, a ‘passage of more or 

less independent character introduced after the completion of 

the essential parts of a movement, so as to form a more definite 

and satisfactory conclusion. The coda concludes the piece with 

spirit and energy’. 56 How that coda is to fulfill its review function 

and create its sense of balance is another artistic dilemma with 

which Lawrence Daws has to wrestle. 

Endnotes: 

1 Louise Martin-Chew, in ‘Consummate and compelling discourses’, The Australian, 

3 September 1999, observed of Daws that given ‘his consistency of vision and as a 

contemporary of John Olsen and other elder statesmen of Australian art, it is surprising 

that Daws’s work has not had greater public recognition. An overview is needed’. 

2 Phil Brown, ‘Soul searching’, Brisbane News, 21-27 August 2002, p. 31. 

3 Sue Smith quoting Lawrence Daws, ‘Artist pays homage to forces of cosmos’, 

The Courier-Mail, 19 August 1993. 

4 Daws exhibited in the ‘Group Four’ Victorian Artists’ Society exhibition in 1954, with 

Clifton Pugh, Don Laycock, and John Howley. His most recent exhibitions as the present 

Catalogue went to press were ‘Lawrence Daws at 80’, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane, 

5-30 August 2008; and ‘Paintings Drawings and Prints 1946-2007’ at Greenhill Galleries, 

Adelaide, from 24 February-18 March 2008, during the Adelaide Festival, when some 

works were also shown at the Adelaide Hilton. 

5 Daws’s studies in architecture and engineering required him to attend geology field trips. 

6 Neville Weston, Lawrence Daws (Sydney and Wellington: AH & AW Reed, 1982), p. 27. 

7 Michele Emmer, quoting Roberto Longhi, in a review of Piero della Francesca: 

A Mathematician’s Art (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2005), in Notices of the American 

Mathematical Society, 54: 3 (2007), p. 374. For discussions of Piero’s mathematics and 

his spiritual world, see Margaret Daly Davis, ‘Piero’s Treatises: The Mathematics of 

Form’; JV Field, ‘Piero della Francesca’s Mathematics’; and Timothy Verdon, 

‘The Spiritual World of Piero’s Art’, in The Cambridge Companion to Piero della 

Francesca, ed. Jeryldene M. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 

8 Weston, op. cit., p. 23. 

9 Matthew Westwood, ‘The mystical power of oneness’, The Australian, 

4 November 1994, p. 9. 

10 Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Compensation’, in Essays, First Series, Vol. II, Emerson’s 

Complete Writings (New York: WMH Wise & Co., 1926), p. 97. ‘Compensation’ was first 

published in 1841. 

11 ‘Omphalos’. ‘Pan, n.2’, Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition on CD-ROM Version 4.0, 

2009. Subsequent references to this Dictionary are to the OED. 

12 Peter Mares, interview with Sonu Shamdasani, Philemon Professor of Jung history at 

the Welcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College in London, 

and editor, and translator with Mark Kyburtz and John Peck, ‘Carl Jung’s Red Book’, 

The Book Show, ABC Radio National, 14 October 2009. The Red Book (Liber Novus), 

described when in manuscript as ‘the most influential unpublished work in the history 

of psychology’, was published in October 2009 by WW Norton & Co. Sara Corbett’s long 

interview with Shamdasani, ‘The Holy Grail of the Unconscious’, appeared in The New 

York Times on 20 September 2009. 

13 CG Jung, XI ‘Definitions’, in Psychological Types, transl. HG Baynes, rev. RFC Hull, 

‘The Collected Works of C.G. Jung’. Bollingen Series (Princeton: Princeton University 

Press, 1976), p. 448. 

14 ‘Individuation’, 1.b., OED. 

15 See also June Singer, Boundaries of the Soul: The Practice of Jung’s Psychology 

(New York: Anchor/ Doubleday, 1972, rev. 1994), pp. 12-14; 133-157. 

16 G. Adler Stud. Analytical Psychol. i. 3, 1948, quoted in OED, ibid. David Cox, In Jung 

and St. Paul: A study of the doctrine of justification by faith and its relation to the concept 

of individuation (New York: Association Press, 1959), p. 341, differentiated Jungian 

psychology from Christian belief by pointing out that justification by Faith precedes all 

advance towards a full life, whereas Individuation crowns an advance which has already 

taken place. 


18 Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘The Transcendentalist’, in Nature Addresses and Lectures, 

Vol. I, Emerson’s Complete Writings (New York: WMH Wise & Co., 1926), p. 330. 

19 Jean Baudrillard, ‘Ecstasy and Inertia’ in Fatal Strategies (New York: Semiotext(e)/ 

Pluto, 1990). 

20 Lawrence Daws speaking in the Cain and the Promised Land II video, 

The Eye of the Artist. 

21 Daws was a Trustee of the Queensland Art Gallery from 1976-90. Paul Hare was later 

US Ambassador to Zambia (1985-88) and President Bill Clinton’s special representative 

for the Angolan peace process (1993-98). 

22 Weston, op. cit., p. 131 ff. 

23 In 1979 Morocco formally annexed part of the Western Sahara which had been occupied 

by Mauritania from 1976, when Spain had ceded its entire Western Sahara overseas 

province to Morocco and Mauritania. From August 1979, Morocco controlled the 

northern two-thirds of Western Sahara. From 1978-87, Polisario missiles downed 24 

French and Moroccan military aircraft. Despite a ceasefire in 1991, the Polisario Front’s 

Western Sahara territorial claims remain unresolved. See: Raul Colon, ‘The Air War 

over Morocco’, http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation 20history/jet 20age/morocco. 

htm; and The Britannica Archive, http://www.britannica.com. 

24 Artist’s Choice: Lawrence Daws, the inaugural exhibition of a series, Queensland Art 

Gallery, 17 October 2009 – 7 March 2010. 

25 See http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/13/newsid_ 

3054000/3054060.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/30/ 

newsid_3666000/3666785.stm. 

26 Weston, op. cit., pp. 55-56. 

27 Ibid., p. 71. 

28 Carl Jung, ‘Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype’, Collected Works, vol. 9, 

part I, par.179, quoted in Candice Bruce, Lawrence Daws: Asylum in Eden (St Lucia: 

University of Queensland Art Museum, 2000), p. 28. 

29 Henry Vaughan, Silex Scintillans, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations, Silex 1 1650, Silex 

II, 1655, in Henry Vaughan: The Complete Poems, ed. Alan Rudrum (New Haven and London: 

Yale Univ. Press, 1976), p. 526, where Rudrum’s Notes also quote Louis Martz (1963). 

30 Richard H. Walters, ‘Henry Vaughan and the Alchemists’, The Review of English Studies, 

1947, XXIII (90):107-122. Vaughan was a follower of the English poet and divine, George 

Herbert. Vaughan’s Silex includes an important poem titled ‘Regeneration’. 

31 Quoted by Peter Ward in ‘Daws gives birth to a cosmic umbilical cord’, The Australian, 

1 October 1982. Ward noted that Daws’s Cain and the Promised Land exhibition at 

Adelaide’s Bonython Gallery comprised nine paintings, seven drawings, six collages 

and two screenprints. 

32 Sue Smith, ‘Landscape of the psyche’, The Courier-Mail, 3 August 1996, W12. 

33 Andrea Pooley, ‘Daws: the artist and his world’, The Courier-Mail, 4 August 1990, 

Arts p. 21. 

34 John McPhee, The Art of John Glover (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1980), p. 42. The National 

Gallery of Victoria acquired Glover’s painting Mount Wellington with the Orphan Asylum 

– Van Diemen’s Land, 1837, an oil on canvas measuring 76.5 x 114.2 cm, in 1981 with 

funds provided by the Joe White Foundation. 


36 For example in Black Rainbow 1991, Landscape and Rainbow 1991 and Pumicestone 

Passage 1991. 

37 For example, in Red landscape 1962, Brighton Pier 1973, The Sculler 1973, Range 

landscape 1976, View of the Himalayas from the Glasshouse Mountains, 1978, Atlas 

Mountains 1979, Owl Creek III 1980, Figure on the Terrace 1980, Asylum in Eden V 1982, 

Beerwah landscape 1982, Fleurieu Peninsula 1983, Still life 1986, Tibrogargan 1986, 

Beerwah III 1988, Fleurieu Peninsula 1988, Hills of my childhood 1990, Omen bird 1990, 

The Italian Girl IV 1990, Coonawrin and lilies 1993, Summer landscape 1994, Beerwah 

1994, Tibrogargan landscape 1995, Squeaker’s farm 1996, Beerwah landscape 1996, 

and Pasquale’s Farm 1998. 

38 ‘Draft partial entry March 2008’, OED. 

39 See Charles Lyell’s The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), which brought 

together his views on Quaternary Period geology, glaciers and glaciation, evolution, and 

the age of the human race. Lyell was Charles Darwin’s mentor and friend. 

40 Nancy Borlase, ‘Commanding a new threshold’, The Week in Art, Sydney Morning 

Herald, 19 July 1980, Arts 19. 

41 Lydia Bell, ‘The Symbolism of the Equilateral Triangle’, The Path, No. 5, August 1887. 

42 Rev. Thomas MacClatchie, sent by the Church Missionary Society as a missionary to 

the Chinese, published The Chinese on the plain of Shinar, or a connection established 

between the Chinese and all other nations through their theology in London in 1856. 

43 See National Gallery of Art, Washington, All the Mighty World: The Photographs 

of Roger Fenton 1852-1860 (Stately Homes and Landscapes, 1858–1860) exhibition 

17 Oct 2004–2 January 2005. 

44 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/20/newsid_4269000/ 

4269719.stm 

45 Raoul Pop, 31 July 2009. http://www.raoulpop.com/2009/07/31/peruvian-vampire-batscarry-deadly-strain-of-rabies/. 


47 Gertrude Langer, ‘With a Moroccan theme’, The Courier-Mail, 1979. 

48 Sandra McLean, ‘Artist drawn to Shanghai’, The Courier-Mail, 15 August 2002, p. 17. 

49 Golden summer 2007 and Fleurieu Peninsula II 2007 are illustrated on pp. 12-13 

in ‘Lawrence Daws at 80’ (Brisbane: Philip Bacon Galleries, 2008). 

50 Rodney James, ‘Lawrence Daws, Domestic Violence II, 1986’, World of Antiques and Art, 

Issue 73, August 2007-February 2008, p. 175. 

51 The William Blake Archive, sponsored by the US Library of Congress and supported by 

the Carolina Digital Library and Archives at the University of North Carolina at Chapel 

Hill. See also William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books, introd. by David Bindman 

(London: Thames & Hudson in association with The William Blake Trust, 2000), p. 246 ff. 

52 Candice Bruce, Lawrence Daws: Asylum in Eden, op. cit., pp. 76 and 83. 

53 Westwood, op. cit. 

54 Murray Waldren, ‘The Daws of Perception’, The Australian Magazine, 

3-4 August 1996, p. 29. 

55 Tim Morrell, ‘Lawrence Daws: from Mandala to Full Circle’, Artlink, vol. 22 #4, p. 59. 

56 ‘Coda’, 1. Mus.; 1815 Europ. Mag. LXVIII. 154 OED. 

20 21

WORKS IN EXHIBITION 

Self Portrait, 1951, oil on hardboard 23.0 x 20.0 cm, Collection: the artist 

Studio Interior (Hawthorn studio), 1951, oil on hardboard, 35.6 x 45.6 cm, 


Study, St Patrick’s Cathedral (Melbourne), 1951, pencil on paper, 

13.0 x 18.0 cm, Collection: the artist 

Mining Town Funeral (Tennant Creek), 1954, gouache on paper, 

24.0 x 36.0 cm, Private Collection 

The Brick Kiln, 1953-54, oil on hardboard, 69.8 x 90.0 cm, 

Collection: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery 

Crucifixion, 1955, oil on composition board, 122.0 x 167.5 cm, 

Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. 

Purchased 1970 

The Purple Poppy Field, 1955, oil on hardboard, 100.2 x 137.8 cm, 


Sketch for Hostile Landscape, 1957, chalk on paper, 22.0 x 28.0 cm, 


Sungazer III, 1961, oil on canvas, 173.0 x 167.0 cm, Collection: National 

Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Allan R. Henderson Bequest 1963 

Mandala III, 1962, oil on canvas, 136.8 x 137.1 cm, Collection: National 

Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased 1964 

Mandala V, 1962, oil on canvas 137.0 x 137.0 cm, Private Collection, 

courtesy Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane 

Tarot Majors, 1963, mixed media on paper (sheet from Sketchbook), 


Anakie IV, 1965, proof (First of the Anakie series, also known as Incident 

at Anakie IV), screenprint on paper, 45.0 x 45.0 cm, Private Collection 

The Dark Rider, 1966, mixed media on hardboard, 


The Return of Joe Shannahan, 1966, oil and collage on hardboard, 


The 1913 Mining Disaster, 1970, oil on hardboard, 91.0 x 107.0 cm, 


Study for Head of Fairweather, 1972, pencil on paper, 32.0 x 26.0 cm, 


Ian Fairweather, 1972, 2nd state, drypoint on paper, 8.4 x 8.7 cm plate, 


The Cage, 1972, 33/75, screenprint on paper, 60.3 x 60.7 cm, 

Collection: Griffith University 

Net and Running Figures, 1973, 1/40, etching, printed in black ink from 

one plate, 12.5 x 15.0 cm, Collection: National Gallery of Australia, 

Canberra. Gift of the artist 2003 

Sketch: Burning Train and Flesh Cube, 1973, gouache and collage 

on paper, 38.0 x 35.0 cm, Collection: Edit Daws 

Brett Whiteley at Owl Creek, 1976, pencil on paper, 50.0 x 50.0 cm, 


Self Portrait, 1976, oil on hardboard, 33.0 x 30.0 cm, 


Edit Sewing, 1977, ink on paper, 76.0 x 102.0 cm, Collection: Edit Daws 

Nevil Matthews, 1977, 8/40, etching on paper, 12.0 x 12.0 cm plate, 


The Return of R.K. to Sydney After a Long Absence, 1977, 20/40, 

etching and aquatint on paper, 37.5 x 39.0 cm, Collection: Griffith 

University. Gift of the artist 

View of the Himalayas from the Glasshouse Mountains, 1978, etching and 

aquatint on two sheets of paper, diptych 100.5 x 100.0 cm—each panel 

100.5 x 50.0 cm, Collection: Griffith University. Gift of the artist 

Study, Atlas Mountains, 1979, oil on cardboard 24.0 x 27.0 cm, 


Owl Creek III, 1980, oil on composition board, 137.0 x 160.2 cm, 

Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. Purchased 1980 

Owl Creek Landscape, Glasshouse Mountains, 1979, oil on canvas, 

100.2 x 120.4 cm, Collection: Ipswich Art Gallery. Gift of a private donor 

through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program 2008 

Study II for Portrait of John Toakley, 1981, oil on hardboard, 


Asylum in Eden V, 1982, oil on hardboard, 102.0 x 122.0 cm, 


Cain Series, 1982, gouache and collage on foamcore, 10.0 x 22.0 cm, 


The Plain of Shinar, 1982, oil on hardboard, 137.0 x 160.0 cm, 


The Fall, 1982, gouache and collage on hardboard, 30.0 x 20.0 cm, 


The Fall, 1983, oil and collage on hardboard, 152.0 x 81.0 cm, 


Sketchbook (Cain and the Promised Land), c.1983, pencil and pen on 

paper, Collection: the artist 

Cain and the Promised Land II, 1983, mixed media and collage and oil on 

canvas, diptych 170.0 x 148.5 cm & 170.0 x 148.0 cm (170.0 x 296.5 cm 

overall), Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. Gift of the artist through the 

Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2009 

Study I, Queensland Performing Arts Centre Mural, 1984, gouache and 

collage on paper 35.0 x 70.0 cm, Collection: the artist 

Study IV, Queensland Performing Arts Centre Mural, 1984, gouache and 

collage on paper, 36.0 x 71.0 cm, Collection: the artist 

Brett Whiteley VI, 1986, 1/30, computer graphic on paper, 40.0 x 40.0 cm, 


Brett Whiteley VII, 1986, 1/30, computer graphic on paper, 40.0 x 40.0 cm, 


Donald Friend Study II, 1986, ink on paper 51.0 x 37.0 cm, 


Mondrian’s Studio circa 1907, 1986, 1/30, computer graphic on paper 


The Purple Pool, 1986, 1/30, computer graphic on paper, 


Self Portrait Study, 1986, oil on hardboard, 51.0 x 46.0 cm, 


Eerie Mountain, 1987, oil on canvas, 173.0 x 173.0 cm, 

Collection: Brent A. Ogilvie 

Stations of the Cross (St Stephen’s Cathedral, Brisbane) Study VI, 1989, 

mixed media on paper, 41.0 x 41.0 cm, Collection: the artist 

Stations of the Cross (St Stephen’s Cathedral, Brisbane) Study VII, 1989, 

ink on paper, 41.0 x 41.0 cm, Collection: the artist 

Hills of My Childhood, 1990, 1/30, computer graphic on paper, 


Poinciana, 1990, mixed media on paper mounted on hardboard, 

115.0 x 137.0 cm, Collection: Caloundra Regional Art Gallery 

Quarry, 1991, mixed media on paper, 25.0 x 28.0 cm, 

Collection: Joseph Daws 

Summer, 1993, oil on canvas, 137.0 x 157.0 cm, 


Night Sea Journey, 1994, oil on canvas, 137.0 x 158.0 cm, 

Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Gift of Margaret Olley 1995 

Summer Landscape, 1994, oil on canvas, 122.0 x 137.0 cm, Collection: 

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Gift of Margaret Olley 1995 

Seagull I, 2005, oil on canvas, 102.0 x 122.0 cm, Collection: Tweed River 

Art Gallery, Murwillumbah. Gift of Margaret Olley AC 2006 

The Cage, 2005, 11/40, digital mixed media print, 102.0 x 136.0 cm, 

Collection: Tweed River Art Gallery, Murwillumbah. Gift of Margaret 

Olley AC 2006 

Study Fleurieu Peninsula III, 2006, oil on hardboard, 56.0 x 61.0 cm, 


Arthur BOYD, Portrait of Lawrence Daws, 1978, 15/40, drypoint on paper 

50.5 x 40.0 cm plate, Collection: Yvonne Mills-Stanley 

Lawrence DAWS and Ian A. STOCKS, Eye of the Artist, c.2001, colour 

video of Lawrence Daws discussing his painting Cain and the Promised 

Land. Project funded by QPIX with assistance from the Arts Queensland 

Digital Media Program and the Australia Council for the Arts New 

Media Arts Fund, Collection: the artist 

22 23

Self Portrait, 1951, oil on hardboard, 23.0 x 20.0 cm 


The Brick Kiln, 1953-54, oil on hardboard, 69.8 x 90.0 cm 


Crucifixion, 1955, oil on composition board, 122.0 x 167.5 cm 

Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Purchased 1970 

24 25

The Purple Poppy Field, 1955, oil on hardboard, 100.2 x 137.8 cm 


Right: Anakie IV, 1965, proof (first of the Anakie series, also known as Incident at Anakie IV), screenprint on paper, 45.0 x 45.0 cm 


26 27

The 1913 Mining Disaster, 1970, oil on hardboard, 91.0 x 107.0 cm 


Left: The Dark Rider, 1966, mixed media on hardboard, 30.0 x 35.0 cm 


28 29

Sketch: Burning Train and Flesh Cube, 1973, gouache and collage on paper, 38.0 x 35.0 cm 

Collection: Edit Daws 

The Cage, 1972, 33/75, screenprint on paper, 60.3 x 60.7 cm 

Collection: Griffith University 

30 31

Study for Head of Fairweather, 1972, pencil on paper, 32.0 x 26.0 cm 


Ian Fairweather, 1972, 2 nd state, drypoint on paper, 8.4 x 8.7 cm plate 


Brett Whiteley at Owl Creek, 1976, pencil on paper, 50.0 x 50.0 cm 


32 33

The Return of R.K. to Sydney After a Long Absence, 1977, 20/40, etching and aquatint on paper, 37.5 x 39.0 cm 

Collection: Griffith University. Gift of the artist 

The Return of Joe Shannahan, 1966, oil and collage on hardboard, 30.0 x 35.0 cm 


34 35

Owl Creek III, 1980, oil on composition board, 137.0 x 160.2 cm 

Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. Purchased 1980 

Left: View of the Himalayas from the Glasshouse Mountains, 1978, etching and aquatint 

on two sheets of paper, diptych 100.5 x 100.0 cm – each panel 100.5 x 50.0 cm. 

36 Collection: Griffith University. Gift of the artist 

37

Owl Creek Landscape, Glasshouse Mountains, 1979, oil on canvas, 100.2 x 120.4 cm 

Collection: Ipswich Art Gallery. Gift of a private donor through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program 2008 

Right: The Fall, 1982, gouache and collage on hardboard, 30.0 x 20.0 cm, Private Collection 

38 39

The Fall, 1983, oil and collage 

on hardboard, 152.0 x 81.0 cm 


Asylum in Eden V, 1982, oil on hardboard, 102.0 x 122.0 cm 


40 41

Top: Study I, Queensland Performing 

Arts Centre Mural, 1984, gouache and 

collage on paper, 35.0 x 70.0 cm 


Left: Stations of the Cross (St Stephen’s 

Cathedral, Brisbane) Study VI, 1989, 

mixed media on paper, 41.0 x 41.0 cm 


Mondrian’s Studio circa 1907, 1986, 1/30, computer graphic on paper, 81.0 x 102.0 cm 


42 43

Self Portrait, 1976, oil on hardboard, 33.0 x 30.0 cm 


Arthur BOYD 1920-1999 

Portrait of Lawrence Daws, 1978, 15/40, drypoint on paper 50.5 x 40.0 cm plate 

Collection: Yvonne Mills-Stanley. Arthur Boyd’s work reproduced with the permission 

of Bundanon Trust 

Donald Friend Study II, 

1986, ink on paper, 51.0 x 37.0 cm 

44 Collection: the artist 

45

Edit Sewing, 1977, ink on paper, 76.0 x 102.0 cm 

Collection: Edit Daws 

Right: The Purple Pool, 1986, 1/30, computer graphic on paper, 80.0 x 80.0 cm 


46 47

Brett Whiteley VI, 1986, 1/30, computer graphic on paper, 40.0 x 40.0 cm 


Brett Whiteley VII, 1986, 1/30, computer graphic on paper, 40.0 x 40.0 cm 


48 49

Top: Hills of My Childhood, 1990, 1/30, 

computer graphic on paper, 66.0 x 77.0 cm 


Left: Net and Running Figures, 1973, 1/40, 

etching, printed in black ink from one 

plate, 12.5 x 15.0 cm 

Collection: National Gallery of Australia, 

Canberra. Gift of the artist 2003 

Poinciana, 1990, mixed media on paper mounted on hardboard, 115.0 x 137.0 cm 

Collection: Caloundra Regional Art Gallery 

50 51

Top: Quarry, 1991, mixed media 

on paper, 25.0 x 28.0 cm 

Collection: Joseph Daws 

Left: Study, Atlas Mountains, 1979, 

oil on cardboard, 24.0 x 27.0 cm 


Summer, 1993, oil on canvas, 137.0 x 157.0 cm 


52 53

Night Sea Journey, 1994, oil on canvas, 137.0 x 158.0 cm 

Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales. Gift of Margaret Olley 1995 

Summer Landscape, 1994, oil on canvas, 122.0 x 137.0 cm 

Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales. Gift of Margaret Olley 1995. Photograph: Ray Woodbury 

54 55

The Cage, 2005, 11/40, digital mixed media print, 102.0 x 136.0 cm 

Collection: Tweed River Art Gallery, Murwillumbah. Gift of Margaret Olley AC 2006 

Seagull I, 2005, oil on canvas, 102.0 x 122.0 cm 

Collection: Tweed River Art Gallery, Murwillumbah. Gift of Margaret Olley AC 2006 

56 57

BIOGRAPHIES 

BETTINA MACAULAY 

Bettina MacAulay, lead curator of The Promised Land: The Art 

of Lawrence Daws (2010), is also lead curator of Twelve Degrees 

of Latitude: Regional Gallery and University Art Collections in 

Queensland (2009) and lead curator and catalogue co-author of 

Singing in the Heart: Music and the Art of Rupert Bunny (2007). 

Before 1994 she held senior curatorial positions responsible for 

Australian Art, and earlier in British and European Art, at the 

Queensland Art Gallery, where she was also part of the team 

responsible for formulating the policy and staffing guidelines 

that helped to shape the Gallery’s development. Since joining 

the MacAulay Partners consultancy in the mid-1990s, Bettina 

has undertaken commissions for State, Federal, capital city, 

university, and regional galleries, museums and libraries, and 

for corporate, legal and private collectors throughout Australia. 

Bettina MacAulay has curated and coordinated hundreds of 

exhibitions. She has researched and authored many articles, art 

exhibition catalogues and books on the visual arts and individual 

artists, and her regional and university gallery projects throughout 

Queensland have given her an extensive knowledge of these 

Collections. Bettina’s studies at the University of Queensland, 

where she graduated in Classics and Art History, include Classical 

art, Asian and western art, Classical languages, and Japanese 

language and culture. She is a member of Museums Australia 

and the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand. 

DESMOND MACAULAY 

Desmond MacAulay, co-author of the exhibition catalogue 

The Promised Land: The Art of Lawrence Daws (2010) with lead 

curator Bettina MacAulay, is the author and editor of many 

art books and exhibition catalogues, and essays and articles 

on artists. He is co-author of the Sesquicentenary exhibition 

catalogue Twelve Degrees of Latitude: Regional Gallery and 

University Art Collections in Queensland (2009) and principal 

catalogue author and co-curator of Singing in the Heart: Music 

and the Art of Rupert Bunny (2007). 

Desmond MacAulay’s titles include books published by the 

Australia Council and for the Vatican Museums. As a principal of 

the MacAulay Partners consultancy he has researched, written, 

edited and produced a variety of publications for Australian public 

galleries and museums and government agencies since the 

mid-1990s. His consultancy specialisations include exhibition 

concept, research and development, and project management 

and analysis. Before 1986 he was head of publishing for the 

Department since renamed Education Queensland. 

He is a full member of the Australian Society of Authors. His 

postgraduate studies in English at the University of Queensland 

were in poetry. 

Study Fleurieu Peninsula III, 2006, oil on hardboard, 56.0 x 61.0 cm 

58 Private Collection 

59

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

FROM THE CURATORS AND 

CALOUNDRA REGIONAL 

ART GALLERY 

The Curators and the Caloundra Regional Art Gallery wish to 

acknowledge and express their gratitude to the many organisations, 

owners of artworks by Lawrence Daws, public and dealer galleries, 

photographers, and individuals who kindly offered their support to 

the development and presentation of The Promised Land: The Art of 

Lawrence Daws. An especial debt of gratitude is owed to Lawrence 

Daws for his unfailing support for the project and his ready availability 

to discuss his practice and individual works and series, and to respond 

to questions. He was generous in allowing access to his studio and 

to works in his Collection. Edit Daws and Joseph Daws also offered 

particular assistance to the exhibition project. We are most grateful 

to Dr Philip Bacon AM and to Brent A Ogilvie for their support and 

courteous help. 

The Curators would like to record their appreciation of the commitment, 

and the loan of artworks for the exhibition, to the following participating 

Galleries, and their Directors, Curators and Collection Managers: Art 

Gallery of New South Wales; Caloundra Regional Art Gallery; Griffith 

Artworks: The Griffith University Art Collection & QCA Gallery; Ipswich 

Art Gallery; National Gallery of Australia; National Gallery of Victoria; 

Queensland Art Gallery; Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery; and 

Tweed River Art Gallery, Murwillumbah. 

We thank too those lenders who wish to remain anonymous, and the 

following individual lenders: Lawrence Daws, Edit Daws, Joseph Daws, 

Yvonne Mills-Stanley, and Brent A. Ogilvie. Many other people helped 

in diverse ways. We should like to thank especially Margaret Olley 

AC, Christine France, Lou Klepac, Stella Downer, and Dawn Oelrich; 

Lachlan Henderson, Nicholas Thompson and Michelle Gill at Philip 

Bacon Galleries, Brisbane; Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide; Robin Gibson 

of Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney; Amanda Gardner at Queensland Art 

Gallery Library; Keren Ruki at Bundanon Trust, Nowra; Geoffrey Smith 

and Harley Young, of Bonhams and Goodman; and Museum and Gallery 

Services Queensland’s Touring Exhibition Partnership. 

We greatly valued the generosity of The Gordon Darling Foundation in 

providing financial support for the exhibition catalogue. Photography 

of artworks was carried out at Owl Creek and at Caloundra Regional 

Art Gallery by Michael Richards. Other photographs of artworks were 

supplied by the public galleries who lent artworks. 

The curators are very grateful to all who provided assistance 

in delivering this exhibition and its catalogue. We thank too the 

participating galleries which will present the exhibition during its tour. 

If any acknowledgment has been overlooked, the curators reaffirm their 

sincere appreciation. 

60 61

the promised land the art of lawrence daws - Sunshine Coast Council

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