Michael O'Connell: The Lost Modernist - Bendigo Art Gallery

Michael O’Connell: The Lost Modernist
A Bendigo Art Gallery exhibition
26 November 2011 – 26 February 2012
Teacher Notes
Michael O’Connell, Pandemonium, frieze (detail) c1930, linocut on silk, National Gallery of Australia, Purchased 1982.
This exhibition examines the work of British/Australian textile artist Michael O’Connell. Born in Cumbria in 1898
O’Connell moved to Australia in 1920. Over the following 17 years he became a critical member of the burgeoning
Modernist movement in Melbourne.
O’Connell, a member of the Arts and Crafts Society of Melbourne, made an enormous contribution to the development
of Modernism in Australia through his innovative and dynamic textiles. Furthermore on his return to the UK in 1937,
O’Connell became a key figure in contemporary textile design, working with renowned textile manufacturer Heals.
O’Connell was also commissioned to produce the celebrated Festival of Britain wall hangings in 1951, which are now in
the collection of the Museum of English Rural Life, Reading.
The exhibition has been co-curated by Professor Harriet Edquist, Director, Design Archives RMIT University and
Tansy Curtin, Curator, Bendigo Art Gallery. A book on the life and work of O’Connell by Edquist will be published
concurrently.
Michael William O'Connell (1898–1976)
by John McPhee
Michael William O'Connell (1898-1976), artist, was born on 7 August 1898 in England, son of Patrick O'Connell, inland
revenue officer, and his wife Mary Cecilia, née McNamara, headmistress of a Roman Catholic school for girls. He was a
descendant of the Irish patriot Daniel O'Connell. He began to train as a priest, a vocation he abandoned. Enlisting in
1916, he served in France, where he was taken prisoner, and at this time began to make sketches, his first artistic efforts.
O'Connell arrived in Australia in 1920, intending to go on the land, but after two days at the Wagga Wagga Agricultural
Farm School, New South Wales, tried various occupations, including photography, while attempting to make a living
from art. Exhibitions of his water-colours were held at the Athenaeum Gallery in Melbourne in 1921 and 1922. Settling
in Melbourne, he worked at landscape gardening and the construction of concrete garden ornaments, which he
exhibited with the Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria of which he was an active member and councillor.

In the early 1920s he built his own house, Barbizon, at Beaumaris. The large open-plan cruciform house, constructed
with O'Connell's home-made concrete blocks, was destroyed by a bushfire in 1947. About 1924 he met London-born
Ella Moody, née Evans-Vaughan (1900-1981), an embroiderer and printmaker who was secretary of the Arts and Crafts
Society of Victoria. In 1929 they visited Britain and Italy where O'Connell studied old masonry. After their return, late
that year, they began to collaborate in the production of hand-printed textiles, using novel Australian-inspired designs.
Michael learned the techniques of cutting and printing with linoleum blocks from Ella and throughout their partnership
she did much of the work on all levels of design and production. After her divorce in February they married on 4 April
1931 in Melbourne, and visited England in 1932-33. O'Connell was then associated with Cynthia Reed and Frederick
Ward in an interior decorating business in Melbourne. Through writing and radio talks he became a leading advocate of
simple modern design for furnishings and interiors.
In March 1937 the O'Connells returned to England and purchased land at Perry Green, Much Hadham, Hertfordshire,
where they built their house, The Chase. They continued to produce printed textiles identified as Mael Fabrics, a
combination of their names and a recognition of Ella's contribution. Soon after the birth of their son in 1943, the
couple separated.
O'Connell's fabric designs were printed by the Edinburgh Weavers and London department stores, Heal & Sons and
Harrods. He also made large fabric hangings, such as the backcloth for St Martin's Church, Manchester, which were
widely exhibited.
O'Connell died on 9 December 1976 at The Chase. His textiles represent a unique aspect of the decorative arts in
Australia. His work influenced and inspired both amateurs and professionals in the field of fabric-printing, and in
England was central to the modernist revival of the British textile industry. He is represented in the National Gallery of
Australia, Canberra, and the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney.
1. Michael O’Connell, Hanging (curtains) c1930s, linen, dye, ink-bias binding, cotton, linocut hand-block printed, National Gallery of Victoria, Gift of Mr
Richard Derham 1988.
2. Michael O’Connell, Wild Women (curtain length) c1931, linocut on silk, National Gallery of Australia, Purchased 1980.
This exhibition is indemnified by the Victorian
Government through Arts Victoria