"Oh, I think it might be down that way just a little bit more," remarks Frank Bergersen, clipboard in one hand and camera in the other.
Expectantly, we both scramble through long grass about 10 metres further down an old fence line on Fitz's Hill, south of Tharwa.
Suddenly Frank stops and holds the clipboard aloft again. We both study the image on it, eyes darting back and forth comparing it to the bucolic view spread before us.
"That's it, it has to be it!" he exclaims. And he's right, there's no denying it. Frank has just solved a long-running local art mystery - the location of Elioth Gruner's painting The Dry Road 1930.
In excitement, I accidentally crumple part of Gruner's painting on the clipboard. Lucky it's just a print-out.
While it's always been identified as a landscape in the Canberra region, the exact location of the painting, until now, was unknown. In fact, shortly after the Canberra Museum and Art Gallery purchased the painting from a Melbourne collector in 2014, Canberrans were asked if they recognised the location. This resulted in at several erroneous online references suggesting the artwork features Brindabella Range. Turns out they were at least 30 kilometres out with their assessment.
So how did Frank solve it?
"I thought I recognised the scene as the vista that you get from the top of the saddle beside Fitz's Hill," says Frank who "had previously admired and photographed this lovely view down into the Gudgenby Valley".
However, when Frank compared the painting to photos he'd previously taken, it was a close match, but not perfect. Sure, the Gudgenby River was snaking through the valley and the hulking Mt Tennent was conspicuous on the left, but the elevation didn't seem to match.
"It then occurred to me that Gruner didn't necessarily take his painting from the saddle of Fitz's Hill, and near the bitumen road as the road didn't exist in those days and that it was probably painted from higher up on the hill" explains Frank who investigated further using Google Earth. "And low and behold things matched up beautifully." But a virtual fly-over is one thing, confirming the same view on the ground is another.
Knowing this column's penchant for getting to the bottom of a good local mystery, Frank asked me to accompany him to the site, which is on private property. Although the farmer, who wishes to remain anonymous, was hitherto unaware of the painting, he generously accompanied us to the location. And bingo! Even he was impressed. "Well how about that!" he exclaimed.
Now, as you can see from Frank's photo, the painting isn't identical to the current view, but Frank can explain these discrepancies.
Firstly, Mt Rob Roy which looms large on the horizon in Gruner's artwork clearly isn't as prominent in real life. "I suspect Gruner used a little artistic license and rendered Mt Rob Roy a bit higher than it actually is," explains Frank, adding, "he did something similar with the hill on the horizon in Weetangera, Canberra 1937."
The other major difference is the amount of vegetation. "A little lower down on the other side of the fence may have given us a better match, but foreground tree growth in the last 92 years would then have obscured some of the view down into the valley," says Frank.
According to Frank, "when the original selector J. Fitzgerald (yes, after whom the hill is named) took legal occupancy of the land, under the 1861 Crown Lands Act he would have been required to live on the land for at least three years and make improvements over a period of two to three years."
"This would have included land clearing which may explain why in 1930 there is less vegetation than today," explains Frank, adding "Fitzgerald probably also put in the original post and rail fence which you can clearly see in Gruner's painting."
As to why Gruner painted the view in the first place. Frank has his own theory on that too.
An article in The Queanbeyan Age of February 21, 1913, titled "Federal Capital Territory as a Tourist Resort" waxes and wanes about the view from Fitz's Hill, describing it "as a scene exceedingly beautiful, yet rare".
"It is clear from this article that the view from Fitz's Hill was well recognised by visitors and no doubt by locals to the area well before Gruner made his pilgrimage there," explains Frank. "It's no surprise therefore that he would have been appraised of this in discussions he would have had with local settlers as to where he might find some nice regional views that might be worthy subjects for his landscape paintings."
So, what next for Frank? Well, he's caught the art detective bug well and truly and is already attempting to uncover locations of other landscapes painted by Gruner. Oh, and he might even order a reprint of The Dry Road 1930 to replace the crumpled copy on his clipboard.
- Note: the location we visited is inaccessible to the public.
Simulacra Corner
Given the relatively inclement start to the year, many "faces in clouds'" photos have lobbed into my inbox, none better than this ripper snapped by Michael Calkovics of Lyons of threatening clouds over Red Hill. Can't see the face? Take a few steps back, it's best viewed from a distance. See it peering down at you?
Fitz's Hill ... talk about steep!
Anyone who's driven into southern Namadgi National Park knows how steep the road up Fitz's Hill is. The old yowie mobile has been known to splutter a bit as I change back the gears. It was also the location of that terrible tragedy in 2006 when cyclist Paul Harty suffered fatal spinal and head injuries while descending the hill during the Fitz's Epic cycle event.
However, the first road over the hill was even steeper. So steep in fact that some people used to get out and walk next to their cars as they struggled to make it up the steep incline.
One early settler, Andy Cunningham from Orroral Homestead, often avoided driving over the hill by instead flying his aircraft to town. In fact, circa 1930, when he bought a pile of corrugated iron for his shearing shed from Lysaghts in Queanbeyan, rather than risk the steep climb over the hill, Andy opted to tie the sheets to the wings of his aircraft, the Orroral Dingo. Really. Not surprisingly a few pieces flew off. Who knows, they might still be there rusting in paddocks under his flight path.
Interestingly Gruner was painting the The Dry Road 1930 from Fitz's Hill around the same time. The chances are slim, but I wonder if he ever saw the Orroral Dingo fly over while sitting at his easel. Thankfully, there were no reports of the flying sheets of iron injuring anyone.
Pat Jeffery of Jerrabomberra worked with the road gang to build the new (current) bitumen road up Fitz's Hill replacing the very steep section in the mid-1950s. It was a tough gig. "In 1955, because of wet weather in the area there were a lot of soil and rockslides onto the road pavement which continued well into 1956 and 1957 which had to be cleaned up and the inside wall stabilised," he recalls.
WHERE ON THE SOUTH COAST?
Rating: Easy
Cyptic clue: Sadly, no miracle here for Flora
Last week: Congratulations to Mike Edwards of Merimbula who first to correctly identify last week's photo as a structure in a paddock in Pambula. The clue related to Syms Covington who began his time on naturalist Charles Darwin's famous 1831-36 expedition on the HMS Beagle as a cabin-boy but was fast promoted to his "Man Friday" and was responsible for shooting many of the specimens collected by Darwin.
Following the expedition, Covington and Darwin became close friends and as Mike points out, "Covington migrated to Pambula and continued a long period of correspondence with Darwin in England."
Mike further reports, "Covington's house, a magnificent colonial homestead, is now in beautiful grounds towards the end of main street Pambula, and now houses a wonderful Thai restaurant."
As to the structure in the photo, it remains a mystery. It looks too fancy to be a silo, doesn't it?
How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and suburb to tym@iinet.net.au. The first correct email sent after 10am, Saturday March 19, 2022, wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.
SPOTTED
On a recent stroll around Mt Arawang near Fisher, Vincent Conrad stopped in his tracks. "At first, I thought it was a flower, but on closer inspection it was clear it was a bunch of Cabbage white butterflies gathered on a clump of mud, or maybe animal droppings."
This column's butterfly aficionado Suzi Bond reports the Cabbage whites were mud-puddling - a practice whereby butterflies congregate on a wet surface to drink the nutrients and salts made accessible by the moisture. "They usually do this on mud or wet soil, but some butterflies love feeding on more disgusting items like rotting plants and animals, urine and faeces," she explains. Heck!
