Jump to content

Murray Griffin

From Tilcayo Cats, the lean encyclopaedia by Tilcayo Knowledge Systems

Murray Griffin
Born
Vaughan Murray Griffin

(1903-11-11)11 November 1903
Malvern, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Died29 January 1992(1992-01-29) (aged 88)
Heidelberg, Melbourne, Victoria
Resting place
Templestowe cemetery
Education
Known for
Spouse(s)
Norrie Hinemoa, née Grist
​
​
(m. 1932; dec'd. 1980)​
Children2 sons
Parents
  • Vaughan Gale Griffin (father)
  • Ethel Maude Mary, née Brazier (mother)
Awards
Military career
AllegianceAustralia
Branch
2nd AIF (Army)
Service years
1941–1945
Rank
Captain
Service numberB3/58, VX64361
Unit8th Australian Infantry Battalion
Conflicts
World War II

Murray Griffin, born Vaughan Murray Griffin, (11 November 1903 – 29 January 1992) was an Australian print maker and painter. He also was an art teacher, and, during World War II, was an Australian war artist and a prisoner of war.[1]

Background and early years

Griffin was born in Malvern, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. His parents were Vaughan Gale Griffin and Ethel Maude Mary, née Brazier. Educated at Adwalton Preparatory School for Boys and Scotch College in Melbourne, Griffin trained at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1919 to 1923.[1]

In 1932, Griffin married Norrie Hinemoa Grist and they lived, until 1939, in the Murray Griffin house, located at 52 Darebin Street in Heidelberg, designed for his parents by Walter Burley Griffin, possibly with his wife, Marion.[2] Walter and Marion Griffins also designed Canberra and were unrelated to Vaughan or Murray Griffin, despite sharing the same family name.[3][4]: 8  In 1939, Murray and Norrie purchased the Lippincott house in Eaglemont, designed by Roy Lippincott and his brother-in-law, Walter and Marion Griffin.[5][6]

Career

Influenced by the Austrian artist Norbertine Bresslern-Roth during the 1930s, Griffin gained a reputation as ‘one of Melbourne’s most innovative modernist printmakers'.[1] He taught art at Scotch College from 1936 to 1937, and drawing and teaching at RMIT from 1937 to 1940.[1][7] Murray Griffin produced an extensive body of landscape paintings as well as portraits, and he is best known for his printmaking, where he was heavily influenced by Japanese woodcuts. A number of his prints held by the National Gallery of Australia.

War service

During World War II, in 1941 Griffin was appointed as an official war artist to work with the 8th Australian Division in Malaya. During his three months' service in Malaya, until November 1941, he completed pictures which were prepared for transport to Australia; however, they did not leave the country and were lost through bombing.[8][9] Following the fall of Singapore in February 1942, Griffin was captured by the Japanese and incarcerated[10] for three and a half years as a prisoner of war in Changi Prison, in conditions slightly less harsh than many other Japanese camps. Whilst he was interned, his work was exhibited at the Hawthorn Library, in 1943, in a group show of ninety-one paintings and etchings with Arnold Shore, Max Meldrum, John Rowell, Jas. Quinn, John Farmer, Mary Hurry, Dora Serle, Margaret Pestell, Dora Wilson, Isabel Tweddle, Aileen Dent, Allan Jordan, Geo. Colville, and Victor Cog.[11]

At the end of 1943, the first survivors of the Burma-Thailand railway returned to Changi and Griffin was shocked by their diseased and emaciated condition. His work changed from being optimistic records of camp life, to visual documents of atrocities and death.[12]

During his imprisonment he made a series of drawings recording his experiences and he exhibited them on his return. The Australian War Memorial holds an extensive collection of this work, and in the 2007 exhibition Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture by Australian Official War Artists 1943-44 a note explained that his self-portrait was "the only work of Murray Griffin that can be shown."[13] Released after the Japanese surrender in September 1945,[9] Griffin accompanied an official party to determine the fate of other prisoners of war[14] before being repatriated in October and employed in the Military History Section, Melbourne. His Changi images, exhibited at the NGV in October 1946 prior to a national tour, won praise for creating ‘great beauty out of scenes of death and horror’. Others found them overly gruesome, including the head of the section, J. L. Treloar, who had blocked their publication in July.[1]

Describing his style, Griffin wrote:[12]

"My drawings were done as simple recordings of facts. Here I believe that an artist can, by what he leaves out, point very directly and convincingly to an activity. His mind acts as a sieve, forbidding the irrelevant."

— Murray Griffin, n.d.

Post-war artistic career

From 1946 to 1953 he was a teacher of drawing at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School and then returned to RMIT was a senior lecturer in art from 1954 to 1968. During these periods, Griffin became known for his colour prints of birds and animals. He devoted spare time to his own art practice and exhibited at the Art Gallery of South Australia where he won the print section of the Maude Vizard-Wholohan Prize in 1957.[1] Griffin spent most of his latter life living in the Eaglemont and Heidelberg areas of Melbourne, although he also travelled around country Victoria to paint and draw.

Griffin was influenced by Anthroposophy and the teachings of Rudolf Steiner.[4]: 8–9  This passion resulted in a body of oil paintings and linocuts known as the Journey Series, held by the La Trobe University.[15]

Following the death of his wife in 1980, Griffin died of pneumonia on 29 January 1992 at West Heidelberg and was buried in the Templestowe cemetery, survived by his two sons.[1][a]

Legacy

A memoir of his wartime experiences was published in 1992. Posthumous exhibitions were held at the Castlemaine Art Gallery (2001) and the Australian War Memorial, Canberra (2017).[1]

His works are held in many national and state collections, notably the National Gallery of Australia,[17] the Australian War Memorial,[18] the National Gallery of Victoria,[19] the State Library of Victoria,[20] the Art Gallery of South Australia,[21] and the Queensland Art Gallery/Queensland Gallery of Modern Art;[22] and in regional galleries including those of Ballarat,[23] Castlemaine,[24] Geelong,[25] Newcastle,[26] and Warrnambool.[27] Collections are also held by the Print Council of Australia, The Ian Potter Museum of Art and the Victorian College of the Arts at The University of Melbourne,[28] the La Trobe University,[15] the Federation University,[29] the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and the Shrine of Remembrance, in Melbourne.[16]

Among his commissioned works were murals at the National Museum of Victoria (1952) and at Mac.Robertson Girls' High School (1954), and a portrait of Sir Edward (Weary) Dunlop (1956),[1] with the latter held at the Australian War Memorial.

Prizes and awards

Amongst his notable prizes and awards were:

  • 1923 — First prizes National Gallery School for Painting and Landscape painting
  • 1935 — Crouch prize for the oil painting Golden Barriers[1]
  • 1939 — F. E. Richardson prize for the linocut Spoonbill[1]
  • 1952 — Dunlop Prize (joint 2nd) for the oil painting Warrior[30]
  • 1957 — Maude Vizard-Wholohan Prize: Art Gallery of South Australia for the linocut Bird of Paradise[1]
  • 1976 — Henri Worland Memorial Art Prize: Warrnambool Art gallery for the linocut Duck in Reeds
  • 1990 — Victorian Artists Society Honour Medal for "outstanding contributions to art"

Notes

  1. ↑ Although, The Age in 2023 mentioned that Griffin's son, Murray, junior, had Penny, Julia and Kate as siblings.[16]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Allbrook, Malcolm (2020) [2021]. "Griffin, Vaughan Murray (1903–1992)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 19. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943.
  2. ↑ "Marion Lucy Mahony Griffin (1871-1961)". US Modernist. n.d. Retrieved 9 September 2026.
  3. ↑ Griffin, Murray (junior) (14 August 2023). "Lippincott House" (PDF). Walter Burley Griffin Society Incorporated. Retrieved 9 September 2026.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Alessi, Vincent (2009). "In Search of the Spiritual: Murray Griffin's View of the Supersensible World" (Exhibition program). Bundoora Homestead Art Centre. Retrieved 9 September 2026.
  5. ↑ Topsfield, Jewel (29 June 2023). "Walter Burley Griffin designed Canberra. He also co-designed this house". The Age. Retrieved 9 September 2026.
  6. ↑ Griffin, Murray (junior) (14 August 2023). "Lippincott House" (PDF). Walter Burley Griffin Society Incorporated. Retrieved 9 September 2026.
  7. ↑ McCulloch, Alan; McCulloch, Susan; McCulloch, Emily (2006). The new McCulloch's encyclopedia of Australian art. Fitzroy, Victoria: Aus Art Editions in association with the Miegunyah Press. p. 482. ISBN 978-0-522-85317-9. OCLC 836536664.
  8. ↑ "Griffin, Vaughan (1903-1992)". Design and Art Australia Online. 2008. Retrieved 22 June 2022 – via Trove. National Library of Australia.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Official War Artist Released". The News. Vol. 45, no. 6, 902. South Australia. 14 September 1945. p. 3. Retrieved 15 September 2026 – via Trove. National Library of Australia.
  10. ↑ "AIF WAR ARTIST A PRISONER". The Herald. No. 20, 486. Melbourne. 12 January 1943. p. 2. Retrieved 15 September 2026 – via Trove. National Library of Australia.
  11. ↑ "Art Exhibition". The Age. No. 27, 901. 22 September 1944. p. 2. Retrieved 15 September 2026 – via Trove. National Library of Australia.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Stolen Years: Australian prisoners of war - Murray Griffin: artist in Changi". Australian War Memorial. 20 January 2020. Retrieved 9 September 2026.
  13. ↑ "Vaughan Griffin b. 1903 : Also known as Murray Griffin, Vaughan Murray Griffin: Artist (Printmaker), Artist (Painter)". Design and Art Australia Online. 2007.
  14. ↑ "Changi life shown in art by former prisoner of war". The Canberra Times. Vol. 57, no. 17, 406. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 26 May 1983. p. 3. Retrieved 15 September 2026 – via Trove. National Library of Australia.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Artists A-Z". La Trobe University. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Webb, Carolyn (5 November 2023). "'Humanity among chaos': War artist's works and relics donated to Shrine of Remembrance". The Age. Retrieved 9 September 2026.
  17. ↑ Griffin, Murray. "Murray Griffin works in the National Gallery of Australia collection". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  18. ↑ "Vaughan Murray Griffin". Australian War Memorial. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  19. ↑ Griffin, Murray. "Murray Griffin : 20 works". National Gallery of Victoria : Collection. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  20. ↑ Griffin, V. Murray. "Winter Trees : V. Murray Griffin". State Library of Victoria. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  21. ↑ Griffin, Murray. "Murray Griffin". Art Gallery of South Australia. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  22. ↑ "GRIFFIN, Murray". Queensland Art Gallery/Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  23. ↑ Art Gallery of Ballarat Annual Report 09-10 : Acquisitions (PDF) (Report). Ballarat: Art Gallery of Ballarat. 2010.
  24. ↑ "Murray Griffin, Stooks and Storm". Castlemaine Art Museum. Retrieved 18 September 2021.
  25. ↑ Griffin, Murray. "Explore the Collection: Murray Griffin". Geelong Gallery. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  26. ↑ Griffin, Murray. "Newcastle Art Gallery: Collection : Murray Griffin". Newcastle Art Gallery. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  27. ↑ "Combined Exhibition Opening". Warrnambool Art Gallery. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  28. ↑ Griffin, Murray. "The Shearer, 1952". The Ian Potter Museum of Art: The University of Melbourne. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  29. ↑ "Printmaking - Linocut, Griffin, Murray, Heron, 1950". Victorian Collections. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  30. ↑ "DUNLOP ART PRIZES". The Sun. No. 13, 198. Sydney. 19 May 1952. p. 16. Retrieved 15 September 2026 – via Trove. National Library of Australia.
Retrieved from "https://tilcayo.cat/w/index.php?title=Murray_Griffin&oldid=100176"
This page contains text imported from the English Wikipedia (source revision 1375083851). Its authors are credited under CC BY-SA 4.0: see the attribution record.