Christian Waller

Christian Waller, with a hand-printed book, 1932

Christian Marjory Emily Carlyle (Yandell) Waller (2 August 1894 - 25 May 1954) was an Australian painter, writer, printmaker, illustrator, book designer, woodcutter, and stained-glass artist.

Waller signed and exhibited her work under her maiden name (Yandell) until 1930, but thereafter used her married name (Waller).^[1]

Early career[]

In 1905 Yandell studied painting at Castlemaine School of Mines. In 1909, her painting, A Petition (a Greek scene in the manner of Alma Tadema featuring her sister Florence), hung in the Bendigo Art Gallery and was shown at the local Masonic Hall.

In 1910 Yandell moved to Melbourne where she studied at Melbourne National Gallery Schools (now: National Gallery of Victoria Art School). While there she won several student prizes and exhibited fantasy works with the Victorian Artists Society (1913–22). Yandell illustrated publications, such as Melba's Gift Book of Australian Art and Literature (1915).

During the 1920s, Yandell became a leading book illustrator, winning acclaim as the first Australian artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland (1924). "Yandell’s drawings are an eclectic mix, ranging from depictions of the iconic Mad Hatter’s Tea Party through to densely drawn processional scenes and simple sketches of Wonderland’s inhabitants. These reveal her to be strong in landscape, design, and the depiction of animals, but less so the human form, though we know from extant pencil sketches that her life drawing was sound."^[2]

Artistic works[]

Amongst interwar Australian printmakers Waller is particularly unique for her strong art deco compositions and her fantasy, mythological and astrological imagery. Although her work was mostly in linocut, with black and white linework, the complexity of her designs often exceeded that of her contemporaries in works like The Great Breath. She worked closely with Geelong based Henry Tatlock Miller and his Golden Arrow Press, to produce limited edition books, although Hendrik Kohlenberg suggests that Waller undertook most of the physical production of the book in her Fairy Hills studio^[3] and only a fraction of the planned 150 book edition for The Great Breath was ever completed.^[4]

Another similar production of equal rarity is The Gates of Dawn. "Her print work is characterised by a complex symbolism, combining ancient classical and literary subjects alongside occult motifs in a dynamic style owing much to the bold geometry of Art Deco and the handmade ethos of the Arts and Crafts movement."^[5]

In the late 1920s she designed stained-glass windows, travelling to London in 1929 to investigate the manufacture of stained glass at Whall & Whall Ltd's.

Personal life[]

In 1915 Christian Yandell married a fellow artist, the muralist Napier Waller. She went to New York in 1939 and joined a commune where she completed several murals and became a follower of the African American philosopher and mystic Father Divine highlighting her longstanding interest in mysticism and the occult. "In 1940 she returned to the home she shared with her husband at Ivanhoe, Melbourne. She immersed herself in her work and became increasingly reclusive. In 1942 she painted a large mural for Christ Church, Geelong; by 1948 she had completed more than fifty stained-glass windows."^[6] These windows also show the strongly decorative modernist stylisation seen in her printmaking.

Waller took care of her niece Klytie Pate from about 1925, when Pate's father remarried and sent his daughter to live with her aunt. Both Christian and Napier Waller encouraged Pate's talents. Pate later became a significant Australian potter, who shared the strong decorative, art deco approach of her aunt and mentor. In 2018 the Bendigo Art Gallery held a joint retrospective for both Waller and Pate,^[7] entitled Daughters of the Sun.

The Bendigo Art Gallery holds her self-portrait (1915). Napier Waller's portrait (1932) of his wife is held by the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.^[8]

References[]