M. E. McGuire - Cynthia Nolan: A Biography

top left: Henry Reed Sr, capitalist and evangelist, patriarch and founder of the family fortune. Frontispiece, Margaret Reed, An Eventful Life , 1907.

top right: Margaret Reed in the greenhouse at Mount Pleasant, c.1922, with a Shetland shawl over her widows weeds. Barbara von Bibras photo album, family photos from Percy Whitelaws Studio Launceston. Collection: Henry von Bibra

bottom left: Lila Denison Reed photographed in Melbourne at the Van Dyke Studio, c.1923. She was well-known for her charitable works in Launceston, and her support for the Launceston Art Society. Collection: Henry von Bibra

bottom right: Henry Reed Jr, Margarets youngest child and heir, the democratic aristocrat, c.1922. The deliberate blurring at the left lends drama to this photo. Photo likely by Vaudrey Robinson, the Caszneau of Tasmania.

Reed children at Whitelaws Studio c.1908/9. Coralie holding Miss Baby, with John in the sailor suit. Coralie would soon put up her hair and enter the marriage market. Dick, in the uncomfortable collar, stands behind Barbara and Margaret in bows. The next year would see John wearing a suit like Dicks to attend school in England. Collection: Henry von Bibra

left: Coralie and Margaret at Whitelaws Studio, 1910. Percy Whitelaw was responsible for the sepia Italianate backdrop. Collection: Henry von Bibra

right: Barbara, Miss Baby and their nurse, 1910. In front of a painted drape, Barbaras feet are firmly planted on the fox fur rug, while Cynthia proudly stands with her arm wrapped around her nurse. Collection: Henry von Bibra

left: Barbara and Cynthia, likely photographed by Vaudrey Robinson at Whitelaws Studio, who has dispensed with all the late Victorian clutter. Here, he has all of Cynthias attention. Collection: Henry von Bibra

right: Barbara and Cynthia at Whitelaws Studio. A study in contrasts, the pragmatist and the provocateur. Collection: Henry von Bibra

Cynthia at Whitelaws Studio, c.1922. The schoolgirl is still photographed in perfect white, yet to declare herself a rebel. Collection: Henry von Bibra

From a series of Mount Pleasant snapshots, 1996. The tomb ground, Cynthias favourite retreat, out of the winds and out of sight.

The balcony leads to the main bedroom; the front door carries the glass etching. The greenhouse is out of sight on the left .

From the remnant wall of the chapel behind the house, a sloping hill leads down to the lake. A freeway to the airport cuts through the now subdivided estate .

Charles Ritchie Untitled [Cynthia] Pastel c.1927 Collection: Jinx Nolan Painted in the wake of Lilas death, Ritchie sees her in Cynthia.

L. F. Reynolds, Bernard Heinze, illustration, Table Talk , 26 August 1926. The article ended, Remember he is only thirty-two a cultivated Australian with a scornful eye for the trivial, the humdrum and the dull.

Cynthia photographed cinema-style by fellow Tasmanian Jack Cato for the Illustrated Tasmanian Mail , 1932.

Clarice Zanders at the exhibition British Contemporary Art , Blaxland Galleries, Sydney, 1932. Photo courtesy of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

This exhibition failed to attract the Trustees of either Melbournes or Sydneys National Gallery. It did pave the way for Burdettes exhibition of European modernism in 1939. A Corner of the Exhibition of British Contemporary Art , Newspaper House, Melbourne, 1933, in Basil Burdett, Mrs Zanders Exhibition of British Contemporary Art, Art in Australia , 15 April 1933.

Left Isabel H. Tweddle Cynthia Oil on canvas 717 mm x 920 mm c.1933 Collection: Jinx Nolan

right: Moya Dyring, The Bar [whereabouts unknown], reproduced by Basil Burdett, The Studio, 1938.

Cynthias advertisement appeared in Clarices exhibition catalogue, State Library of Victoria. An austere, modernist advertisement breaking convention with the decorative and illustrative styles.

top: Showing the simplicity of modern design using waxed mountain ash, jarrah and blackwood, with wall hangings by Michael OConnell. The caterpillar cushioning of the chaise-lounge is a characteristic of Cynthias interior designs. Robert Morrison, The Decoration of the Rooms We Live In from Cynthia Reed, Manuscripts , no. 12, pp. 324.

bottom: A rare glimpse of the interior of Cynthia Reeds in Little Collins Street. Minnas style was more expensive but just as uncluttered as Cynthias. The tabletop is ebony. Minna Schulers dining setting. Minna Schuler and S. Atyeo, Modern Furniture, Manuscripts , no. 9, p. 18.

The cover of Lucky Alphonse , featuring an eighteenth-century English engraving of St Thomas and a contemporary photo of New York. Victory Publications, US.