Artists in Residence

Artist in Residence program at BGGS

Artist in Residence programs were traditionally created in the arts world to allow artists – musicians, writers, artists – to take time out in a space apart from their usual environment to reflect, and to explore and develop new works. They were also a way of encouraging philanthropic projects where benefactors could support and extend the work of artists. These programs have now become an accepted part of the arts landscape. In 1985, Brisbane Girls Grammar School offered its first Artist in Residence program for visual art. The format was to invite an artist of renown, preferably female, to come into the School, to talk to students and workshop with them to guide their work in creative collaboration. Furthermore, the artist would undertake an artistic project of her own which would remain in the School as a legacy of their practice. The Principal Dr Judith Hancock raised the idea with the key benefactors of the School, Cathryn and Margaret Mittelheuser. The Mittelheuser sisters, as they are fondly referred to, are former students of the School who also shared a deep love of the arts and have many connections in the arts world. The Mittelheuser sisters proposed first a residency with Australian New York based abstract artist, Virginia Cuppaidge. Cuppaidge was born in Brisbane and relocated to New York in 1969. She had her first solo exhibition in New York in 1973 and gained many awards and commissions, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976. She had many exhibitions across the US, Canada and Australia over the years as well as a highly active teaching career in New York tertiary institutions.

Cuppaidge accepted the invitation to be the first Brisbane Girls Grammar School Artist in Residence at a time when she was returning briefly to Australia.

In this painting, Terra Firma Light, where she sought ideas from the students here that she workshopped with, she has mixed a series of geometrical shapes and floated them in colour fields, giving an energy, movement and light to the painting.

Cuppaidge’s work is represented in several Australian national galleries, including our QAGOMA.

The Artist in Residence program continued to be active in the late 1980s, with two more artists contributing to student learning and to the school art collection, again with the support of Margaret and Cathryn Mittelheuser. came in 1988 and left us her sculpture, Fandango which still lives in the gardens below the G Block.

Artists in Residence | Page 2