30 years and still standing strong

Keith Looby: Australian art icon

Keith Looby is one of Australia’s most awarded painters. Born in Sydney in 1940, he trained at the National Art School before spending seven years travelling and painting across Europe – an experience that would shape a lifetime of practice that has now spanned more than six decades and multiple prizes.

His work is immediately recognisable for its heavy, multi-layered oil technique with an almost sculptural, three-dimensional quality, and is held in every major Australian state gallery, as well as the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1984, Keith won the Archibald Prize for his portrait of actor and satirist Max Gillies impersonating Bob Hawke. Amongst his many accolades, he also took out the Sir John Sulman Prize (1974), the Blake Prize for Religious Art (1973) and was named Canberra Artist of the Year in 1992.

What an honour, then, that his three final exhibitions were completed in one of our buildings. The cutest little cabin, tucked in a bush-like setting at the bottom of his Sydney garden. And while it is no longer used – instead, left for 15 years sitting like a snapshot in time – it is a testament to two kinds of longevity: Keith’s creativity, and that of our buildings.

Thirty years ago

Keith’s cabin dates back three decades.

In 1995, Keith and his wife, April, a Foreign Affairs Diplomat at the time, returned to Sydney after some years living in the Philippines. In their large home overseas, Keith had been able to dedicate an entire room in the house to his art. Back in Sydney and renting in Mosman, this was no longer an option.

“He’s a very messy painter,” April tells us, “And oil paint is not the sort of thing you can have in the house. No way”.

Keith needed a place to work. Large-format canvases, an intensely physical creative process, and the inevitable mess of oil paint could not be accommodated in their rental.

Flicking through their local newspaper, a solution caught their eye.

“It would have been early 96,” recalls April, “I saw a little ad in the North Shore Times, which is what got us onto Cedarspan because we needed a studio.”

They’d seen plenty of sheds that could have done the job, but this one stood out. For April, it was the aesthetics, “Cedarspan had the edge because they were very cute little ranch types,” she tells us.

For Keith, the considerations were more practical, “It looked like the thing I needed,” he states.

From one home to another

Within weeks, Keith’s new studio was installed in their rental’s backyard.

Adapted from a design known then as ‘The Anglers Lodge’, and renamed ‘The Hobby Room’, this cute little studio was an almost perfect square, measuring 3.7m x 3.8m. Fronted by a decked verandah with a horizontal railing, clad in beautiful Western Red Cedar weatherboard, and featuring a custom 22.5-degree pitched roof, it was the quintessential cabin, packed full of character.

“It’s like a little tiny ranch with a little railing out the front. You almost felt you had to get a horse!” April jokes.

There the cabin remained for a year, with Keith painting in it seven days a week, until the couple decided to settle in Sydney and buy a house of their own once more.

But in doing so, there was one essential consideration.

“The key criterion was that it had to have a garden big enough for the studio because we decided the studio had to come,” says April.

And it could. Built from prefabricated panels and positioned on piers, the cabin was designed to be dismantled and reassembled if needed – a feature that would prove invaluable when they found their current home, complete with the perfect spot waiting at the bottom of the garden.

“There was a backyard there at Mosman, but it was actually more appropriate for here – a very bush setting,” Keith tells us, and April agrees, “It was a small block of land compared to this – I mean the studio just fit it with a bit of space around it”.

Now the cabin had a space where it truly belonged.

Prolific work years made possible

For 14 years, Keith made the daily trek down to the bottom of the garden to paint.

Working on numerous pieces and several of his 17 Archibald entries over this time, it was something he simply couldn’t have done without the Cedarspan.

Typically producing large-format, heavily layered paintings – canvases of two or three metres – each took several months of dedicated work to complete. The studio’s cedar cladding, pitched roof and good ventilation meant Keith could comfortably paint all year round, with the space, light and freedom his style of creativity required.

“I needed the studio to be able to work on these large pieces,” he confirms, “I painted for about three exhibitions here, which was pretty delightful”.

And ‘delightful’ is a fitting word when you see the studio’s setting. Positioned at the end of a long, lush garden, set amongst the trees, it looks like a little cabin in the woods, a million miles from anywhere.

“Because I work from my imagination, it was a good place to work, a nice place to work,” Keith says, “It’s a good setting”.

The door closes on the cabin

Time favours the lucky, but with age comes other challenges.

Keith’s last completed work within the studio was his second portrait and Archibald Prize entry of leading feminist and writer, Anne Summers. This last piece marked the quiet close of this chapter, and while he continued to work on several major pieces beyond that, those remained unfinished and unexhibited.

“It was a wonderful space for him… It just became a little bit too much, you know?” says April, “It’s right down the bottom of the garden. Keith’s getting older now. He’s 86, and it’s really quite a hike down our garden, past the swimming pool…it’s a long garden”.

By moving to smaller-format pieces, Keith could work close to the house under the deck, avoiding the trek down the garden.

And so for 15 years, the cabin has sat unused, several incomplete canvases leaning against the walls, evidence of Keith’s gloriously messy creativity at every turn.

Frozen in time

It may no longer be a working studio, but it is far from forgotten. As we approach our 50th anniversary, we’ve been taking a trip down memory lane.

And this involved a trip down Keith’s garden to the time capsule sitting at the bottom of it.

Inside, it appears to be frozen in time. Oil paint sits layered and dried out upon the bench top that was his palette, unfinished artworks in various stages of completion lean against the walls, artists’ tools lay strewn amongst old paint jars and brushes, an old stool takes centre stage in the middle of the floor.

Keith’s long career of beautifully chaotic creativity is evident in the markings adorning the deliberately unlined walls and floor. In the piles of sketches that lay scattered amongst the debris. In the paint covering the light switches and the telephone on the wall.

Outside, it’s a similar story, with fifteen years of abandonment leaving its mark.

But what struck us on our visit was that, despite enduring 30 years of Sydney weather – the last 15 with no attention – it’s solid.

“It’s been watertight, which is amazing,” April confirms, “Despite it not being used for 15 years, it’s still standing. Considering the disrepair and the weather this little studio has experienced, it is remarkable”.

The Cedar has aged beautifully, the weatherboard remains intact, solid and unwarped. The roofing, trusty Colorbond® steel, stands strong and secure. With a light clean and some gentle TLC, it could look as good as it did all the way back in 1996.

The next chapter awaits

At the age of 86, Keith is still active with his art. For the last 14 years, he has been busy with three extraordinary works, which began as paintings and evolved into sculptures formed entirely from layers of oil paint. Each piece weighs around 250kg, and this collection is soon to be lifted out and exhibited at a yet to be disclosed location – so watch this space.

And while the Cedarspan still sits unused and quiet, peeking through the trees at the bottom of the garden, it’s remembered fondly. By Keith, who could not have created the work he did without it. By April, who retained a house free of oil paint. By Ray Chesterfield, our founder, who sold the cabin to Keith and April all those years ago. And by Doug, his son, who moved it to its new home.

And as we approach our 50th anniversary, by retelling this story, we hope it can be remembered by all of us… and that new life might be bestowed upon it for the next three decades.

After all, as April says, “A Cedarspan can last for 100 years.”

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Keith’s art studio is an early Cedarspan, known at the time as ‘The Hobby Room’, measuring 3.7m x 3.8m.

It features cedar weatherboard cladding and a 1.4m x 3.7m decked verandah. The aluminium sliding doors and two “picture” windows are “Hammersley Brown”, and Colorbond® roofing is in “Pale Eucalypt”.

All measurements are approximate.

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