As I mentioned yesterday, Anne Smith and Craig Marlow went to Nasinu Cemetery just outside Suva in Fiji to establish if it was true that Dame Mary Edwell-Burke was buried in an unmarked grave and ...
... it's not good news because, yes, it's true. This brilliant, eccentric, wonderfully accomplished world-class artist indeed has no gravestone; nothing to let anyone know that this mighty, magnificent and masterful lady lies below. Nothing to visit. Nothing to honour. It's just a number stuck into the ground.
Dame Mary's grave!
Just one more unmarked grave among many unmarked graves.
Mary's grave!
In the forefront of this picture!
This is just so wrong, isn't it! Dame Mary was a lady who had it all. The outstanding talent, the quirky Bohemian personality, the Gauguin-esque adventure-filled biography, the studio in Paris back in the 20s, the laurels, blessings and honours of the London art community, the blinding drive to dedicate her life to The Muse of Art, and the vast body of stunningly accomplished work ... yet one fight with the Australian Art Community back in 1943 - calling into question their support of the artist Dobell - calling him a 'caricaturist' and not an artist - and she was banished from the Art Scene, seemingly forever!
I mean, just look at the painting she criticised as 'a caricature':
Dobell's "Joshua Smith:
Portrait of an Artist!"
How is she wrong?
I mean, what IS this? You're forbidden to knock an Art-Scene Darling! Question The Almighty Art Critics and you're forever thrown into some dark limbo-like never-never-land where no one even acknowledges you exist anymore?
How can they be allowed to do this?
Powerful men! One little lady! One pale, ethereal, achingly talented little lady! She dared to question them and so they stomped her into the ground! AND unmarked ground for that matter! They couldn't even allow her that!
It's just so very sad. I really wish I was angry about this because I want to say more. I want to fulminate and castigate and throw great big hissy-fits and dive deep into mean-spirited trouble-making and agitate to guilt-out anyone and everyone into doing something to put this to rights!
But I can't. I'm just too sad.
It's not a lot to ask, is it! A gravestone! Some marker to show that she once lived! Once created! Once existed among us! There, in the forefront of the photo above. Can you see it?
Miss Mary.
Dame Mary Edwell-Burke.
1894 - 1988.
Artist.
It is NOT a lot to ask, is it! So please, can we all start asking?
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