WRITING
Arthur Murch
Arthur wrote and re-wrote his memoir, sometimes with assistants helping with the editing.
He documented some great gems of stories of work practices and personalities.
Following are his scanned notes:
• Murch on Lambert
George Lambert and Old Iron
Murch on meeting Noel Coward (this must have been in 1940); stories of Syd Ure-Smith‘s gatherings, Leo Carrillo and George Lambert:
• Stories about Syd Ure-Smith, Noel Coward, George Lambert
• Lambert’s Assistants
• Lambert – The Dead Soldier
The Unknown Soldier Memorial (Murch refers to ‘the Dead Soldier’) , St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
On Lambert’s health and Gallipoli experiences:
Transcribed: “His death from heart failure was occasioned by his long illness, which he traced back to his personal reenactment of climbing the Gallipoli slopes. In viewing one of his Gallipoli pictures, I said of it, that in 5 minutes there won’t be anyone left alive.” and he replied, “There wasn’t!” It seemed to him that they were no longer soldiers. Of one depicted crawling in mid-air he said “He is a York St clerk”.
On Lambert’s reaction to Murch’s painting: The White Calf:
Transcribed: “I had gone to Assisi to see what gave Giotto, our European art, its impetus.
By 1928 I had made a pilgrimage and stood beside Piero della Francesca and Fra Angelico, while I painted, in egg tempera, “The White Calf”, a picture which pleased Lambert. I remember Lambert trying to convince Julian Ashton that I had not had an inspirational vision, but had built the picture as a structure in the light of ancient tradition. But for this interchange between the master, Julian Ashton, and his pupil, George Lambert, I could not have memory of the impact of this early, totally unAustralian picture.”
Article for Art in Australia August 15th, 1932: Felt Applied to Interior Decoration by Arthur Murch
Letters
Letters home 1937 – transcribed and summarised by Ria Murch
