Vida Lahey

LAHEY, Vida
Crocus and sunflowers 1955

The well known Queensland-born artist Frances Vida Lahey spent some of her life in the Oxley Creek catchment. She was born 26th August 1882, the eldest child of David and Jane Jemima Lahey. The Lahey family is remembered for their timber milling business in Corinda and other areas of Queensland, principally Cunungra.
Vida travelled widely both in Australia and overseas. Many of her paintings depict these places as well as scenes of the Brisbane River and boats. The family spent quite a lot of time boating and swimming as these were favourite pastimes, especially when they leased houses on the river at Yeronga, Toowong and 'Greylands' at Indooroopilly from about 1899 to 1913. David and his sons travelled from this house to Corinda by boat while he was building the Corinda Timber Mill.
After they completed the Mill in 1911, David built the family home on the corner of Railway Terrace and Clara Street, Corinda. This house was called 'Wonga Wallen'.
Vida was always keen to teach people, especially children. She also lobbied for the rights of artists. In 1903 she won the first prize for painting from nature in the Australian Natives Exhibition.
She is remembered for her still life studies as well as 'Monday Morning' painted in 1912 which depicts two women going about a typical washing day in that period. Both this and "Crocus and Sunflowers" (1955) are part of the Lahey Collection in the possession of the Queensland Art Gallery.

Where the Pelican Builds its Nest
Mary Hannay Foote

Fishing party at a Corinda house on Oxley Creek in 1897
(Mrs H.G.White)

The horses were ready,
The rails were down,
But the riders lingered still
One had a parting word to say
And one had his pipe to fill

They had told us of pastures
Wide and green,
To be sought past the sunsets' glow,
Of rifts in the ranges by opals lit
And gold 'neath the rivers flow

The creek at the ford
Was but fetlock deep,
When we watched them crossing there,
The rains have replenished it thrice since then
And thrice has the rocks lain bare.

But the waters of hope
Have flower and fled,
And never from blue hills breast,
Came back, by the sun and sand devoured
Where the Pelican builds its nest.

References:
LAHEY, Vida Australia b.1882 d. 1968
Crocus and sunflowers 1955
Watercolour over pencil on thin cream wove paper, 50.2 x 40.2 cm
Bequest of Goerge Brown 1977
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Reproduced by permission of the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane and Shirley Lahey
Not to be reproduced without permission.

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