The Floating Brothel tells the story of the Lady Julian, the first supply ship to reach Sydney Harbour in Australia in 1790, with a cargo of 240 women. During the voyage, the women were expected to service the ship's officers and crew and, in anticipation of the likely outcome, the ship's stores carried baby clothes for 60. Eleven months later, the women reached Sydney in excellent health and spirits, with far better prospects than they'd faced back in England. No one at the time saw anything unreasonable or inhumane about its workings. Sian Rees's scholarly and seductive book provides a salutary antidote to the sort of smug and strident contemporary orthodoxy that treats history primarily as ammunition for fighting current battles.
Modern critics are . . .
Though my mother's taste in reproductions leaned towards Picasso and Vermeer, Tretchikoff was greatly admired by many of our neighbours and seeing The Chinese Girl along with Miss Wong and The Balinese Girl on this page of Tretchikoff prints brought back a rush of nostalgia. Our neigbours in the fifties and early sixties accepted Tretchikoff as a great artist, much like Pro Hart is seen by most Australians today. Now they're back in style with a vengeance, ironically admired by hip collectors. Today, when all values are relative, bad art can swiftly become valuable. What interests me more is the pull that Tretchikoff's work had on millions of my parents' generation.