Today’s Friday story takes us back to 1965.
In December 1965, an excited 17-year-old named Gregory Rogers held a one-man art show in the Bunyip Hall.
The exhibition was reported in the Bunyip newspaper on Thursday, 9 December 1965. Thankfully, my mum saved the newspaper clipping in her brown leather album. Thank you, Mum.
The newspaper reported:
“The one-man art show conducted in the Bunyip Hall last weekend by 17-year-old Gregory Rogers was an outstanding success. More than 180 people attended the art exhibition and display of handcraft.
“Gregory sold many of his works and was still receiving orders for others. He held an art-teaching bursary and had applied for a studentship.
“Earlier that year, Gregory won a ten-guinea Burton Scholarship as the best senior art student of the year at Warragul Technical School, where he had just completed his second year of an art diploma.”
Among the paintings my mum purchased at Gregory’s exhibition were Nibbler’s Choice, painted in 1964, and his portrait of an Indigenous woman.
Gregory’s father, Kenneth Rogers, was the headmaster of Bunyip State School. ( who could forget him) ?
Remarkably, more than sixty years later, I now own Nibbler’s Choice.
And that is where today’s story really begins…
In 1965, I was only five years old. I could never have imagined that, more than sixty years later, I would be looking at Gregory’s painting and sharing its story.
Nibbler’s Choice is still in its original frame, with its little paper label reading:
“Nibbler’s Choice — by Gregory Rogers, 1964.”
The label on the back tells us that it was painted on an 18 × 16-inch Talens thick canvas board, made for oil painting by W. & G. Dean Pty Ltd in Melbourne.
I wonder where Gregory’s love of art took him after leaving Warragul Technical School. If he was 17 in 1965, he would now be about 78 years old.
For me, Nibbler’s Choice is much more than an old painting. It is a little piece of Bunyip history, a memory of my mum, and a reminder that sometimes history is not hidden away in a museum—it is quietly hanging in our own home.
And, of course, Henry thinks the little nibbler in the painting may have been searching for a sticky bun!
If anybody has any thing to add to this story please doI would love to know more about Gregory Rogers life Did he stay with Art etc
Happy Friday everyone #loveslwayshenry♥️