Don Ross Mosaic

6. Flexible by design Partridge in a Pear Tree. Pendant and Chain. Sterling silver with pears 18ct gold gilded silver. Open Painting technique enamel bird.

7. Flexible by design Ritual Cabinet [table sculpture, constructed, cast, etched and enamelling. Gilded inserts and door panels]

8. Flexible by design Image courtesy John and Patricia Ross Tattersalls Billiard Players. September, 1947 (Tattersall Club, Brisbane) by design

9. Flexible by design

10. Flexible by design Renato Gregorini (left) with Luigi Casagrande

11. Flexible by design d. 16 Jan 2015 “not sleeping, just dead” Photo courtesy Janet De Boer, O.A.M.

12. Interview design

Editor's Notes

Introduce self Mention the SLQ free research service – but this time the question came from my director – As SLQ has taken over the curation of the Shrine of Memories space, we needed to find out about the name attached to the mosaic.
What I discovered was that the creator of this work was a key figure in the Brisbane arts and craft scene for the entire second half of the 20th century [statement made by Janet de Boer, owner and manager of Gallery 159 who held a Tribute exhibition for Don Ross in June, 2003] born in Brisbane while WW1 still raging 15 Jan 1917 – ‘happy birthday Don’ Son of William Ross (dentist) and Eileen Whelan Married Joy Dickson “Dicki” in 1942 Had one son Daryl True Renaissance man – Don Ross studied dentistry and joined his father’s practice W D Ross & Sons father -William Donald Ross - founding member of the Tattersall Club – dental practice above the Club which meant he could play billiards every day there – worked until he was 94! Don retired from dentistry in 1969 when he was in his early 50s before deciding to devote himself entirely to his arts practice
He could play the saxophone, great lover of jazz, and was a master crafstman working across many different media, including..
Watercolours and oils.. By this stage most of his work was abstract. This work reflects his interest in space and won the 1962 RNA 'Modern Style' award He painted murals (for Greek friend Michael Karlos): - Carolena coffee shop, Queen St. - Cubana coffe shop, Albert St
He made collages – this one the first pop art work exhibited by a Contemporary Art Society artist - Don was a founding member of this society.
And intricate and imaginative pieces of jewellery.. Worked with gold, sterling silver, ivory, ebony, wood, copper and brass, exotic dental alloys and porcelains.. experimented with combinations of these materials. “deliberate reference to historic styles and ancient symbolism, often earmarked by a gregarious theatrical whimsy” – QAG has one of his works in their collection. He designed logos – including one for QTC (1970) and one for the Australian Dental Association (1985)
He made sculptures.. Including metal sculptures – he made a bronze sculpture (figure) for the AMP Society..
Worked in pencil and ink – this drawing hangs in the Tattersalls Club, Brisbane – father was founding member. And of course, in mosaics - known especially for his enamelling work Don is represented in collections throughout Australia and abroad –including QAG, Dental School Building UQ. Don was a founding member of the Contemporary Art Society and the Queensland Jewellers Workshop collective – “the most exclusive club for jewellers and metalsmiths in Australia” (sub group of Crafts Association Qld – now Artisans) – which was more or less responsible for creating the thriving Qld contemporary jewellery scene today. Don taught himself jewellery techniques as there were no schools for jewellery when he was starting out – of course his dentistry work was the departure point Represented Queensland on the Advisory panel for the journal Craft Australia Won many prizes – GOMA has a 14 page listing Interested in everything – especially ancient civilizations or space ..
The Mosaic Don was approached by the Patriotic Fund of Australia to design and create a mosaic for the RSL headquarters at ANZAC House in Wickham Tce – commission was to “commemorate the loss and suffering of members of the armed forces wounded and killed in the World Wars. Only mosaics Don had done at this point was few table tops with kitchen tiles for friends Was given an introduction to Napier Waller in the ACT – spent some months with him - gave him valuable tips – ie. best to use the ‘fractured face’ tiles (‘Tesserae’). Waller was the one-armed mosaicist who made the beautiful 6 million piece work for the Australian War Memorial’s Hall of Memories. Spent months calculating how many tiles he would need in each of the 57 colours – worked out he needed 140,000 pieces. Imported the Venetian ‘fractured face enamelled (‘smalto’) glass tesserae from Italy – spent 21/2 years piecing it together mostly at home, patiently hand cutting by night after full day’s work at the dental practice, helped by wife Dicki and friend Don Mills. Dicki and Don Mills did the background areas and Don did the figured areas . Each tile was numbered. During the day while Don was at work Dicki would glue the bits into position onto a temporary sheet. Calculated they made 5 cents an hour for all that labour. Anecdote of the cockroaches.. Glue had sugar on it .. Packed into boxes stored on a verandah – when they came back from their holiday and opened the boxes they found all the tiles had fallen off the backing sheet.. Cockroaches had eaten the glue and the backing sheets! Set them back several months. Work includes soil from WW2 cemeteries (at base of central pillar) around the world where Austrlaian soldiers are buried Work unveiled in 1962 at ANZAC House where it stayed for 22 years until it was decided to relocate it to ANZAC Square.. This decision followed 15 years of negotiations and controversy over the “hole in the ground” that was ANZAC Square. The removal of the mosaic required specialist help.
The Mosaic Don was approached by the Patriotic Fund of Australia to design and create a mosaic for the RSL headquarters at ANZAC House in Wickham Tce – commission was to “commemorate the loss and suffering of members of the armed forces wounded and killed in the World Wars. Only mosaics Don had done at this point was few table tops with kitchen tiles for friends Was given an introduction to Napier Waller in the ACT – spent some months with him - gave him valuable tips – ie. best to use the ‘fractured face’ tiles (‘Tesserae’). Waller was the one-armed mosaicist who made the beautiful 6 million piece work for the Australian War Memorial’s Hall of Memories. Spent months calculating how many tiles he would need in each of the 57 colours – worked out he needed 140,000 pieces. Imported the Venetian ‘fractured face enamelled (‘smalto’) glass tesserae from Italy – spent 21/2 years piecing it together mostly at home, patiently hand cutting by night after full day’s work at the dental practice, helped by wife Dicki and friend Don Mills. Dicki and Don Mills did the background areas and Don did the figured areas . Each tile was numbered. During the day while Don was at work Dicki would glue the bits into position onto a temporary sheet. Calculated they made 5 cents an hour for all that labour. Anecdote of the cockroaches.. Glue had sugar on it .. Packed into boxes stored on a verandah – when they came back from their holiday and opened the boxes they found all the tiles had fallen off the backing sheet.. Cockroaches had eaten the glue and the backing sheets! Set them back several months. Work includes soil from WW2 cemeteries (at base of central pillar) around the world where Austrlaian soldiers are buried Work unveiled in 1962 at ANZAC House where it stayed until 22 years later in 1984 it was decided to relocate to ANZAC Square.. This decision followed 15 years of negotiations and controversy over the “hole in the ground” that was ANZAC Square. The removal of the mosaic required specialist help. Luigi Casagrande – (on right with moustache) managing director of the civil construction company contracted to move the shrine – found Renato Gregorini (on left in this photo) and managed to convince him to come to Australia for the job. Gregorini was 2nd generation mosaicist - son of ‘the master of all Venetian mosaicists’ – he both made mosaics and worked on restoring Byzantine mosaics in Italy. People said it couldn’t be done without damaging the mosaic.. mosaics are not moved.. but he did it.. took 6 weeks (not 2 weeks he had planned) making him the first mosaicist in the world to remove and re-site a contemporary mosaic. When asked how he felt about his work Gregorini answered “ I LOVE my work.. My work is like a woman.. If you love her, you never leave her”. [source SGIO. ‘Relocation of a treasure’ held SLQ] Don wryly noted in his memoir that Gregorini was paid about 20 times as much for his reinstallation as Don did for his design and creation of the original. Finally unveiled in 1984. Don clearly had a sense of humour – anecdote of the signature (told to me by Yvonne Mills, wife of Don Mills): RSL made Don remove his signature from the finished word .. which he did. Instead, incorporated the initials of his friend Don (Robert) Mills who had helped him every night after work - hiding them in a vertical fashion.. so somewhere in the work you can find ‘D.R.M’.
90th birthday at Toowong Croquet club – all birthdays held here – everyone invited.. T shirt message reflects Don’s sense of humour.. Don died 7 years after this photo was taken the day after his 98th birthday.. Funeral notice said ‘not sleeping, just dead’. Clearly Don had a zest for life – that life was long and rich, filled with friends, family and all that wonderful creativity.. I just wished I could have known him myself! We’ll now leave you with an excerpt from an interview with Don on the making of the mosaic..
Excerpt from the footage taken by Channel 9 for SGIO on the making of the mosaic

Don Ross Mosaic

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Don Ross Mosaic

Editor's Notes