1918 Ancre Valley, the Western Front

The 11th Field Company's (RAE 1st AIF) diary includes a watercolour sketch of the Ancre Valley done by Vasco. It was done from a position on the Morlancourt Ridge, between the Somme and the Ancre Rivers, close to where the Red Baron was shot down. Vasco's 1918 panorama, from what was already a war cemetery on the left to Heilly village on the right, appears largely unchanged in a  contemporary panorama photo taken from an approximate location.

1908-1909 The Culbera Cut, Panama Canal

In 1908-1909 Vasco was in Panama while the Panama Canal was being constructed. He earnt a living by doing caricatures. He was also obviously curious about the construction of the canal and the people involved. The above drawing shows a labourer in the Culbera Cut.

1917 'British Australasian', London

 

Sapper Vasco's arrival in England is reported in the British Australasian, 1917. The image shows Vasco sketching fellow soldiers on the troopship Suevic, en route to Britain in 1916.

 

The British Australasian was an interesting institution in late 19th and early 20th century London. It reported on the comings and goings of Australians and New Zealanders in the Britain and kept them up to date with events back in the colonies. Its reports were often picked up by papers back in Australia. The British Australasian's offices in High Holborn also functioned as a post office and general agency for colonials away from home, a service provided for later generations of Australians by various state offices.

 

Vasco got notices in the British Australasian in both 1907 and 1917. There are some interesting connections behind this. As a child in the Melbourne suburb of Kew, Vasco's neighbour was Maurice Brodzky who was editor of the influential paper Table Talk. Brodzky's son Horace was encouraged in his early artistic endeavours by Vasco's father, Arthur Loureiro, and Horace went on to establish an international reputation as an artist. Forced out of journalism in Melbourne as a result of his exposures of the corrupt land-boomers of the 1880s, Maurice Brodzky later found work on a number of San Francisco newspapers. Another son, Leon Brodzky (aka Leon or Spencer Brodney), was for some time an editor of the British Australasian and later worked in the US.

 

With newspaper publicity, Vasco had good modelling. His father's name featured regularly in Melbourne publications, especially Table Talk. His mother, Marie Therese Loureiro, was art critic for the Melbourne Age. Even as an itinerant street artist Vasco managed to get notices in papers such as the San Francisco Call and the British Australasian.       

1913 Victoria, BC, Canada

Bedford Regency Hotel, Victoria, Canada

formerly the Hibben-Bone Building

Newspaper report from
The Week  12 April, 1913
(Victoria, BC, Canada)

Personalities

I see that my old friend Vasco de Gama Loureiro Peacherino is in town again. I regard him as one of the mysteries of the age. He has the facility of disappearing and reappearing. With him it is a case of 'now you see him and now you don't'. I begin to wonder where he spends his spare time. I know that in the summer months he may generally be found on one of the 'Empresses' in the Sound or in the Straits, sketching profiles. I know that in the winter he is supposed to go south, which means to Australia. But this winter he must have broken his rule, because he was in Victoria with the 'Vigilantes' or the 'Versatiles' or the 'Elks', or whatever they call themselves. Last week end he attracted the usual crowd by sketching the 'Elks' Antics' in Hibbens' windows; but when the 'Antics' were over he disappeared again, and now I haven't the least idea where he is. However, I am quite sure that he will bob up again serenely. He will be sketching, and he will be wearing the soft cap and long silk flowing tie, without which no Bohemian artist considers himself properly dressed.

Notes:

-       'Vasco de Gama' was a reference to Vasco Loureiro's more famous Portuguese namesake.
-       'Peacherino' seems like local slang of uncertain meaning. It suggests 'cool'.
-       The 'Empresses' were Canadian Pacific Rail's trans-Pacific liners. The ships Vasco worked on in the Sound and Straits are more likely to have been CPR's 'Princesses'.
-       If Vasco 'went south' in the period 1909-1913, it was not to Australia. His most likely destination was California but he may also have travelled to eastern Canada. He returned to Australia in late 1913.
-       The 'Vigilantes', 'Versatiles' or 'Elks' probably refers to a meeting of the Elks, a fraternal lodge.
-       'Hibbens' window' refers to the Hibben-Bone Building. Now the Bedford Regency Hotel, the ground floor windows of this building appear largely unaltered and, in mid-2012, there was a piano. Do people still perform in the window? It was part of Vasco's modus operandi that he would employ again in a tailor's window in High Street Brightlingsea in 1917, a year before his death.

1908 Indy 500 rehearsal

 

On 5 March 1908 the Palm Beach Daily News (Florida, USA) reported that Vasco was a passenger in a car that raced a train. The driver of the car was an Australian, Rupert Jiffkins (aka Jeffkins). Jiffkins subsequently raced in the first two Indianapolis 500s and is a significant figure in American and Australian motor racing history.   

1907 Sleepoopsky

 

In 1907, when Vasco left Australia for his extended overseas travel, he caricatured himself as 'Sleepoopsky'. En route to England on the Medic he formed an association with five other young men, who called themselves the 'Savages'. They were 'Evil Eye' Short, 'Paleface' Cassidy, 'Knotted Knee' Cox, 'Musical Noke' Alpen and 'One Lung' Moley. Presumably the references are to popular culture characters and songs of the time. George Alpen remained with Vasco for a time in England. It is possible that George later established a business in Belgium and was subsequently caught up in the German invasion of 1940, an event reported in some Australian newspapers. 

 

Questions:

1 Vasco probably drew most folks on board the Medic on its 1907 voyage from Australia to Britain. Have any of those drawings survived?  

1904-1906 Argus, sauce of the Age

In the period 1904-1906 Vasco did some advertising work for Blogg Bros 'Argus Sauce'. There was considerable outrage in Melbourne newspapers about one poster that depicted Federal politician George Reid in an unflattering way. Even though Reid 'lent himself to caricature', this one apparently went too far. Victorian Premier Thomas Bent ('bent by name, bent by nature') was outraged and threatened to have the posters removed from railway property. The above Argus Sauce postcard has been found but its historical context is not clear. The offensive poster featuring Reid has not been seen but it was later reported that Blogg had them amended. It may be the only instance where one of Vasco's drawings was regarded as offensive. Blogg himself was an intersting figure who made it into the papers often. And there seems to be some intriguing interplay between his sauce brand and the titles of the two main Melbourne papers, the Age and the Argus - 'Agus, sauce of the Age' was one of Blogg's advertising slogans.   

1895, the artist as his father's model

 

Vasco was the model for Arthur Loureiro's 1895 painting 'Two Friends'.

Vasco was born in 1882 and, according to the date of the painting, appears young for his age.  

 

1910 Vancouver: Joseph Charles Bishop

The City of Vancouver Archives has a magnificent Vasco, a large pastel caricature of Joseph Charles Bishop (1851-1913). As a photo from the same period shows, it is a stunning portrait. Bishop was founding President of the British Columbia Mountaineering Club. British Columbia's Mt Bishop is named after him. He died in 1913 when he fell down a crevasse. The photo was accompanied by the epitaph 'The mountains lured him and held him'. Thanks to folks in BC: Shirley Sutherland, Michael Feller, Kim McCarthy and Kate Russell.   

 

1905 Melbourne: Meet at Flinders St Station

See Culture Victoria's recent blog on Melbourne's Flinders Street statio:

http://blogs.cv.vic.gov.au/flinders-street-station/2012/10/29/love-stories-project-flinders-street-station/

It features one of Vasco's postcards from 1905. At this time there were up to three mail deliveries a day in central Melbourne. A postcard sent in the morning could set up up a meeting, under the clocks at Flinders Street, at the time the sender indicated on the blank clock. At a time when few people had telephones and postcards were very popular, such a message served the same function as modern texting.

1917 Western Front: Captain Ewing George Thomson MC

 

Captain Ewing George Thomson MC (1888-1946) was a medical officer with with the 42nd Battalion, 1st AIF. Vasco drew this caricature before Christmas 1917 when they were both serving in the same area of the Western Front. The caricature was sent home and lay folded in a drawer for ninety years. Thanks to Captain Thomson's grandson, Robert Thomson, for salvaging and sending in yet another example of Vasco's work that has survived. 

1917 Western Front Vasco's CO, Major Donaldson, 11th Field Company RAE

Have just noticed comment re Vasco on The Great War Forum regarding Vasco's commanding officer during World War I, Major Donaldson. The AWM has an image of Major Donaldson and also a Vasco caricature entitled Don. (The Great War Forum: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=176125&hl=vasco)

                                       Major Donaldson                                 Vasco's Don

Vasco Loureiro

Vasco Loureiro was the son of Portuguese artist Artur Loureiro and Marie Therese Huybers. He was born in London in 1882 but his parents soon moved to Melbourne, where Artur was a successful artist at a very important time in Australian art history.

When Vasco left school he seems to have very quickly adopted a bohemian lifestyle that stayed with him for the rest of his life. In Melbourne Vasco was a postcard artist and caricaturist. Although the artistic merit of his postcards varied, they are now valued by collectors.

It appears that Vasco made a reasonable living selling hastily drawn caricatures to people on the street. A favoured ploy was to draw passengers on ferries or people attending exhibitions and major public events. So successful did this prove to be that it funded a lengthy period of overseas travel. For some of this time he was based in California and British Columbia.

Following his return to Australia in 1913 Vasco enlisted in the Australian Army (using the name Louis Vasco) and served in the 11th Field Company, Engineers. While in the army he never stopped drawing and this has created a visual diary of training, the troop ship, life in England and on the Western Front. Vasco was evacuated to England in 1918 and died in hospital before the war ended.

While he may not have been a great artist, Vasco was prolific. As a result, his drawings continue to turn up around the world and in family archives. At one point they were at least known to have hung in a bar in Livermore (California), a ferry terminal in Vancouver (Canada), Fasoli's bohemian restaurant in Melbourne, various pubs in England and a number of cafes in France. While he and most of his subjects were 'ordinary', he also had a Forrest Gump like knack for being in interesting places at interesting times. This gives significant value to his work.

Future blogs will expand on particular aspects of his life and highlight those areas where there are still many questions.

Vasco's niece, Renee Fauvette Erdos, was a history teacher and it is thanks to her that much of his material has been preserved in Australian archives. Her story, with some detail on Vasco's family, can be found at: http://www.htansw.asn.au/htahistory

Selected images

1. A Vasco cigarette card featuring a Melbourne football player.

2. A Vasco postcard from his 'boarding house' series.

3. Ann Homan and Richard Finn's Vasco's Livermore, written about a collection of Vasco caricatures drawn when he visited the small Californian town of Livermore in 1910. The drawings hung on the wall of a local bar and have been preserved. 

4. A 'Vasco' discovered in a pub in Brightlingsea, Essex, England. 

5. Vasco's grave, St Albans, England. 

First Post

This blog was created on 25 February 2012.
Posts will begin to appear over the next week.