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.