Design and Art Australia Online

Frank (Francis) De Groot was a quixotic Sydney character from his arrival from Ireland in 1910 until his return to Dublin in 1950. Although he is best known for his spectacular opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932, Frank De Groot’s most significant contribution to the city is the design, manufacturing and marketing of period reproduction furniture.

Frank was born in Dublin in 1888 into a family descended from the Antwerp De Groots, a dynasty of carvers and gilders. De Groot’s father, Cornelius, was a notable Dublin carver and sculptor in stone. Cornelius had been represented amongst the medal-winning wood carvers at the Great Exhibition of All Nations, London, 1851.^[1]

Frank De Groot arrived in Australia in 1910, after youthful experience in the British Merchant Navy and a five year apprenticeship with his uncle Michael Butler, a Dublin antique dealer who later opened Sales Rooms in London. On arrival in Sydney, he was fortunate enough to meet publisher George Robertson and Robertson’s associate Fred Wynmark.

In 1910, Wynmark was struggling to open an art gallery in the rear of Angus & Robertson. It is not entirely clear when Angus & Robertson began selling antiquities but they were issuing catalogues by 1910.^[2] De Groot, with his Dublin and London connections, was able to assist them. De Groot’s manuscript in the Mitchell Library claims that Robertson advanced him £10,000 for British purchases of antiques for sale in the gallery. One of these early Angus & Robertson purchases, an 1851 carved yew wine cooler, may have found its way into the home of S.H. Ervin, now in the National Trust (NSW) collections.

From 1910 to 1914, De Groot was associated with Wynmark at the Angus & Robertson gallery in Castlereagh Street. Amongst De Groot’s favoured clients were Dame Eadith Walker, S.H. Ervin, Sir Thomas Anderson Stuart, the Vickery family, William and Robert Dixson and the Hordern family.

When war threatened in 1914, De Groot returned to Ireland to enlist. He sold his remaining stock to Anthony Hordern, who, according to De Groot’s manuscript, used his inventory to start the Anthony Hordern’s Art Gallery in their George Street store.

De Groot soon began his own business in antiques and reproduction furniture. He uses an artisan named “Jansen” and a furniture maker named Leonard Facer to assist him with repairs and new works.^[3] By September 1921, Sydney Ure Smith and Harry Julius’s new magazine, The Home, announces that “....De Groot’s rooms have only recently opened to the Sydney public “ at the address “De Groot’s Auction Rooms. Lanark House, 148 Phillip Street, Sydney”. His advertisements promises clients “Antiques and high class Reproductions”. These early advertisements in The Home were the beginning of an unique symbiotic relationship between Sydney Ure Smith’s magazine and Frank De Groot.

De Groot had an aptitude for publicity and within 12 months of opening his Auction Rooms, he arranges an interview in The Australian Home Builder with Nora Cooper, a seasoned writer on home furnishings and architecture. His rooms had now shifted to 39 Bent Street, Sydney. “ 'De Groot,’ says Cooper, 'may well be regarded as a pioneer in this part of the world… .’ 'Mr De Groot comes of a line of cabinet makers, so that his instinct for design is, so to speak, born in him.’ “^[4]

“...[T]he furniture of Mr De Groot’s own make [is] the centre of interest. In design he favours Chippendale, Adam, and William and Mary, these being especially suitable for reproduction in Australian woods. Queensland maple, he contends, is often superior to the mahogany of the 18th century. All his designs are carried out…with an eye to the conditions of the country, and secondly, with a soundness of construction and perfection of finish rarely to be found, alas! in this age of cheap mass production”.

In a Nora Cooper interview, De Groot emerges as a translator of 18th century English furniture styles, content to maintain the lines and mass of period furniture with concessions to 20th century housekeeping. “Pure Chippendale,” says De Groot, “is not suited to Australia as the bold carving catches dust.” He modifies his carving accordingly. De Groot also consistently uses Queensland maple as a primary furniture timber.

By 1926, De Groot moves from the city into McLachlan House, McLachlan Avenue, Rushcutters Bay where he establishes furniture workshops and a showroom. In this location he continues to enhance and promote the craft values of his reproduction furniture as well as sell antique furniture, art, carpets and bibelots.

De Groot’s new advertising strategy begins to feature the skills of his artisans. In a full page ad in The Home, he praises the work of A. B. Stowe, one of his McLachlan House carvers. “...[furniture] produced by the skilled hands of the master craftsman [A.B. Stowe]. Men who can take our beautiful Australian woods and with supreme artistry, create furniture the equal of any in the world.”

In October 1927, the De Groot advertisement in The Home announces that he employs 80 crafts people and in the November issue of the journal, this number has risen to a questionable 100 Australian experts. These employee figures seem implausible given the size of the Australian furniture market in the 1920s. But during the late 1920s, De Groot is producing (and illustrating): Queensland maple dressing tables in the Chippendale style; Queen Ann-style chairs; Chippendale-style desks; leather-upholstered chairs; Sheraton-style wardrobe with panels of Richmond River cedar salvaged from Burdekin House; a line of small caskets in Australian timbers and store fittings for David Jones and other retailers.

In the midst of this frenetic advertising campaign, with its
unverifiable boast of 100 artisans employed in his Rushcutters Bay manufactory, De Groot suddenly decides in June 1928 that he is going abroad and announces a sizeable auction in the following month at James R. Lawson’s rooms in Castlereagh Street.

In July 1928, De Groot’s collection goes under the hammer. The Historic Houses Trust Library contains a copy of the listings: Catalogue of F.E. De Groot’s Antique and Fine Reproduction Furniture, Rare China and Old Silver, Waterford Glass and Eastern Rugs. ... At the Gallery Auction Salerooms of James R. Lawson… (24-25 July 1928). Most, if not all of De Groot’s larger sales take place at Lawson’s.

Following travels abroad, De Groot returns in ample time to open the Sydney Harbour Bridge on 19 March 1932. Although this feat is too well-known to describe here, De Groot was initially charged as being “a person deemed to be insane “.

Despite De Groot’s cavalier reputation, he receives a major commission for the Australia Hotel in 1934 and in 1935, he was selected by a group of citizens of the Federal Capital Territory to design and manufacture a suite of furniture for Their Excellencies Sir Isaac Isaacs and Lady Isaacs . According to the Mitchell Library Small Picture File, this furniture was presented on 5 December 1935. The Library’s chair carries a stamped brass plague on a black japan finish: “Made by De Groot. Maker of Fine Furniture and Fittings. Sydney No.142.” It is unclear if this is a standard De Groot identification.

This veneered chair for the Governor General, with its ornament-free rectilinear lines and its symmetrical veneering suggests that De Groot is not immune to the furniture design trends of the 1920s and 1930s. It is one of the few pieces that show this facet of De Groot’s later design work.

His feats of arms seem to do De Groot’s reputation no harm as some of his better known furniture clients include Harry Ervin, noted for the bequest that established the National Trust’s S.H. Ervin Gallery and Dame Eadith Walker’s mansion Yaralla at Concord. Amongst his earlier Sydney sales (1921) is a card table for Dame Nellie Melba for her “Coombe Cottage”.^[5]

De Groot continued his association with furniture design and manufacture through the 1930s. He also exhibited with the Society of Arts and Crafts of N.S.W. in 1937 in a display organised in the Education Department Exhibition Galleries. The catalogue describes a “Scheme for Chimney Breast. Arranged by B.J. Waterhouse and Mrs A.J. Brown.’ 'Georgian Mantle designed by John L. Berry, made and exhibited by F.E. De Groot. Two Sheraton Chairs designed by John L. Berry, made and exhibited by F.E. De Groot’.

When the 1939-45 War began, De Groot re-enlisted and served as a staff officer in Australia based initially at the Victoria Barracks, Paddington. The De Groots build their Castle Hill home, Dunrath, during wartime after dismantling and transporting it from its original location in Hunters Hill. By 1945, he is discharged as a Major.

By the 1940s, De Groot seems to withdraw from the reproduction and antique furniture business and by 1948, at the age of 69, he decides to sell up his Castle Hill home and its furnishings and return to Ireland. Included in this sale are “...the whole of the Templates, Shapes and Working Drawings used in the production of the famous De Groot Furniture…”. The remainder of De Groot’s contents are cleared by a later Lawson’s sale.^[6]

The catalogue of the 1948 sale records a few of the claimed 200 cabinet makers associated with De Groot’s work. “ Mr De Groot wishes to place on record the names of three of the craftsmen most closely connected with the making of the sixty pieces of furniture bearing his name that are included in this sale. They are Mr. Alfred Downes, foreman cabinet maker; Mr. H. Jackson, polisher; and Mr. Harry Dellow; wood-carver. All three being craftsmen whose work can stand comparison with any of the well-known names of the XVIII century.”

With this auction and the sale of his templates and drawings, Frank De Groot disappears from the Australian scene. He returns to Ireland in 1950. Pencilled notations from the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales library copy of the Lawson catalogue from his Pennant Hills sale record that De Groot’s 1948 Lot 284: “Templates, Shapes, Cut-outs and Working Drawings “ sold for a modest £42/10/0.

Some recorded or noted De Groot furniture

1 September 1921. “Reproduction made in Sydney of Queensland maple in Chippendale design.” The Home, p.23.

Nora Cooper. Modern Furniture Design. A Chat with Mr F.E. De Groot. p.35-35. The Australian Home Builder. (illustrated). June 1924.

“In design he favours Chippendale, Adam and William and Mary, these being especially suited for reproduction in Australian woods. Queensland maple, he contends, is often superior to the mahogany of the 18th century.”

“A pair of twin bedsteads was particularly interesting being made from Richmond River cedar, recently obtained from Burdekin House. They were designed on Sheraton lines, inlaid and panelled and the rich satiny finish of the wood should prove a lasting source of joy to their possessor. A card table … in maple, polished a light walnut shade, was beautifully, though not heavily carved, a feature being the polished ash and tumbler trays let into the green baize surface. This is similar to one made by Mr De Groot for Dame [Nellie] Melba.”

1 December 1926. Dressing table in 18th and early 19th century Chippendale style in Queensland maple. The Home.

1 February 1927. Dressing table in Queensland maple. The Home. p.41

1 March 1927. Chippendale-style desk, Queen Ann-style chairs, Queensland maple, leather upholstered seats. The Home. p.57

1 April 1927. “Old Masters” Queen Anne, William and Mary, Chippendale, Sheraton, Adam, Hepplewhite. The Home. p.55

1 July 1927. Empire-style chair for new restaurant at David Jones. The Home. p.43.

1 August 1927. A Wardrobe in the William and Mary manner. The Home. p.48.

1 September 1927. Sheraton-style wardrobe and “contains panels of Richmond River cedar from Burdekin House, Macquarie Street. The Home. p.59.

1 December 1927. Line of caskets in Australian timbers.
The Home. p.69

1 February 1928. Store fittings for David Jones. The Home. p.47

1 March 1928. A De Groot wardrobe. p.51

ca.1930. Walnut-veneered secretaire made for S.H. Ervin. Collection National Trust of Australia (NSW). Illustrated in Treasures of the National Trust. Fine Arts Press, 1992. See also Fahy and Simpson.

1935. Chairs for Sir Isaac Isaacs. Label in japanned brass
“Made by De Groot. Maker of Fine Furniture and Fittings. Sydney No.142.”

1937. “Georgian mantle designed by John L. Berry, made and exhibited by F.E. De Groot. Two Sheraton[-style] Chairs designed by John L. Berry, made and exhibited by F.E. De Groot” in Society of Arts and Crafts of N.S.W. catalogue.

1. ^ Frank De Groot. Typescript of Autobiographical Information. 1962. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW. (ML MSS 5243)
2. ^ Heather Johnson. The Sydney Art Patronage System 1890-1940. Bungoona Technologies. 1997, p.69.
3. ^ Frank De Groot. Typescript of Autobiographical Information. 1962. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW. (ML MSS 5243)
4. ^ Nora Cooper. “Modern Furniture Design. A Chat with Mr F.E. De Groot.” The Australian Home Builder. 16 June 1924. pps. 25-26.
5. ^ “Examples of Old Furniture at De Groot’s Rooms, Sydney. The Home. 1 September 1921. p.23.
6. ^ Catalogue of A Most Important Collection of Antique and Period Furniture…Major Frank De Groot owing to his immediate departure for abroad…” [catalogue]. James R. Lawson. 13, 14 December 1949.

Writers:

Michael Bogle

Date written:

2012

Last updated:

2012