The son of William Waller, contractor, and Sarah Napier, he spent his early years on his father;s farm. In 1913 he began studies at the National Gallery School, Melbourne, and first exhibited at the the Victorian Artists’ Society in 1915. On 31 August of that year he enlisted in the AIF, but before he left for France he married a fellow student, Christian Yandall, better known as the artist Christian Waller. He was wounded in action at Bullecourt in May 1917, and lost his right arm. While convalescing in France he learnt to write and draw with his left. On discharge in 1918 he exhibited a series of war subjects.
In the 1920s he turned to linocuts as well as beginning to design murals. He completed his first major mural for the Menzies Hotel in Melbourne in 1927, followed by _Peace after Victory _ at the State Library of Victoria in 1928.
In 1929 the Wallers travelled to Europe to study stained glass, and were especially impressed by the mosaics in Ravenna and Venice. From then on he worked almost exclusively with these forms. The work of his maturity gave the public architecture of Melbourne the flavour of dignified decoration, classical forms with a modern twist.
Four years after Christian’s death in 1954, he married Lorna Reyburn, the New Zealand born artist who had long been his assistant. Despite failing health he continued to work until shortly before his death at home in Ivanhoe 30 March 1972.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
Joanna Mendelssohn
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2012
