Christian Waller b. 2 August 1894

Also known as Christian Yandell, Christian Marjory Emily Carlyle Waller, Christian Marjory Emily Carlyle Yandell, née Yandell Christian Waller
  • Artist (Mixed Media Artist),
  • Artist (Cartoonist / Illustrator)
20th century painter, illustrator and stained-glass designer and maker. Early fantasy and mystic themes followed by Art Deco style.
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Name
Christian Waller
Also known as:
  • Christian Yandell
  • Christian Marjory Emily Carlyle Waller
  • Christian Marjory Emily Carlyle Yandell
  • née Yandell Christian Waller
Gender
Female
Roles
  • Artist (Mixed Media Artist)
  • Artist (Cartoonist / Illustrator)
Other Occupation
  • commercial artist (ANZSIC code: 6924) -
Birth date
2 August 1894
Birth place
Castlemaine, Victoria
Death date
25 May 1954
Death place
Melbourne, Victoria
Burial place
Fawkner Crematorium, Melbourne, Vic
Death note
\n\nBurialNote: cremation
Active Period
  • 1928 - 1952
  • c.1928 -
  • c.1925 -
  • 1921 - 1925
Residence
  • 1922 - 1954 9 Crown Road, Fairy Hills, Ivanhoe, Melbourne, Vic
  • c.1910 - c.1922 Parkville, Melbourne, Vic
  • 1908 - 1910 Bendigo, Vic
  • 1894 - 1908 Castlemaine, Vic
Training
  • 1910 - 1914 National Gallery School, Melbourne, Vic
  • c.1905 - c.1908 School of Mines, Castlemaine, Vic
Languages
  • English
Initial Record Data Source
  • Heritage: The National Women's Art Book

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Date modified Dec. 16, 2024, 4:25 p.m. April 10, 2011, 11:06 p.m.
painter, printmaker and stained-glass designer and maker, was born on 2 August 1894 in Castlemaine, Victoria, youngest of the seven children of a plasterer, William Edward Yandell (who died in 1899), and Emily St Clair, née James. From 1905 she studied painting at the local School of Mines under Carl Steiner. In 1909, the year after she moved to Bendigo with her family, the fourteen year old prodigy had her oil painting, _A Petition_ (a Greek scene in the manner of Alma Tadema featuring her sister Florence), hung in the Bendigo Art Gallery and shown at the Masonic Hall (with her _A Lay of Thermopylae_ ). In 1910 some of her paintings were raffled to help her study at the Melbourne National Gallery Schools and the family moved to Parkville. Christian spent 1910-14 at the School, fellow students including *Esther Paterson* , *Mary Cecil Allen* , *Marion Jones* , *Ethel Spowers* - and *Napier Waller* , whom she married on 21 October 1915. She exhibited fantasy works with the Victorian Artists' Society in 1913-22. ¶

Napier left for France in 1916 and returned in 1917 with his right arm amputated. While he learned to draw with his left hand, Christian supported them with commercial art. In 1922-23 they built a house at 9 Crown Road, Fairy Hills, Ivanhoe. Designed by Harold Desbrowe Annear, its late English Arts and Crafts style was decorated and furnished by the owners in complementary style, including a dining room suite designed by Napier and painted with figures from the Arthurian Legend by Christian. It remained her home for the rest of her life. ¶

Christian illustrated books from 1921, including several published by Edward Vidler ( _see_ *Sara Levi* ). One illustrated in colour and b/w is _Australian Fairy Tales_ (Melbourne: J. Howlett-Ross, 1925) by Hume Cook, then a federal politician (intro. by Billy Hughes PM), with a plot about the battle of the good Prince Waratah, Princess Wattleblossom and fairies against the evil Desert Fairies of the Australian bush (see Muir). She also began to make woodcuts and linocuts and excellent bookplates followed from about 1925 - the first being a linocut for her husband's books - and theatrical poster designs from about 1928. She began to design stained-glass windows and in 1929 travelled with Napier to England to study their manufacture at Whall & Whall's, London. They also visited Ireland, home of the Celtic revival, to meet the mystic writers Lord Edward Dunsany and 'A.E.' (George William Russell). ¶

Back home in 1930 Waller's art became far more Art Deco in style and theosophist in content. Her finest printed work, _The Great Breath_ (Melbourne 1932) - seven linocuts (a favourite mystical number) printed on the Wallers' own hand press and bound in a green folder bearing the theosophical symbol of a dot within a circle - was entirely made by her. She also produced _The Gates of Dawn_ that year. She contributed to _Manuscripts_ , eg no.3 (November 1932), 52, 'The Woman of Faery' (pen drawing). ¶

During the 1930s Christian made stained-glass windows in Melbourne, Geelong and at Canowindra and Gilgandra (NSW), often for Anglican churches designed by Louis R. Williams. She travelled to the USA in 1939 to study at the temple of Father Divine and painted murals in New York before returning in April 1940. A mural for Christ Church, Geelong, followed in 1942; but from then on she worked at home on stained-glass windows. In 1948 she was reported to have completed over fifty and have orders for years to come. Her last window was made in 1952, by which time she is said to have designed and made over 65 windows in Victoria. She died on 25 May 1954 and was cremated at the Fawkner Crematorium where in 1937 she had painted a mural, _The Robe of Glory_ . ¶

Imahges include 7 art deco linocuts from _The Great Breath_ , printed and registered as Golden Arrow Press, Melbourne, 1932 by Waller (Bendigo Art Gallery has a set); one of _Gates of Dawn_ originals (book not published until 1978) formerly in the National Trust (NSW) Childhood Collection, now Mitchell Library.