Roy Cecil Paget, a fine artist and commercial artist, from the early 1930s onwards, was born in Adamstown, a suburb of Newcastle, NSW in 1909. Although his mother was originally from Queensland, his parents married in Sydney, and his family lived in Merewether, a suburb of Newcastle in the second half of the 1900s, where his three siblings (Alfred, Ernest, Dulcie) were born.
The family moved to Brisbane likely in the 1910s, and were living in Lang Street, Fairfield when a young Roy started trying his hand at competitions. He won prizes in the landscape art section of the Brisbane Exhibition in 1923, and the junior division of original oil paintings in the Royal National Jubilee Exhibition, 1925. In 1930 he won a minor prize in a Nautical Fair poster designing competition, and this spurred him to pursue an art career – which he later stated was derailed by The Great Depression. And so he moved on to another, more practical, career.
Seemingly this was sign writing, which he ran out of a Bower Street, Annerley premises attached to the family home, when he wasn’t travelling around on an electric motorbike with his work brushes and paints in tow.
During this period a young Roy also took a keen interest in sports with involvement in the Men’s Metropolitan Tennis Association, and also boxing; he was pitched in a match against Lennie James at the Sir Henry Parkes School of Arts in Tenterfield, NSW not far from the border of Queensland. It is mentioned he was a popular personality, and this event attracted a large crowd.
In 1935 he married Dulcie Emily née Larsen, and around 1936 they moved to 5 Hawthorne Street, Woolloongabba, Brisbane. He seems to have stayed at this address for the rest of his life. However the couple remained childless, and unfortunately his wife passed away after only a few years.
Shortly after her death, Paget threw himself into art again by exhibiting paintings. He studied under watercolourist Roy Parkinson in the late 1930s; then under former commercial artist and watercolourist Cyril Gibbs at Central Technical College art school in the early-mid 1940s.
Paget was active in the fine art scene during this period – with memberships to the Queensland Art Society and the Brighter Art Society. During this time he was exhibiting watercolour and oil work at venues like Brisbane’s Gainsborough Gallery, as well as the John Cooper Gallery and the Moreton Gallery. By 1948 an exhibitions of his had attracted “record crowds” for the gallery that had shown it.
He turned his hand to a commercial art career, and his remarrying Ada Emma Paget (née unknown) may have returned him to more practical money-making pursuits; there’s no mention of his art to be found after 1950. We can assume by necessity a more pragmatic attitude was taken to creativity from thereon, and the Tivoli Theatre were a sometime client. A programme for their “Femmes and Furs” extravaganza at their Sydney venue is signed “Paget” at the lower right. It seems that, although it appears unsigned, he also designed advertising material for “Frosty Follies” around 1961, which was staged at the Tivoli Theatre’s Melbourne venue (which operated as a vaudeville from 1901-1966).
Although he seemingly remained residing in Brisbane up until his death, there’s no reason to rule out a short professional spell in either Melbourne or Sydney.
However, the Tivoli as a circuit entity that covered a number of cities, and purchased some permanent venues, did include Brisbane’s Her Majesty’s Theatre during the period his name, or work in his style, appears on their promotional material.
He died in 1991 having always specified his profession as sign writer or sign artist.
© 2015, Darian Zam, Social historian.
- Writers:
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- Date written:
- 2015
- Last updated:
- 2015
