Michael McWilliams graduated in printmaking from the Tasmanian School of Art in Hobart in 1978, where in his final year he was a co-curator of the exhibition and catalogue 'Tasmanian Bush Furniture.' He worked for many years in the family antique business in Longford, Tasmania, and now runs his own business from Perth, Tasmania. During this time he developed a reputation for painting onto colonial or period furniture, exquisite, sometimes surrealistic, rural scenes, with Tasmanian animals and fish, as well as black and white cows, with dogs and cats, some of which are his own.
Characteristic is his practice of almost always painting the animals looking out of the picture towards the viewer.
His work provides an exemplary contemporary version of a traditional practice; there are many Scandinavian, European and American examples of folk painting on furniture and houses, while the art of Oriental lacquer painting was introduced to Europe in the seventeenth century and developed in various forms on furniture and panelled interiors. By tradition some musical instruments like harpsichords are also painted, and groups like those in the Omega workshops in England in the early 20th century painted interiors and furniture in a Post-impressionist style.
McWilliams, however, is not consciously working out of any such tradition. He did not have the equipment to continue printmaking, but he liked painting and was working with furniture as a dealer. McWilliams says of his work, 'I started painting on the furniture simply because I liked the old timber, and it was at hand. I enjoy painting things that are close to me: water, trees and mountains, and familiar local animals. And I like painting combinations of animals, and especially to have them looking out of the painting at you. I plan the paintings, and how the panels relate to each other, but never the painted frames; these just grow depending on what is needed.'
He usually works on furniture that has been altered in some way, for example, as in this case, where the front panels had been replaced with plywood, and where he replaced those in turn with cedar. 'I had to wait until I found the right panels; it is not easy to find them in this width, or that were not too thick.' Some years ago this particular cedar cupboard was identified as one that would be most suitable to propose for our collection, because of its quality, and its provenance of having been used as a food cupboard in Kenworthy's store in Latrobe on Tasmania's northwest coast.
The cupboard was designed and made in Tasmania in c. 1840 (the artist Michael McWilliams says could be between 1830-1850; the moulding is early); the panels were designed and painted by Michael McWilliams (born 1956) in Perth, Tasmania, 2000.
The cupboard was used in Kenworthy's store established 1855, in Latrobe, Tasmania, until acquired by Michael McWilliams in the 1990s. McWilliams thinks the cupboard was probably used for food storage; from the labels he thinks it may have stored jars of jam.
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