Minute by the Lord Mayor
To Council:
I wish to
inform Council about the passing of Elinor Dawn Wrobel OAM, curator, art
collector, benefactor and advocate, on 12 March 2023.
Elinor Ring
was born on 24 August 1933 in Sydney. A fifth generation Australian, her
paternal family arrived in Australia in 1840.
Elinor’s
artistic interests emerged at a young age. Her aunt, a trained haute couture
seamstress, taught her to sew. Elinor helped her make gas mantles out of silk
for gaslights which she would sell for pocket money.
In 1952,
Elinor enrolled in nursing at Sydney Hospital, becoming acting sister-in-charge
of the Worral and Emergency operating theatres. After graduation she became
involved in experimental surgery. Her sewing skills were put to good use,
constructing and sewing fabric aorta sections for use in heart surgery.
In 1949,
Frederick Wroblewski arrived in Sydney on a cattle ship, speaking no English,
having survived the Nazi occupation of Poland.
Frederick
enrolled himself in a night-time English class, a jewellery making class at
East Sydney Tech and later, an advanced bookkeeping class. He befriended some
amateur yachtsmen which began a lifelong passion for boats and boating. He also
met Elinor, who shared his passions.
In July
1957, Elinor and Frederick were married. In October that same year, Frederick
formally changed his name to Fred Wrobel.
Elinor and
Fred shared a passion for art. They began collecting, attending auctions and searching
in old wares shops, buying works that others had ignored. Fred would repair and
reframe them to decorate their Double Bay home.
One such
work, bought for next-to-nothing, was revealed to be a painting by George W.
Lambert of fellow artist, Thea Proctor. By the 1970s, their home earned the
description "a wonderland of art” by the art historian Joanna Mendelssohn.
Fred and
Elinor began befriending the artists whose works they had collected. Among them
was the artist, John Passmore. Passmore had been a major figure in Australian
art as a painter, teacher and mentor of younger artists. After suffering a
heart attack in the early 1960s, he withdrew from the artworld. Becoming
increasingly convinced his work was unloved, he threatened to destroy it. Elinor
fortunately dissuaded him. When he died, he left Elinor his remaining artworks,
some 270 paintings and the contents of his studio and made her sole trustee of
the Passmore Trust.
In the
early 1970s, Elinor began her career as a consultant curator, conservator and
cataloguer specialising in costume, textiles, art, ethnographic material and
memorabilia. Between 1981 and 1999 Elinor was consultant curator for the Percy
Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne, arranging annual exhibitions
and being responsible for the conservation of the Grainger costumes and
textiles.
In 1983,
Fred and Elinor established the Woolloomooloo Gallery where Elinor curated many
of the exhibitions featuring work by established and younger artists. They also
shared their collection, which had grown to over 1,000 works of art from the
1840s to contemporary pieces.
From 1978,
they loaned work to the Historic Houses Trust and major public galleries in
every Australian state. In 1995, the Penrith Regional Art Gallery’s exhibition
‘Australian Women Artists of the 20th Century’ was comprised of works drawn
entirely from the Wrobel collection.
After the
Gallery closed in 1995, Elinor continued with her consultancy work. In 2000,
Elinor attended the Nursing Graduates Association meeting where she learned of
plans for a museum at Sydney Hospital. She secured the job of establishing it.
It opened in 2001 in the Nightingale Wing, the oldest remaining building on the
hospital site. She later admitted it had become “an obsession”.
“I have now
established a museum which records the history not only of the nursing
profession but also the medical staff, related professions. It is a vast
repository of archives and objects - a resource and study centre for scholars
and historians. For over 100 years, many held a dream for a Sydney Hospital
museum. I have made it a reality.”
In 2009,
the museum was threatened with plans to convert its premises into offices and
disperse its collection. This included its histopathology and anatomy
collection which Elinor had sourced and restored. Elinor campaigned against the
plans, even threatening to go on a hunger strike. Through newspaper article and
radio interviews she gained support from historians, the medical profession and
members of parliament. The museum survived.
Elinor’s
commitment to Sydney Hospital’s past continued beyond the museum. In 2015, she
published “Caps and Veils”: The Nursing History of the Sydney Hospital Matrons
and its Nurses by Valerie Griffiths, Jingzhe Li.
In 2003,
Fred and Elinor purchased the Merryfield Hotel, an 1874 Romanesque Revival
building in Woolloomooloo. It became their new home and a living gallery. They
established the John Passmore Gallery on the ground floor and the upper two
floors became their home, along with the rest of their collection, which they
continued to share. In later years, they made significant donations to the
National Gallery of Australia and NSW regional galleries.
In 2020,
five years after Fred’s death, Elinor donated her personal archive to the
National Art Archive which documented her long and diverse career as curator,
collector and gallerist.
Stephen
Miller, described it as a “rich gift” noting that Elinor had established three
important galleries and museums in Sydney: the Woolloomooloo Gallery, the John
Passmore Museum (2003-); and the award-winning Lucy Osborne-Nightingale Museum
at Sydney Hospital, and that the art collection she had acquired with Fred was
considered to be “one of the most important historic survey collections of
Australian art in private hands”.
Joanna
Mendelssohn has written that Elinor’s and Fred’s legacy reminds us “that works
of art are personal both to the artist and their viewer, and connections
between those who make art and those who appreciate beauty can be as meaningful
as the work of art itself … the ongoing value of their collection is a salutary
reminder that the significance of an individual work of art does not depend on
the current reputation of the artist. Art is indeed longer than life.”
Recommendation
It is resolved that:
(A)
all
persons attending this meeting of Council observe one minute’s silence to mark
the life of Elinor Wrobel and her outstanding contribution to the cultural life
of Sydney as a curator, gallerist and philanthropist;
(B)
Council
express its condolences to Ms Wrobel’s family; and
(C)
the
Lord Mayor be requested to convey Council’s sincere condolences to Ms Wrobel’s
family.
COUNCILLOR
CLOVER MOORE
Lord Mayor
Moved by the Chair
(the Lord Mayor), seconded by Councillor Scully –
That the Minute by
the Lord Mayor be endorsed and adopted.
Carried
unanimously.
Note – All
Councillors, staff and members of the public present stood in silence for one
minute as a mark of respect to Elinor Wrobel.
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