Early farmer’s dwelling, Kevin Gunn (watercolour) & Ernest Schoch (sketch), 1922

Mr Ernest Leonhardt Schoch composed the pencil sketch of the building from which another local artist, Mr Kevin Vincent Gunn, created the watercolour painting.

The sturdy timber homestead stood on the farm for many years. Herbert and Isabelle Bishop and their children left Mount Tully in April 1922, so it can be assumed that the art work was created as a farewell gift. Ernest Schoch arrived at Mount Tully in 1921 to take up the position as the first school teacher for the new state primary school. The next neighbours to the Bishop family were the Deem family who had moved from Gayndah, Queensland. Further along Mount Tully Road, Kevin Gunn was farming with his wife and children.

Ernest Schoch was a dedicated school teacher and artist. He painted landscapes and recorded both flora and fauna through his pencil and ink sketches. The sketch and painting of the Bishop family home is important both for the artistic merit of the artists and the historical significance of depicting this early settler’s cottage in a remote rural setting.

It was a difficult task for the early settlers at Mount Tully to make their land holdings productive. They needed to clear the land, construct fencing, sheds, yards and a dwelling as well as grow cash crops until their orchards were established.

Returned soldiers were also encouraged to take up farming leases. The Deem brothers, William and James, together with their younger brother Walter, farmed vegetable crops while developing their orchard with the help of their family.

Their nine-year-old nephew, William Worland, later recorded his first impressions of their new home in 1921,

“We arrived in Stanthorpe in October after an adventurous train journey of 2 days at Maryborough & Brisbane. We were met in Stanthorpe late afternoon of 2nd day by Uncle Jim with horse and sulky, and Walter with horse & dray. It had been raining. Springtime and to us it was like fairyland, wild flowers everywhere, the scent very heavy on wet air. The journey from town to house and orchard was marvellous as we climbed up the road and hills. We passed orchards in full bloom and saw rabbits dashing across the road. Ron & I travelled with Walter who told us all about the countryside and answered our eager questions. We had come home with our big brother & he treated us like a brother as indeed we really were. He lived in the soldier’s settlement house on the opposite side of the road for which Jim applied for and was granted. The home on the orchard known as “The Shack” was too small for a family which consisted of Grandmother, Ida, Jim & Walter and we three children. We had a marvellous view of the orchard in full bloom with Mt Tully in the background.”

Ernest Schoch and Kevin Gunn continued with their artistic careers after leaving Mount Tully. After a long career as a teacher, Ernest Schoch and his wife Sylvia Boston retired to Warwick. Ernest Schoch continued to mentor other artists in his role as an instructor for adult education art classes. Ernest Schoch was born in 1899 to a local farming family, the son of Christian and Louisa Schoch. He was a second generation Australian and a descendant of both German and English selectors. He was a well-respected teacher, particularly in the Killarney district where he was the head teacher at Mountain View State School from 1927 to 1964. He commenced his teaching career in 1915 in Warwick. Through his art he documented locally significant buildings, streetscapes and events. His interest in botany was reflected in his detailed depictions of the flora and fauna of the local areas he visited. A retrospective exhibition of his paintings was held at the Willow Art Gallery in Killarney in 2019 which brought together art works from private collections which spanned the decades from the 1920’s to the 1970’s.

Mr Schoch died in 1974 and left a worthy portfolio of paintings and sketches.

Kevin Vincent Gunn was the eldest son of Michael and Barbara Gunn. He was born in England in 1879 and came to Australia before the First World War. While in Goondiwindi in 1915, he enlisted to serve for the A.I.F. After the War he married Agnes McClymont from Wiltshire, England in 1919.

After leaving farming, Kevin Gunn moved into Stanthorpe with his wife and children where he worked as the editor of the local newspaper. Kevin produced a souvenir booklet on Stanthorpe which included high quality reproductions of his pencil sketches of notable buildings in the district. In the introduction of the souvenir publication, Mr Gunn described how he aimed to give his readers a vivid impression of the place rather than a guide-book style of photograph.

He performed in numerous local productions to appreciative audiences, including a concert for the patients at Kyoomba Sanatorium in 1933. Mr Gunn supported fundraising for sporting clubs and schools in the district. He continued his community commitments when he moved to Brisbane to commence his career in radio at 4BK.

He became a well-known actor in both radio and theatre. He portrayed diverse characters in radio plays as well as hosting a radio segment for children. He worked alongside emerging Australian actors such as Peter Finch and Ray Barrett in the early 1950’s. He performed at the Twelfth Night Theatre and the Cremorne Theatre in Brisbane as a member of the Musical & Theatre Guild of Queensland.

His practical experience of the art of the stage began in his childhood as the son of a theatre manager. In an article for the ABC Weekly in 1947, Kevin Gunn related his memories of visits to the family home in London of Uncle Sullivan and Mr Gilbert in the 1880’s. Gilbert and Sullivan were friends of his father and he recalled, “I used to secrete myself in the room, an easy matter among all the curtains, hangings, furniture, and what-nots that cluttered up the Victorian drawing-room. I heard quite a few numbers from operas before the public had that pleasure, and also some which were only tentative settings to some of Gilbert’s lyrics.”

Once a farmer at Mount Tully, Kevin Gunn, sought out and achieved success with his range of creative skills in the arts, both on the radio and on the stage.

He died, aged 76 in Brisbane in 1956.