The French Australian Review – No 77 Australian Summer 2024-2025

ISSN 2981-894X (Online), ISSN 2203-5362 (Print)

JANE GILMOUR & ELAINE LEWIS, Foreword

ARTICLES

BARBARA SANTICH, French Restaurants in Nineteenth-century Australia: A Preliminary Review, Part 2

This article continues the survey of French restaurants in Australia in the nineteenth century, focusing in particular on Victoria and South Australia. In both colonies French nationals were closely associated with the first wine shops (or saloons), some of which evolved into restaurants. In Victoria in particular, French restaurants followed the gold rush but were often shortlived. In later years restaurateurs Pierre Noel Lacaton and Calixte Denat achieved considerable success in introducing French cuisine and French gastronomic customs to Melbourne.

Keywords: Australia, Victoria, South Australia, French restaurants, restaurants, wine shops, cafes, liquor licensing

ANDREW GAYNOR, Roy de Maistre: An Australian Modernist in France

Roy de Maistre (1894-1968) was one of Australia’s pioneer modernists for whom France was a constant and recurring source of inspiration and spiritual succour. This article traces his journeys to France starting from his first encounter in 1923 when the Basque coastal town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz became one of his most favoured locations. In 1930, he left Australia permanently travelling between France and England for some years before settling in London from 1937. Shortly after his arrival in May 1930, de Maistre met the the-twenty-year-old Francis Bacon (also a Francophile), becoming the young man’s first artist-mentor, a relationship which flourished during the 1930s. Whilst Bacon would go on to become one of Britain’s most significant post-war artists, de Maistre increasingly retreated to a private world of still lifes, portraits and religious imagery, all painted in an idiosyncratic form of decorative cubism. His final visit to France, in declining health, was in 1965. This article analyses de Maistre’s paintings created in response to his various French encounters and identifies the family and friends who supported these endeavours.

Keywords: Roy de Maistre, Francis Bacon, modernism, post-impressionism, cubism, ‘colour-music’

INTERVIEW

CHARLOTTE MACKAY, Des Liens de sang aux Larmes de sang : Entretien avec l’écrivain néo-calédonien Yannick Jan

Yannick Jan is a New Caledonian author who was born in France in 1973 and arrived as a child in New Caledonia. After finishing his schooling in Noumea, he enrolled in the armed forces before working as a government employee in the area of youth services and culture. Seven years ago, he moved into private enterprise and has been able to find the time to do some writing. He has had a number of works published, including short stories and poetry as well as two novels L’écrivain and Liens de sang, published in 2016 and 2022 respectively.

The interview, which was conducted virtually rather than face-to-face because of the current crisis in New Caledonia, covers a number of topics including how Jan came to be a writer, his interest in history and how literature can bring a different perspective to history and to social and political life. The interview is in French.

Keywords: Nouvelle Calédonie, les accords de Matignon-Oudinot (1988) et de Nouméa (1998), la décolonisation, la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le communautarisme

DOCUMENTS AND NOTES

Editors, 2024 AALITRA Awards Ceremony