 Wal's Place on the Monaro Tableland of New South Wales |
by Philip Game
The tableland retreat of an Australian artist still bears his unmistakeable imprint.
‘Wal’s Place’ commands an open ridge above the Delegate River, which loops around the property. Merinos graze in distant paddocks; kangaroos browse in the soft light of early evening. Platypus, kookaburras, sulphur-crested cockatoos and cicadas all make their presence felt.
So what? So this highly creative house of stone and adzed timber was built by an artist, the late Wallace Thornton, once a central figure in Sydney’s art community and a contemporary of the better-known Donald Friend, John Olsen and William Dobell. Thornton’s rural retreat bears the unmistakable imprint of the man’s life and personality, of a man who threw himself into cattle breeding with the same enthusiasm as he did with wine, women, teaching and art.
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