THE WRITER AND THE ARTIST

 

Dr Germaine Greer was born 29 January 1939 at Antigone flats, 2/34 Docker Street, Elwood, designed by Esmond Dorney.  The building is mentioned in her book ‘Daddy We Hardly Knew You’.  Soon after, the family moved to 8/57 Ormond Esplanade (also designed by Esmond Dorney), where she lived till she was eight years old, attending school at St Columba’s.  The publication of The Female Eunuch in 1969 made Greer perhaps the most famous feminist in the world, drawing many into the movement of sexual liberation, including proponents of gay rights.

The year before Greer’s birth, Joy Hester, a seventeen year old of great physical beauty, met artist Albert Tucker.  Hester was then a schoolgirl  residing at 28 Dawson Street, Elwood.  They married on 1 January 1941, becoming key members of the Angry Penguin, movement patronised by Sunday and John Reed of Heide fame.  After residing at 47 Robe Street, St Kilda, they moved to Martin Street Elwood with their son Sweeney.  Here Hester began her series From an Incredible Night Dream and Gethsemane, inspired by the faceless dolls of the childless Sunday Reed.  The Reeds were later to raise Sweeney after Hester left her husband for another artist, Gray Smith, in 1946, at the same time learning that she had cancer.  Tucker spent his later years at 55 Blessington Street, Elwood (built 1868) with his wife Barbara from 1980 to 1999.