Mary Stuart Cockburn Mercer (1882—1963) is considered to be among the Australian women artists who left our shores to study and develop their craft in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, though this is not the case. She was born in Scotland, educated in England and lived much of her adult life in Italy and France, only sheltering in Australia through the Second World War. Australia does feature prominently in the family history howev-er, with her father being one of the largest landholders in the Western District of Victoria. At the time of his death, he had accumulated more than 36,500 acres of farm land at Springwood near Hamilton.
Before Mercer’s birth, the family were very much invested in colonial life. Her father, William Cockburn Messer (1828- 1889), arrived in Australia aboard the Ayrshire in 1852 at the age of 23 years. He married the American born Scot, Mary Stuart Anderson (1846-1912), in Jedburgh, Roxburgh in Scotland on the 21st August 1867, and the newlyweds returned to Australia together. The couple bore four children in Melbourne; Elizabeth Grace in 1869, Adeline Jane in 1871, Alexander Anderson in 1872, and William Frank in 1873. The year 1873 also marked a time of great tragedy for the family, with the death of their eldest child and sister, Elizabeth, at the age of 3 years. Understandably, the tragedy appears to have had a terrible impact on the family who, from that time onward, spent more and more time away from the colony. It would be almost ten years before more children would be born to the couple, the first of whom was Mary Stuart in 1882, followed by Marguerite Deloraine in 1884 and lastly, Thomas Hamilton in 1885. All of whom were born in Scotland.
For reasons unknown, Mercer’s Great Grandfather, Robert Mercer, reportedly changed his surname to Messer, and Mary and all her siblings were born under this name. It wasn’t until 1891 that her mother legally changed the family name back to Mercer, shortly after her husband’s death.
William Cockburn Messer died from an aneurism of the heart in Scotland in 1889. He provided well for the future of all his family, including his daughters, whom he bequeathed an annual income of £150, attainable from the age of 21 years. This was considerably more than the average income of the day and provided Mary with the financial security to follow her dreams.
Following the death of their patriarch, the family were often apart. Whilst Mercer’s older brothers were educated at the prestigious Loretto School in Scotland, like many daughters of wealthy families, Mary and her sisters probably received their early education from a governess. Certainly the family did employ one: a Miss Mitchell, who would later serve as ladies companion to Mary’s mother.
In 1981, Mary (snr) and her three youngest children return once more to Australia, probably to settle her husband’s affairs. They remained for a year and a half before returning to the UK in 1893. Records do not show the family again until 1901, when the census reveals their whereabouts once again in the UK. Mary (aged 18) and her younger sister Marguerite (17) are students of the Notre Dame Convent School in Clapham, England. Mary was enrolled under the name Marie, a name she appears to often go by, perhaps as a means of avoiding confusion with her mother. Mary senior, along with her eldest daughter, Adeline, and youngest son, Thomas, are living in Jersey in the Channel Islands with a cook and a ladies companion (the loyal Miss Mitchell). Mary (Snr) later bought the historic homestead of d’Hautre, which she knocked down and replaced with a stately home that is today, part of the d’Hautre School. Marguerite and Thomas both later married and settled in Jersey, whilst Adeline married an American and after spending some time in the U.S, migrated to Sydney, Australia in 1937 where they remained.
Following their education and military service, the older boys returned to Australia to continue their father’s legacy, farming sheep in the Hamilton area on land bequeathed to them by their father. Mercer, on the other hand, never married, and doesn’t appear to have settled anywhere for very long, rather she was a free spirit with a zest for life, who embraced every opportunity and followed every whim. Following the First World War, Mercer lived and painted in Paris, the epicentre of culture, during a time of great innovation and vitality, rubbing shoulders with some of the most influential and well-known artists of the day. Mercer loved France and the French cuisine. She was well known for hosting lavish parties and loved cooking and entertaining as much as she loved painting, though she was financially secure and, unlike many of the artists in Paris at the time, she didn’t have to make her art pay in order to make a living. Mercer came in to more inheritance following the death of her mother in Jersey in 1912.
Mercer exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1912 and 1913. Details of her early career are documented in the latter exhibition catalogue, in which Mary entered two paintings, under the name Marie. Notes about the artist suggest she was living in Jersey and received her training at Academe Julian, and from M.A. Robinson who is probably in fact Alexander Charles Robinson, the American watercolourist, who was her painting master in Brussels. Although her name does not appear in any historic student lists for the Academe Julian, none that I have yet found are entirely complete so there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of this document, though I suspect she did not remain long at her studies. Mary and Robinson fell in love, and together they lived and exhibited in Paris. Interestingly, Robinson was also a student of Academe Julian. The pair exhibited works together at the Salon (mentioned above) as well as the annual exhibition of the Societe des Artistes Independent from 1923 to 1928. Notes within the catalogues give the same address for both artists as 235, faubourg Saint-Honore, 8e (Paris). This address appears as their residence every year, despite the fact that Mary built her villa (called Jas de Bouffan) in Cassis in 1925. Perhaps initially as a holiday house. It cost her £3000 to build and overlooked the ocean. Although not very practical it contained two separate studios and a big terrace that extended to cliff overlooking the ocean where a great many parties took place. It is interesting to note that Jas de Bouffan was also the name of Cezanne’s family home nearby and means “home of the winds” in the Provençal language.
Mercer was said to have worked for Andre Lhote in 1922, translating course notes for foreign students. Lhote was also involved with the Societe des Artistes Independent, so there is no reason to doubt this detail. She was a terrific linguist who could speak French, Italian and English like a native, so certainly had the skills for the work. Lhote, however, didn’t open his own academy until 1925, so if it were in 1922, it was likely whilst he was teaching at Académe Montparnasse, also called the ‘Scandinavian Academy’. His influence is certainly visible in her work by 1925 however, as a review of her painting published in the Revue Litteraire et Artistique that year confirms that it demonstrated a ‘Lhotienne’ influence.
Mercer is also supposed to have rented a villa in Capri next door to the writer Compton Mackenzie, who lived there from 1913 to 1920. The story goes that she was mentioned in his novel Extraordinary Women. More recent versions of this story claims Mercer was there with Janet Cumbrae Stewart, and that both women were referred to in the novel, which evidence has disproven. That is not to say that Mary didn’t live there though if she did, it was likely in Robinson’s company as the pair appear to have been inseparable during those early years. Mercer certainly did visit Capri, as she exhibited a painting in Australia in 1942 entitled Morning in Capri. That she had it in her possession in the 40’s supports the probability of a later visit. In 1931 or 32, Mary met and fell in love with a German    photographer (Adolf Hans Weichmann). Although many have suggested the pair met in Capri, my research has confirmed that they actually met in Laigueglia in Italy, where Mary was staying with Robinson. The pair bonded over a love of painting and Mary took him on as a student. She claims that the following years were spent travelling together, though there is no sign of him on her ship to the US in 1932, during which she declares Cassis as her last permanent residence, and Mr A. Robinson, also of Cassis, as her contact, so perhaps their relationship had not yet blossomed into a romance. The pair certainly did travel together thereafter, staying in Teneriffe, Frankfurt and England. They arrived in Australia in February 1937, identifying themselves as tourists.
According to the Australasian, who published an article at the time on their visit, the pair had been in Spain and Italy just before arriving in Australia. The journalist writes that Mercer was one of the last passengers to leave by air from Barcelona, presumable before war erupted.
Upon arrival, Mercer and Weichmann made their way directly to Far North Queensland where they spent the next several months taking photographs and painting seascapes around Magnetic Island. Many of her paintings from this period were sold in the area to US servicemen.
The couple’s visit to Far North Queensland was well documented during the war by Australian Security Services, who were convinced the pair had been in the area as part of a Nazi conspiracy. This may not be so far-fetched as Mercer confirms that the German government had tried to recruit Weichmann for this purpose but she is adamant he declined. She states that he often expressed an intense hatred of Nazism.
Mercer left Australia in November the same year, returning to Naples via Tahiti, whist Weichmann embarked at Sydney the following year for Italy. They were reunited in Naples in March of 1939, though as war became imminent, Mercer went to Jersey and stayed there until October. Only later deciding to return to Australia, arriving back in November on board the Tisnaren, in the company of an English surgeon, Dr Francis Corin of London.
Mary claims to have received a few letters from Weichmann after returning to Australia, though hadn’t heard from him since 1940. She claimed he had been called back to Germany, and presumed him dead. She says that “such was their attachment that she would have heard from him if he was other wise”. This is likely the case, as records do show an Adolf Weichmann having been killed in action during the Second World War.
When in Australia, Mercer rented a studio in Bourke Street. Records for 1943 and 1949 both show her residing there, though it is safe to assume that she settled there earlier than that. Eagle and Minchin write that Mercer briefly joined the George Bell School shortly after arriving at Bourke Street, a detail confirmed by her participation in the Exhibition by Some Past and Present Students of the George Bell School, held at the Athenaeum Gallery in November of 1939. This took place immediately after her arrival in Australia, almost as though it were planned before hand.
Lina Bryan’s revealed that Mercer told her that she joined the school ‘simply to draw from the model’. Over the next couple of years Mercer exhibited with the Independent Group of Artists, as well as the Contemporary Art Society of Australia, and the Melbourne Contemporary Artists. Those who knew Mercer personally, spoke of her ‘glittering’ parties and excellent food. Mercer loved cooking and entertaining as much as she loved painting, and considered French cuisine to be unsurpassed. Davis tells that she was close friends with Ian Fairweather, Janet Cumbrae Stewart, and her neighbours, David Strachan and Wolfgang Cardamatis, who were all regular visitors to the studio.
At the end of the war, Mercer began to think about returning home and made enquiries regarding her claim over the villa in Cassis. A letter arrived from the Consul General in Marseille in February of 1945 informing her that the property had been leased for several years to Mr Robinson though the villa had been ransacked by German troops who occupied the property for 21 months. The Herald elaborate on this in an article written on the artist in 1950. From the interview with Mercer, they wrote that the Nazis trained a canon through her hallway, though it was the locals, rather than the Nazis, who ransacked it. She had obviously also enquired about the whereabouts of her ‘dear friend’ Alexander Robinson, whom Mercer later told was interned during the war, though the letter stated he was, at that time, residing with Colonel Teed at the Chateau de Fontcreuse.
During her years in Australia, Mary Cockburn Mercer left her legacy on artists like Lina Bryans, Leonard Crawford, and New Zealand artist Colin McCahon, who were all students of Mercer’s in Melbourne for a time. McCahon credits Mercer with having taught him how to be a painter: He recollected:
‘Mary was old, she had attended the banquet for Rousseau in 1908. She had a broken leg and no money. She charged me three shillings an hour for ‘tuition’ for two hours in the afternoons, painting, and nothing at all for the mornings of looking at the National Gallery, and nothing for the extra hours of conversation in the late afternoons. I was taught how to be a painter, and all the implications, the solitary confinement that makes a painter’s life. I remember her with great affection and gratitude’. There were likely many other young artists who received instruction at Mercer’s side, as teaching seems to be something she enjoyed, and a service she willingly offered.
Mercer left our shores for good at the end of 1951, and at the age of 69 returned to her beloved France to pick up the pieces of her life in Cassis. Lina Bryans visited her there in 1952. Mercer’s extensive art collection had disappeared during her absence, along with other valuable items. Davis tells that she sold the Villa shortly after returning to France and built a small house on the grounds of a convalescent home at Aubagne where she died on the 14th December 1963 following a short period of illness.
It was fortuitous for Mercer that she chose to come to Australian soil during the war. The decade spent here sealed her position in art history, as her intimate knowledge and experience of cubism, and romantic stories of the Paris avant garde, were of enormous interest to the Melbourne artists with whom she mentored and socialised for over a decade.