The Merioola Group

The ‘Merioola Group’ was an association of young creative types who were thrown together through communal life in a house, Merioola, in Sydney’s Darling Point between 1945 and 1950. Members of the group included Donald Friend, Loudon Sainthill, Justin O’Brien, Jocelyn Rickards and Arthur Fleischmann. The artists of the group exhibited at the Myer Gallery in Melbourne and the David Jones Gallery in Sydney in 1947. As various individuals left to travel and work overseas, the group disbanded. The art critic Robert Hughes characterised the work of the group as the ‘Charm School’, a label which has adhered. An exhibition of the Merioola Group’s work was held at the SH Ervin Gallery in 1986.
Alec Murray photographed a number of stage and ballet personalities in the 1940s. This photograph, showing the members of the Merioola Group in the first flowering of their careers, is the definitive image of the Group and is signed by many of the subjects.