Australian Dictionary of Biography

Verlie Just, by John Rigby, 1996

© Estate of John Thomas Rigby

Verlie Just (1922–2000), creative jewellery maker and art gallery owner-director, was born on 22 July 1922 at Toowoomba, Queensland, younger daughter of George Richard (Dick) Tainton, an English-born journalist, and his Queensland-born wife Gladys, née Horn. The family lived in Brisbane and Verlie was educated, unusually for an Anglican, at the Catholic All Hallows’ School (1932–37). Artistic from childhood, and despite her father’s wish that she follow his profession, she studied art at the Central Technical College from 1938 to 1941. Her contemporaries included John Rigby, Margaret Olley, and Harry Memmott. Here she met her future husband, Arnold William Theodore Just. His architecture studies were interrupted by service in the Australian Imperial Force in World War II. Verlie, who had been designing embroidery, joined the Australian Women’s Army Service on 15 May 1942 as a draughtswoman at Headquarters, Queensland Lines of Communication Area. They were engaged and, learning that Arnold’s unit would briefly pass through Brisbane, she quickly organised their wedding, in uniform, at St John’s Cathedral on 25 August 1942. She was discharged from the AWAS on 2 August 1943.

While raising their two daughters, Just continued her artistic interests, taking up lapidary in the late 1950s. The family went gem hunting on holidays; collecting the stones led her to silver craft in 1960. Drawing on her formal art training, but mainly self-taught (instruction in jewellery-making being available only to male trade-apprentices), she also spent a brief, inspiring time in Helge Larsen’s studio at Seaforth, Sydney, and became a skilled silversmith, her studio a room under her suburban house. Working intuitively, directly from her materials—the ‘organic forms of life itself [being] paramount’ (Bottrell 1972, 143)—with ‘a poetic imagination backed by skill’ (Langer 1967, 2), she pioneered creative jewellery in Queensland. From 1963 she exhibited in Brisbane at the Moreton Galleries, the first solo exhibition of jewellery by a woman in Queensland; at the Design Arts Centre; and at several venues with the Contemporary Art Society’s Queensland branch, the only jeweller to exhibit; and in Sydney at Barry Stern Galleries. Meanwhile, she tutored at vacation schools and evening classes. She was awarded a scholarship in 1969 to attend the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine, United States of America, extending her practice to include perspex.

In 1970 Just became founding president of the Queensland branch of the Craft Association of Australia (CAAQ) and in 1971 was selected as a State delegate to the emerging Crafts Council of Australia. Having since 1966 campaigned for the removal of restrictions on gallery opening hours, she approached these new roles with characteristic fervour, advocating for the abolition of sales tax on craftwork and insisting on ethical conduct by members. Her concern about ethics stemmed from a newspaper report overstating the importance of a foreign award to a local silversmith. The refusal of State and national councillors to support her in having the report corrected dismayed her, as did her perception of additional administrative failings in the organisation. Concurrently, she was becoming disillusioned by a lack of discrimination between commercial and art jewellery in the wider community. Unafraid of grand gestures, she resigned the CAAQ presidency in 1971 and her membership of the association in 1972, vowing ‘heartbreakingly’ (Australasian Arts News 1982, 13) to relinquish designing and making jewellery. The Queensland Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Australia subsequently acquired pieces of her 1960s jewellery.

Just’s creative energy and activist streak were redirected to establishing, in April 1973, with Arnold’s encouragement, the Town Gallery, at 77 Queen Street, Brisbane. Until September, Kay Murphy was the co-owner and co-director of the business. Just built up a loyal clientele who would follow her to another three central-city locations. Arnold, whose unassuming practical and emotional support she acknowledged as indispensable, designed and built each space. Verlie’s persuasive powers convinced leading artists—including Judy Cassab, Graeme Inson, Alan Baker, and John Rigby—to join her stable of about thirty. Her promotional material emphasised the excellence of their creations, which ranged from realist to abstract; her commitment to putting art ahead of profit; and her goal of advancing public appreciation of fine art without cost to taxpayers. She rejected the term commercial gallery, preferring private exhibiting gallery and priding herself—‘a kindred art spirit’ (Australasian Arts News 1982, 13)—on directly representing the artist. An outspoken letter writer and forceful publicist, ‘orchestrating the show’ (Hay 1991, 2) with discernment and flair, and providing accommodation for her out-of-town artists, she was ever-present, effusive, and renowned for paying ‘on the knocker’ (Inson 1985). Her status as an artist and her generosity earned the loyal friendship of her exhibitors: they organised a successful campaign of testimonials to have her awarded the OAM in 1992.

A long-standing interest in ukiyo-e had led to Just’s opening the Japan Room (1974) in a space adjoining the Town Gallery. She sourced pieces personally, overseas, and from the Geraldine Halls collection. In addition, she displayed contemporary Japanese woodblock prints, offered Adachi Institute re-cuts of ukiyo-e masterpieces, and made her reference library available. The Queensland Art Gallery sought her advice and borrowed prints from her collection for its 1989 Looking Eastwards exhibition, and invited her to be guest curator of another exhibition, Four Centuries of Ukiyo-e Prints (1997).

Throughout her life a striking presence, Just was admired for her stylish, even eccentric, individuality, captured by John Rigby in his 1996 portrait—a turban or a scarf wound through her hair; flowing Japanese-influenced caftans draped with long necklaces of amber beads; and her own distinctive silver jewellery bedecking arms and fingers. A heart attack in 1980 and robberies in 1983 and 1997 did not diminish her fierce commitment to arts matters, her artists, and the gallery. She was preparing a campaign against the recently legislated goods and services tax when she entered the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, South Brisbane, for an operation but died there on 10 January 2000, survived by her husband and their daughters, Jeraldene and Janene. Her funeral and cremation were followed by a reception at the Town Gallery, where she had already hung the February show. At the time Brisbane’s longest-running private gallery, it ceased trading after her death.