Joyce Condon

Joyce Condon was one of the founding members of Broken Hill’s Willyama Arts Society, a formative outback art group that has been exhibiting at the Broken Hill City Art Gallery, the oldest regional gallery in Australia, for over 60 years. 

Born in Broken Hill, Joyce Condon started painting in her twenties and, in a tradition that was to place Broken Hill on the international art map took her canvases and oil paints, along with her camping gear, into the desert for weeks at a time. Here she developed her unique style, sometimes using metallic colours, inspired by the stark beauty of outback landscapes.  

Her ability to spend long periods alone in the natural world and her understanding of the desert environment turned Condon into a disciplined and prolific painter, and the recipient of numerous art prizes, including the Cowra Art Prize, the Dubbo Art Prize and the Broken Hill Art Prize. In 1965, Condon won the coveted Rose Pollard Art Scholarship which took her to France, Italy and England to study the works of the European masters. 

Profoundly affected by the scholarship and by these experiences, Condon returned to Australia and developed and improved her painting by experimenting and applying new techniques. Her early work is remembered for capturing and preserving Australian life and culture in the post-war years. She exhibited frequently in Broken Hill with the Willyama Arts Society, as well as in many galleries throughout Australia. 

The Willyama Art Society was founded in 1960 and became an organisation in which Broken Hill and regional artists gathered and supported each other. It grew to represent 50 artists and initially held exhibitions in Sturt Park, showing the work not only of Joyce Condon, but also Pro Hart, Sam Byrne, Charles Hopgood, May Harding and many other brilliant far west artists. 

Joyce Condon continued to teach art and to paint into later life, even when her health deteriorated and, after an accident, she lost vision in one eye. She had her own gallery on Argent Street in Broken Hill, where she was known to give her straight-talking opinion on the worth of paintings any brave emerging artist brought in to show her.  

She died at the age of 95 leaving behind a significant body of work and is remembered as a legend of the Broken Hill art community. 

Audio transcript available.