Daphne Mayo was an Australian prominent sculptor. Mayo greatly ‘improved’ the urban aesthetics with her major public commissions, including the Brisbane City Hall tympanum (1927–1930), the Queensland Women’s War Memorial in Anzac Square (1929–1932) and relief panels for the original chapel at Mount Thompson Crematorium (1934). These works, ornamenting Classical Revival buildings, called for conventional treatment and were carved in situ with the help of assistants. With Vida Lahey, Mayo founded the Queensland Art Fund. Mayo lived in Highgate Hill.

Impact On Brisbane Society

In 1911–1913 Daphne Mayo undertook a diploma in art craftsmanship at the Brisbane Central Technical College, studying under the art master R. Godfrey Rivers and specialising in modelling under L. J. Harvey. In 1914 she was awarded Queensland’s first publicly funded travelling art scholarship, sponsored by the local Wattle Day League. Mayo graduated from the Sculpture School of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 1920. Mayo was briefly engaged to the other major Brisbane-originating artist, Lloyd Rees. The City Hall tympanum, Mayo created, was a pageant of colonial conquest, known as, ‘The Progress of Civilisation in the State of Queensland’.

Citations

Judith M. McKay, ‘Mayo, Lilian Daphne (1895–1982)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mayo-lilian-daphne-14954/text26143, published first in hardcopy 2012, accessed online 4 July 2019.

Mayo, Daphne. Daphne Mayo, Sculptor, University Art Museum, University of Queensland, [Brisbane], 1981.

McKay, Judith. Daphne Mayo, Sculptor, The University of Sydney, Power Institute of Fine Arts, Thesis, 1981.

McKay, Judith; Hawker, Michael. Daphne Mayo: Let There Be Sculpture, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane Qld, 2011.

Unnamed. (ed.) Five Queensland Women Artists, [Mayo, Daphne, 1895-1982] Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Qld, 1975.

Image Citation

Portrait of Daphne Mayo. State Library of Queensland