III. continued: impresario, artists, muses and Montsalvat.

Justus Jorgensen married Lilya Smith in 1924 and they travelled to Europe to further his interests in art. Lily qualified and worked as a doctor and supported her husband.
They returned to Melbourne and Jorgensen taught in his studios and became independent of the painter, Max Meldrum. He usually shunned exhibitions and hype.
Lily bought land at Eltham (1935) and with the assistance of friends and students, husband Jorgensen began the artists' colony of Montsalvat.

(The bush at Eltham was renowned for providing endless painting possibilities; restrained colour and subtle tonal modulations were features in stark contrast to our overexposed landscape.
A recent Tonalism exhibition at Newcastle Regional Gallery gave us examples in the works by Clarice Beckett and others of the illusive and hazy effects from that school.)