Marjorie Hann

Marjorie was born in 1916 the only daughter of William James Fisher and Mary Marguerita Fisher, née Bath, of Brougham Place, Alberton. She was educated at Presbyterian Girls' College, where she studied art with Maude Priest. She joined the Royal South Australian Society of Arts as an Associate at age 15, and in the early 1930s studied oil painting under Leslie Wilkie, Gladys K. Good and Ivor Hele at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts in the Exhibition Building on North Terrace. Leaving school, she worked as a commercial artist for several companies before landing a full-time position with Waterman Brothers, home furnishers of Port Road, Kilkenny, which largely entailed designing and executing showcards and other advertising work. She was active in amateur theatricals: acting, writing and set and costume design for the Playbox Theatre. She co-wrote a musical comedy "His Royal Highness" in 1938. During World War II, she left Watermans to work at the Holden factory in Woodville, working on technical drawings and instruction documents as part of the "war effort". This put a great strain on her mentally, and she did not look on this period with any feelings of nostalgia.

After the war Marjorie illustrated a series of books for children by Kathleen M. Mellor MBE, the first Director of the Lady Gowrie Child Centre. These were a book on safety entitled "Stop, Look, Listen", and another pair entitled Now I'm Ready and Let's Go to the Beach. In 1947 radio personality Bob Fricker created a comic character "Charlie Cheesecake", a boy who was always getting into trouble, for his breakfast programme on 5AD and, with help from Arthur Askey, on recordings for the National Safety Council. He was approached by the Child Safety Council of SA to write and illustrate a similar booklet of "cautionary tale" poems, in collaboration with advertising executive Lloyd A. Wilson (1898–1961). The Adventures of Charlie Cheesecake was published around 1950. Two illustrations, drawn in comic strip style, were given for each episode, the somewhat gruesome "after" being revealed by lifting a flap. A follow-up, The Return of Charlie Cheesecake, was published many years later, sponsored by Geo. Hall & Sons and Radio 5AD. She wrote and illustrated a serious comic strip adaptation of Thackeray's The Rose and the Ring which was serialized in 82 episodes and syndicated throughout Australia.

She has always painted in a realistic style directly from nature, from live models and subjects sitting for commissioned portraits, or en plein aire. She has worked in pastels and oils, but her favorite medium has always been watercolors. She acknowledged Gladys Goode, Ivor Hele and John C. Goodchild as her chief influences. She had two six-month painting trips to the United Kingdom, in 1976 and 1979, each followed by a highly successful solo exhibition at the gallery of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts, and a solo exhibition at the Adelaide Art Society in 2009. She had a long association with the Lombard Art Gallery of North Adelaide and Stepney, including six Adelaide Fringe Festival Exhibitions. She also exhibited regularly at the Pepper Street Gallery in Magill, and at various Adelaide Art Society functions.

She married Sergeant George Adrian Hann (4 April 1916 – 1991) of the RAAF sometime around 1945. He was a son of George Hann (1869–1933) and his second wife Mabel Hann née Hoffman of Kooringa, South Australia. George and Marjorie had a home at 10 Taylor Terrace, Rosslyn Park. Their children include sons born in July 1947 and on 23 September 1951, and a daughter on 14 June 1949. Hann died on 29 June 2011 at age 95.

• Marjorie Hann was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for Service to the Arts in 1988. She was made an Honorary Life Member of the • Royal South Australian Society of Arts • Adelaide Art Society • Burnside Painting Group • PGC / Seymour College Old Collegian’s Association The Lombard Gallery mounted a retrospective exhibition at the Festival Fringe in 2010.