Dora Toovey Mr and Mrs Horace Keats in the ‘Christopher Brennan Cycle’

This portrait by Dora Toovey is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. In it, singer Janet Keats (nee le Brun Brown, 1900–1985) is seen with her late husband, composer and pianist Horace Keats (1895–1945), and their friend, the late poet Christopher Brennan (1870–1932), whose otherworldly presence drifts in the background.

Janet Keats – whose stage name was Barbara Russell – was recently widowed when Toovey painted the work. Horace Keats had died earlier that year and Brennan 13 years prior. Janet holds one hand across her heart while the other clutches sheet music, presumably arrangements written by her husband, who had set Brennan’s poetry to music. Words from the poem ‘I am shut out of mine own heart’ can be discerned. It was the last song the couple performed.

The Keatses lived in Mosman on Sydney’s North Shore, where Toovey also resided. The artist had studied in Sydney with Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo. Inspired by Nora Heysen’s 1938 Archibald Prize win, Toovey determined to study portraiture, stating, ‘When I saw that it was possible for a woman to win, I decided to try my hardest and went straight to Melbourne where I studied for my diploma in portraiture at the Melbourne National Gallery’.