Shay Docking

Docking was born Shiela Lawson, in Warrnambool Victoria in 1928,^[1] and was the youngest of seven children.^[2] Her father was a clergyman and her mother a musician.^[2] In 1939 she moved to Boort.^[2]

Docking was a landscape painter. Most of her work was inspired by the western district of Victoria where she grew up.^[1] While in New Zealand she was inspired by the volcanoes.^[2] She produced a series of paintings inspired by the landscape of Ku-ring-gai Chase as well as a series inspired by Sydney Harbour.^[3]

Docking featured in an Exhibition of Paintings by Leading Victorian and Interstate Artists at the Australian Galleries, Melbourne in 1957.^[1] In 1960 she exhibited her work in group exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne and in 1961 she held her first solo shows in the Argus Gallery and the Blaxland Gallery.^[3] From Tower Hill to One Tree Hill; Two Decades of Painting by Shay Docking opened at the Warrnambool Art Gallery and travelled to six other regional galleries in 1975.^[2] In 1982 the Art Gallery of New South Wales organised a travelling art exhibition of her work The Sydney Harbour Bridge 1932–1982.^[3] Hill and other Volcanoes, a survey exhibition was held at Warrnambool, Bendigo and Swan Hill Galleries in 1987.^[2] A major retrospective exhibition of Docking's work titled Song of Earth and Sea: Shay Docking 1955–1996 was held at Macquarie University Art Gallery in 2011 and at the Maitland Regional Gallery in 2013.^[3] An exhibition of her work drawn from the Newcastle Art Gallery was held in 2012.^[3]

Examples of Docking's work are displayed at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra,^[2] the National Gallery of Victoria,^[4] and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.^[4]

She studied at Swinburne Technical College between 1947 and 1950.^[1] Before finishing her training she accepted a freelance position illustrating myths and legends for the Victorian Education Department's visual education section.^[3] In 1952 she married [Gil Docking] and changed her name to Shay Docking^[2] In 1953 she became the Education Officer at the National Gallery of Victoria.^[1] In 1958 she moved to Newcastle.^[2] In 1965 she moved to New Zealand.^[2] In 1965 she purchased 69 Cambridge Street, Paddington.^[5] She returned to the terraced house in 1971 which became her studio.^[3] In 2015 the house was gifted to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.^[3][5] In 1979 she was awarded the Gold Coast Purchase Award and Trustees Invitation Purchase Award from the Queensland Art Gallery. In 1987 artist Margaret Ackland painted a portrait of Docking for the Archibald Prize and was a finalist.^[4] The portrait won the Portia Geach Memorial Award the following year.^[6] She died in 1998 in Paddington.^[2] In 2019 she received a memorial plaque from Woollahra Council.^[7]

• The monograph, Shay Docking: The Landscape as Metaphor with text by Ursula Prunster in association with the artist, published by AH & AW Reed, Sydney published in 1983
• Shay Docking Drawings by Lou Klepac, with an essay by Hendrik Kolenberg published by The Beagle Press, Sydney (1990)
• In 1987 she wrote Tower hill and other volcanoes to accompany a survey exhibition
• Docking, Gil with additions by Michael Dunn covering 1970–90. “Shay Docking” in Two Hundred Years of New Zealand Painting, David Bateman Ltd., New Zealand, 1990,
• Docking, Gil. A conversation with Shay Docking, Ascent, Journal of the Arts in New Zealand, Vol 1, No. 2, Caxton Press, Christchurch 1968: 20–29
• Simpson, Andrew. A journey into the textured lands of Shay Docking in Rhonda Davis and Leonard Janiszewski (eds.), Song of Earth and Sea: Shay Docking 1955–1996, Macquarie University, Sydney 2011