Displaying items by tag: Quentin Chester

I can hardly begin to express my sadness at the loss of Alasdair McGregor. I can only share with you one of his beautiful paintings from Australia's Wild Islands, which he wrote with Quentin Chester, and part of my letter of condolence to his one remaining sibling.

'We first met Alasdair in the late eighties when my husband Bert published The Kimberley, Horizons of Stone for Hodder & Stoughton. We quickly grew to admire his great talents as an artist and writer and were in awe of his exploits on land and sea, notably the wintering over in Antarctica. He was a friend almost before we knew it. He was not the kind of person who often invited people home, even for a simple meal, but I cannot remember Alasdair ever turning down an invitation from us over the last 35 years. In addition, I was for eight years the opera reviewer for the Australian Jewish News, which gave me two excellent seats for the first night of every opera at the Sydney Opera House. Alasdair happily accompanied me to many performances … It was always an absolute pleasure to have his companionship at such events.

'On every occasion that he spent with us—and they are countless—he was the most wonderful company. He lived life to the fullest and accomplished an extraordinary range of creative endeavours, but he shared his experiences with us in such an unpretentious yet eloquent and illuminating way that we valued him not only as a friend but as a remarkable and admirable man. We felt honoured to be part of the circle of people who appreciated him the most. I’ve just been looking at the exquisite paintings and photographs in Australia’s Wild Islands and remembering the exhibition of those very paintings in Sydney. We bought a large gouache of Alasdair’s 25 years ago—a vivid depiction of penguins on an ice floe, it was painted on Christmas Day. At the time I asked Alasdair about random white blotches that spotted the surface—he told me they were caused by snow blowing onto the canvas en plein air …

'As a writer and publisher myself I have a great admiration for his talents as researcher, historian, art historian, botanical writer … the list goes on. His incredibly broad range of qualifications made him the perfect author for so many non-fiction works, from the stunning and classic biography of the Burley-Griffins to the life and work of Frank Hurley. I have so many memories of our good times with Alasdair, often to do with books. I’ll mention just one: I paid a visit to his home on the South Coast in 2023 and while there I told him I’d like to buy Silo Art. We drove in to the local bookshop and fortunately they had the new book, which I bought and Alasdair duly signed. I said to the young lady behind the counter, "Would you like him to sign your other copies?" but she told me this was their only one. I said, "Well, you now have the chance to order it in again, because he’s a local author and you can use this to sell more books!" She looked very surprised and I learned from Alasdair when we left the shop that he had never announced himself at the bookstore or the local library. This was typical of the modest and unassuming way that he went about his extraordinary achievements—the most important thing for him was committing himself to a task and seeing it through to a high standard. He is a tremendous loss to many prestigious publishing houses in Australia.

'I will always remember with fondness his delightful characteristics, amongst which are his loyalty to those he cherished, his steadfast devotion to family, his undemanding and generous nature, his deep commitment to his country in all its forms and aspects, his abundant creativity. He was an exceptional human being.'