Summary

This item is one of our 50 Treasures: Celebrating 50 years of James Cook University

Emeritus Professor Helene Marsh and Dr. Anneke Silver answer the question 'Why is this significant?'

As both a marine zoologist and an artist, Ron Kenny left significant legacies in both disciplines at James Cook University. One of his artistic legacies is the University Art Collection that he established. His scientific papers and the many students that he taught to love zoology are his academic legacy. The Ron Kenny prizes for Biological Science students remind us of his academic legacy every year.

Fieldwork often takes scientists to beautiful places. The presumed setting for this watercolour, Alma Bay on Magnetic Island in Cleveland Bay near Townsville, is one such place. Watercolour is a very portable medium, and was one of Ron's favourites.

Unlike most water colourists, Ron did not render traditional scenes. Intrigued by the challenges of the early Modernists such as Cubists and Futurists, he played with visual form looking for basic shapes and dynamics underlying appearances. It is not surprising that this aspect of early Modernism intrigued Ron. Looking for structures and patterns is after all also the domain of the scientist.

Essentially experimental and non-traditional, Ron also provided leadership for a number of like-minded artists by founding the Townsville Art Society as its inaugural president and during his several, successive terms as president.

During these presidencies, Ron attracted travelling art exhibitions of national significance. Pressure to accommodate these resulted in the establishment of the Perc Tucker Gallery. He stimulated interest in the business community resulting in the formation of Townsville Art prizes. Lobbying from the Art Society created a demand for art courses at TAFE. These much later morphed into the College of Music, Visual Arts and Theatre at JCU.

Ron's contributions to zoology reflect a time when field biologists were much less dependent on technology than they are today. Without access to scuba gear, they studied the intertidal biota; Ron's research focused on invertebrate animals such as limpets, chitons, polychaete worms and starfish.

Ron was particularly interested in the effects of temperature on the growth of these animals and studied them in rocky shoreline habitats, estuaries and oyster leases in many places from Perth on the eastern edge of the Indian Ocean (where he first studied zoology) to North Carolina on the Atlantic coast of the United States.

The rocky shores of Cleveland Bay off Townsville, such as the one in this painting, were some of his study sites. Whenever he could, Ron also recorded sea surface temperatures in Cleveland Bay using mercury laboratory thermometers off the seawater end of the Townsville harbor breakwater. Satellites now collect this information for all the world's oceans, every day.

Ron studied the effect of sea surface temperature on the growth of limpets on rocky shores. He likely travelled to Magnetic Island, both to conduct his research on limpets and paint this watercolour, thereby contributing to both his scientific and artistic legacies.