Royal Queensland Art Society

[3] The Queensland Premier Samuel Griffith was the inaugural president and Edgar Walker was the vice-president.

[4] Other members included artists Isaac Walter Jenner, Oscar Fristrom and Louis Wilhelm Carl Wirth.

[5] The society held its first annual art exhibition in August 1888 at the Masonic Hall in Alice Street in conjunction with the Brisbane Exhibition.

[9][10] The newspaper review was somewhat mixed, making positive remarks about some works, but also criticising the local artists of making too many copies of famous works and painting British landscapes rather than creating original works of local subject matter.

[14] Over the decades many well-known artists have been long-term active members of the Society, such as: Godfrey Rivers, William Bustard, Daphne Mayo, Vida Lahey, William Grant and Gwendolyn Grant, Melville Haysom, Caroline Barker and Dr Irene Amos while others such as Margaret Olley and Betty Churcher were supported as young emerging artists.