Clement Meadmore was born in Melbourne in 1929. He first studied at the Melbourne Technical College (now RMIT University), beginning in aeronautical engineering before changing to industrial design between 1948 and 1950. At the age of twenty-two, with the support of his wife Enid, he established a bricks-and-mortar design practice in Hawthorn, producing a small range of modern lighting and furniture. In 1952, he established ‘Meadmore Originals’, a brand that consolidated his early work into thirteen distinctive designs for domestic interiors.
Included in Dean Keep and Jeromie Maver’s recent gift to the NGV Collection is one of Meadmore’s rarer designs of Reclining chair, 1953, manufactured by Meadmore Originals.
Unknown Clement Meadmore c. 1952. Collection of Rosalind Meadmore, Melbourne
The pared-back and sleek construction of the steel-rod frame was bent using a vice and then welded to give structure to the tensioned stringing of the cord. Its innovative design highlights why Meadmore quickly caught the attention of seminal architects including Robin Boyd, Peter McIntyre and Neil Clerehan, who furnished their modernist spaces with Meadmore’s minimalist designs.
Chair (Model 248) was featured in Clerehan’s 1955 Age Dream Home, which the architect designed for The Age Small Homes Service. Reclining chair first appeared in print in 1953, and in January 1954 it was featured in the influential Italian design magazine Domus, making Meadmore the first Australian industrial designer to be showcased in the internationally important publication.
Light fitting for The Legend Espresso and Milk Bar, 1955, is another rare work that reinforces the significance of Meadmore’s radical designs. Following the sale of Meadmore Originals to business partner Kenneth McDonald in April 1953, and extensive travel through England, France, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands, Meadmore returned to Melbourne in late 1953 to resume his industrial design work. In 1954, Meadmore developed and produced the Calyx lighting range, which was operational through to 1956, and through this period Meadmore began to use moulded plywood, flattened steel, brass, marble and Italian glass tiles in his chair and table designs. Although not a qualified architect, Meadmore’s reputation as capable and multidisciplinary designer preceded him, and he was cited as the supervising architect in his 1955 commission to design the interiors of The Legend Espresso and Milk Bar, followed by the T’ House, both in Melbourne.
Drawing upon international modernism and a new-found passion for Italian culture, The Legend is an early example of an Italian-inspired cafe and is suggested to be one of Meadmore’s greatest achievements. He designed and assembled the interiors, including the light fittings, which remarkably required no welding. Light fitting for The Legend Espresso and Milk Bar shares design sensibilities with Meadmore’s Calyx lighting range and is a rare surviving example of Meadmore’s design work for The Legend.
The years 1956 to 1957 were particularly transformative for Meadmore, marked by the separation from his wife, Enid, and the collapse of his Calyx lighting business. With little to no money, Meadmore rented two rooms in a rundown Victorian mansion on Toorak Road in South Yarra, and with an attitude of ‘nothing to lose’ he scaled back his design outputs to explore his interest in sculpture and began exhibiting his sculptures in group shows. Eventually, Meadmore established and was co-director of Gallery A in Melbourne between 1959 and 1963.
The trumpeter, 1957, marks the first of Meadmore’s sculptures from the 1950s to join the NGV Collection. Meadmore’s early sculptures were welded using found scrap metal and created in the back garden of a South Yarra mansion. During this time, Meadmore saw a lot of the designer George Kral and his wife Shirley, who lived close by. They often hosted him, providing good food and company. Notably, the three of them shared a love of jazz. Although jazz was a lifelong passion for Meadmore, The trumpeter is the only known work to take jazz as its subject. In Shirley’s diary entry from 7 April 1957, she recounts witnessing Meadmore weld The trumpeter. Shirley notes her support of his burgeoning art, promptly purchasing the work directly from Meadmore for twelve pounds. The work remained in the Kral family until 2019.
Following a period working as the art director of Vogue Australia in Sydney from 1960, Meadmore moved to New York in 1963, where he lived and worked as a full-time artist until his passing in 2005. The design of Chair (model 248), 1963, represents the last of Meadmore’s commercial furniture designs. The Australian version, made under license by Tecno-Design 250 in the early 1980s, is the one to join the NGV Collection. Chair (model 248) was first manufactured in America by Leif Wessman in 1963, with an example held in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Consisting of chrome-plated steel and a leather sling, the design demonstrates Meadmore’s enduring interest in minimalism and modular construction, encapsulating his legacy as dually reflecting and defining the values of modernist design that translated into his internationally renowned modern sculptures.
Sophie Prince is Curatorial Project Officer, Australian and First Nations Art.
See Clement Meadmore’s works on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. The NGV warmly thanks Dean Keep and Jeromie Maver for gifting these works to the Collection and gratefully acknowledges research provided by the donors that informed insights shared in this article.
This article first appeared in NGV Magazine, March–April 2025