General News
11 August, 2022
Popular Moonambel resident honoured in exhibition
THE late Jacqueline Drever will be honoured with an exhibition in Avoca this month, featuring her best paintings from over the last 25 years.
THE late Jacqueline Drever will be honoured with an exhibition in Avoca this month, featuring her best paintings from over the last 25 years.
Avoca’s Gallery 127 will dedicate several rooms throughout August to the popular Moonambel resident, who unexpectedly passed away last December after a seven-year battle with Parkinson’s.
A “dedicated” artist, who worked her way up from charcoal to oils and regularly sought to hone her craft into the early hours of the morning; an exhibition of her work for the community to see is the “perfect” way to honour her life, says her husband, Russell.
“[Avoca Arts and Gardens president] Hugh [Forster] suggested we do a retrospective exhibition of Jacqueline’s work, which I thought was a great idea,” he said.
“She started from the bottom with charcoal, pastels, water colour and then to oils.
“When the kids were in bed, she would set up on the kitchen table and start drawing. She was very keen to learn to paint, so she just kept at it.”
With Russell an accomplished arts specialist, having taught it at tertiary level, and Jacqueline a keen painter with overflowing potential, their coming together was as natural as a painter’s brush on a canvas.
The pair created a lifetime of memories travelling to some of world’s most iconic cities devoted to the arts, including Madrid, Athens and Istanbul; constantly researching and seeking to uncover more about their shared passion.
“I had a fairly big collection of art books and when we married, we started collecting more. She did a lot of real study of particular artists and their work,” Russell said.
“We did a lot of scrutinising of pictures in galleries and other exhibitions.”
The couple moved to Moonambel in 2000, where Russell continues to live, where they became popular members of the community.
What was initially planned to be a “small” memorial for Jacqueline a few months after her death, attracted more than 50 of her friends from the district.
“We’re very fortunate to live in a terrific community. A lot of people wanted to come to the funeral but we only wanted it to be a family affair,” Russell said.
“I made the suggestion to do something in the Moonambel Hall so in March we had a memorial and had around 50 turn up, all of whom knew Jacqueline. That was a big compliment to her.”