Loudon Sainthill

Loudon Sainthill (9 January 1918 – 10 June 1969) was an Australian artist and stage and costume designer. He worked predominantly in the United Kingdom, where he died. His early designs were described as 'opulent', 'sumptuous' and 'exuberantly splendid', but there was also a 'special quality of enchantment, mixed so often with a haunting sadness'.

He was born Loudon St Hill, the second of four children, in Hobart, Tasmania, but by the age of two his family had moved to Melbourne. He had a stammer from an early age. This continued into his adulthood, but was not apparent when talking to children. He had little formal schooling. He had a natural interest in drawing and painting, and was attracted to quality live performance. Before the age of 14 he had seen Anna Pavlova dance, heard Dame Nellie Melba sing, and had seen Ibsen and Chekhov plays performed. In 1932 he studied design and drawing under Napier Waller at the Applied Arts School of the Working Men's College (a precursor of RMIT University). By age 17 he had set up a studio in the heart of Melbourne where he painted and sold murals. By 1935 he had changed the spelling of his surname to Sainthill.

Around this time he met the journalist, book seller, art critic and leading member of the avant garde scene Harry Tatlock Miller (1913–1989). They were to become life partners, and Miller's connections were to prove advantageous to Sainthill's career. Miller published an art magazine called Manuscripts, and he organised Sainthill's first exhibition, at the Hotel Australia in Collins Street.

In 1936–37, 1938–39 and 1940, his artistic eyes were opened by seeing Colonel W. de Basil's Original Ballet Russe on their three Australian tours. He and Miller were regular patrons of Café Petrushka on Little Collins St, where they mingled with fellow members of the artistic and bohemian community, and they had the chance to meet some of the visiting Russian dancers. He painted some of the dancers and designed some sets for the ballets. He was approached to design Serge Lifar's Icare, but although Sidney Nolan was given the commission, Sainthill's consolation prize was being invited to London with the company. There, with the assistance of Rex Nan Kivell, he mounted an exhibition of his pictures in 1939, and almost all the 52 pieces sold. The British Council then sent Sainthill and Miller back to Australia, in charge of a major exhibition of theatre and ballet designs, which opened in Sydney in early 1940. He also designed the costume for Nina Verchinina's character in the farewell performance by the Ballet Russe in Melbourne in September 1940, the ballet Dithyramb, to music by Margaret Sutherland.

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