Wagga’s Jolly Swagman was created by Romanian-born sculptor Aurel Ragus and has watched and waited for his billy to boil since 1978. Photo: Chris Roe.
Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at some of the stories behind the establishment of Wagga’s iconic Victory Memorial Gardens and the collection of war memorials and statues that continues to grow.
One piece in particular stands out among them as the only installation that is entirely unconnected to the military. The Jolly Swagman is a life-sized copper and bronze sculpture positioned on the eastern side of the gardens, just down the slope from the memorial wall and eternal flame.
The tall, elongated rendering of the tragic hero of Banjo Patterson’s Waltzing Matilda takes his ease, seated on a stump with his back against the trunk of a coolibah tree. He has removed his corked hat and squints pensively off into the distance, freshly packed pipe in hand and a battered billy at his feet.
He has watched and waited for that billy to boil for 47 years.
While the tap has been turned off, the Swagman is also a water feature and is occasionally kept cool by a gentle spray that forms a ‘tree’ overhead. When the water is flowing, the stone moat fills to the brim and becomes the billabong that will be tragically haunted by his unquiet ghost.
When the tap is turned on, the Swagman sits under a spray of water on an island in his billabong. Photo: Chris Roe.
The Jolly Swagman was one of the city’s first public artworks commissioned by the council through the Victory Memorial Gardens Committee and unveiled by Wagga Mayor Bruce Hedditch on the 24th of August 1978.
The work was created by Romanian-born sculptor Aurel (John) Ragus, who migrated to Australia after the war and created many of the public works commissioned in NSW and the ACT in the 1970s.
While his European accent often prompted the question, Where are you from?, Regus was a fiercely proud Australian and loved to depict iconic Aussie characters and creatures in his work.
Regus studied his craft in Italy and Switzerland. His tall, slender figures and rough-textured surfaces bear a resemblance to the work of the legendary Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti. He also expressed an affinity for the work of Australian painter Russel Drysdale.
Aurel Ragus loved to capture “peculiarly Australian” characters through his work. Photo: Chris Roe.
In an interview with The Canberra Times in November 1973, Ragus showed off the breadth of his work from “tiny figures to massive murals” and said that it was a shame that “the visitor to Australia goes home with little more than toy kangaroos bearing labels of foreign manufacturers”. He pointed out that there was little that was “peculiarly Australian” to photograph in the nation’s capital, and he hoped to change this through his work, whether tiny or tall.
Among his dozens of commissioned works, Regus also created the ‘Dad, Dave, Mum and Mabel Sculpture’ in Gundagai, depicting the much-loved family from the Dad and Dave radio serial. He crafted a multi-figure tribute to the Labor Party in Canberra and a 100-metre-tall copper mural outside the Bank of NSW Headquarters.
