WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY
ALICIA LÜDI-SCHUTZ
An artist for all senses.
From performing on hit TV show Count Down, to being the first Australian artist commissioned to design one of the famed Willi’s Wine Bar Paris posters, Rod Schubert has led an eclectic life.
In 1970, Rod became a professional artist and since then, his paintings and sculptures appear in more than 100 corporate and private collections around the globe, but it seems his sense of artistic expression goes beyond the mixed media on canvas he is renowned for.
Working from his home studio, an 1850s barn on Mengler’s Hill, canvases and brushes line the white washed walls whilst metal sculpture add another dimension to the surrounding landscape.
It’s here the mind of the homegrown artist is revealed and some extra, unexpected talents are unearthed.
“From as long as I can remember, I was always scribbling on something or drawing something,” he says of his childhood growing up in Tanunda, where he attended the Lutheran school before heading to Nuriootpa High.
Rod worked for his father, a builder and farmer, for a number of years whilst art was a growing hobby in the background.
“Then I did a few other silly things,” he says with a mischievous look reminiscent of younger days.
“I joined a rock ‘n’ roll band.
“We had a local band out of the Barossa that won Hoadley’s Battle of the Sounds’ South Australian play-offs in 1966. We went to the finals in Melbourne and lost out to The Twilights… Playing in front of 3,000 people was a bit daunting for us little Barossa boys!”
The band was known as “The Chosen Few” and included Rod’s brother, Dean; Nuriootpa’s Mike Siegele and Tanunda’s Nipper Fechner on drum kit.
“We ended up doing a lot of work around Adelaide, Elizabeth, Melbourne and we were support act for The Twilights, The Easy Beats….toured with Denise Drysdale…Were regulars on Adelaide television, on the Early Count Down, The Go Show…..”
With Rod on bass guitar, the group even put out a record in 1967 but changed direction when the choice to become professional meant moving to Melbourne.
“Some of us assessed what our future was going to be and we had family businesses that we wanted to get involved with. Being in the music scene in Melbourne at that time, while it seemed like a lot of fun, was starting to get a bit dangerous!”
Music eventually falling by the wayside, although he still keeps a fully tuned bass guitar as a reminder, Rod ended up as manager of the Barossa Valley Milling Company, a poultry feed manufacturing business in the old Mill in Tanunda.
“They decided to close the Mill down and put it on the market. They kept me employed to do absolutely nothing but answer the phone for nine months,” Rod explains.
“I wasted the first month as you do… Moved a fridge in, set up dart boards and things like that and I decided then, seeing I was still getting paid, it was a golden opportunity to take up art seriously so I got rid of the dart board and turned the place into a studio and started painting seriously.”
“Painters don’t retire, I think they just slowly use bigger brushes!” – Rod Schubert
Rod had met and married his wife Tia, by now, and they opened a little gift shop in a rented commercial space at Tanunda Hotel, where Rod could sell his paintings.
He would also illustrate a book called ‘Churches of the Barossa Valley” before being invited to run “Die Galerie”, a gallery restaurant at Tanunda, along with Tia who ran front of house.
“At that stage, I was painting in rooms behind the art gallery so I was working there as well as running the gallery for a couple of years before we opened as a restaurant and then I was the licensed manager of the restaurant.
“I think our best day was doing three hundred covers for a lunch so it was rather busy!
“Once a month we would have a new exhibition and we showed some great art from all over Australia… I got to know a lot of people in the art world.”
It didn’t take long for Rod to make connections that would create many opportunities.
Die Galerie was the site of his first solo exhibition, the one he describes as the “turning point” in his career.
It was opened by good friend, Peter Lehmann whom he worked with during a vintage
at Saltram’s years ago.
“He said I was the only person to start at the top of the wine industry and work my way to the bottom because he put me on 10 tonnes of Shiraz, handed me a pitch fork and said keep working until you get to the bottom of the truck.”
Rod has now exhibited works in every Australian state, Kuala Lumpur and London and become the first Australian artist commissioned to design the world famous “Willi’s Wine Bar Paris” limited edition and very collectable wine art poster.
“Paris came to me!” he says of the poster’s launch held in the Barossa, the first time the renowned event was held outside of its home city.
He is thrilled that a complete set of posters, one of only four in the world, is now in the Barossa following a charity auction.
“It gives another side to the credibility and the international standing of the word Barossa.”
Rod’s designs feature on many internationally recognised Australian wine labels, his strong connection to the industry leading him to donate the Rod Schubert Trophy for best red at the Barossa Wine Show for more years than he can remember.
He chuckles as he describes the day he was asked to be the “female weighbridge operator” at Chateau Tanunda one vintage and has even made wine the traditional way with friend, Robert O’Callaghan.
“We stomped a 500 gallon vat, crushed it with our feet of course! I’ve still got a few bottles of that which I am treasuring, that was way back in the 60s.”
Rod’s series of paintings based on “Eight Songs for a Mad King”, inspired during his role as Artist in Residence for the Barossa Music Festival, received high acclaim from the composer.
“Sir Peter Maxwell Davies came out from London…he was staring at the Eight Songs for a Mad King paintings and I said, what do you think? He turned around and he had tears rolling down his cheeks and he said dear boy, I have nothing but praise.”
It’s these moments that Rod quietly treasures, yet he still calls himself “a small fish in an even smaller pond” as he constantly improves and refines each and every piece he does.
“I think you keep maturing all the way through and I would doubt if I have painted my best work yet – I’m still chasing that!”
He says he’s not adverse to rattling the cage a little and likes making people think.
“It’s not my quote, but it is one I’m using at this present moment, it’s simply, ‘Art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed!’
“I don’t paint with the idea of this is a saleable thing… Paintings come out of this studio because that’s how I want them to look like, not how anybody else wants them to look like and hopefully someone likes them.”
His art is inspired by many things, whether it’s the diminishing thoughts of an Australian explorer losing hope during an expedition, or the mysteries hidden behind a mask, themes that tend to re-appear in his works, Rod’s art is a reflection of his thoughts and feelings at a particular point in time.
“I know other people work differently, but I just can’t take a blank canvas and start splashing paint around, hoping something will happen. I have to have it planned in my head and once I get that, it’s then working to make what I think I’ve seen into the reality of what I do see – that’s a bit heavy isn’t it!”
Striving to do better in everything he does is what drives Rod.
“You can’t sit back. I wish I could sometimes, I wish I had the attitude to go out and play golf but I can’t, I don’t have time.
“Painters don’t retire, I think they just slowly use bigger brushes!”
To see more of Rod’s work, please visit his website rodschubertartist.com
