The stretch of land now known as Kangaroo Point has a rich history and is an important site for Aboriginal people. The prominent higher land, and nearby Woolloongabba, was used as a hunting corral for herding kangaroos, river crossing point, burial ground, corroboree ground and pullen pullen (fighting ground).

Coal wharves were constructed in the 1880s. Isaac Walter Jenner’s painting Loading Coal, Kangaroo Point (1889) indicates the changing face of the Kangaroo Point cliffs, which in the painting have a more gradual slope than they do today as the result of extensive quarrying. The cliffs were used as a quarry between 1826 and 1976, and the stone extracted is known as Brisbane tuff. It was used to construct several early Brisbane buildings including St Mary’s Anglican Church, which sits atop the Kangaroo Point cliffs.

This church, built in 1873, has been a gathering site for generations of artists who attended lessons and meetings in its studio. In the 1950s and 1960s it was the centre of alternative art making in Brisbane, a counterpoint to the more traditional Central Technical College. This may explain why so many paintings in the Museum’s Collections feature the view from this spot on top of Kangaroo Point, looking across the river to the Botanic Gardens and, in many cases, capturing the clock tower of City Hall peeking above the tree line.