Meet the Family Behind Wollongong’s Leading Art Supplier & Picture Framer

Our History

Our Lever family lineage has been in the picture framing trade for centuries in the Netherlands and then beginning in Australia with the Immigration of William Lever with his family in 1953. Starting out, crammed into a garage with a family of 7, William was employed at the steel works, making frames and painting in his spare time, renting another garage down the road as his studio to do so. His son William H Lever aged 17 at the time, a little more adept at English than his father, started setting up agents for his father’s handmade mouldings, gradually building a self-sustaining business over a period of 2-3 years.

Two of William the First’s other children, Hennie and John became skilled craft persons themselves, joining in their father’s trade. Alas, the demand for handmade work was soon made redundant by the advent of machine-made mouldings imported firstly from Canada in the 70s, followed by Asian countries, displacing demand by Illawarra’s consumers, effectively removing the craftsman’s component of the trade locally. There were still frames to be assembled however and assembled they were. There also remained the odd commission for one or other of Australia’s Galleries, and there was Art Supplies.