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Grace Cossington Smith Grace Cossington Smith A RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION Proudly sponsored by This exhibition has been curated by Deborah Hart, Senior Curator, Australian Paintings and Sculpture at the National Gallery of Australia. Booking details Entry $12 Members and concessions $8 Entry for booked school groups and students under 16 is free Online teachers’ resources Visit nga.gov.au to download study sheets that can be used with on-line images – key works have been selected and are accompanied by additional text. Other resources available The catalogue to the exhibition: Grace Cossington Smith (a 10% discount is offered for schools’ purchases) Available from the NGA shop. Phone 1800 808 337 (free call) or 02 6240 6420, email [email protected], or shop online at ngashop.com.au Audio tour Free children’s trail Postcards, cards, bookmarks and posters Venues and dates National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 4 March – 13 June 2005 Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide 29 July – 9 October 2005 Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 29 October 2005 – 15 January 2006 Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane 11 February – 30 April 2006 nga.gov.au/CossingtonSmith The National Gallery of Australia is an Australian Government Agency GRACE COSSINGTON SMITH EDUCATION RESOURCE Teachers’ notes Grace Cossington Smith (1892–1984) is one of Australia’s most important artists; a brilliant colourist, she was one of this country’s first Post-Impressionsts. She is renowned for her iconic urban images and radiant interiors. Although Cossington Smith was keenly attentive to the modern urban environment, she also brought a deeply personal, intimate response to the subjects of her art. Among the recurring themes are the metropolis and Sydney Harbour Bridge, portraits, still lifes, landscapes, religious and war subjects, theatre and ballet performances, and domestic interiors infused with light. Students studying Australian Art History will be interested in this artist’s role in introducing concepts of modernism to Australia. Cossington Smith demonstrated a more open, experimental and personally resolved style than many of her male contemporaries and she produced works of art that challenged convention and opened new pathways to modernism. Cossington Smith lived a quiet life, surrounded by female friends and relatives, but in no way did she see herself as anything other than a professional artist whose vision was original and integrity absolute. This resource contains: • teachers’ notes • a biographical timeline on the artist • 14 cards with full-colour images of works from the exhibition and contextual information and visual analysis of each image • a series of discussion points. Suggested strategy for use of the resource: Distribute the cards to students, in groups or individually Students read the information on the back and prepare answers to the discussion points Students deliver their prepared answers to the class and read out the visual analysis provided Suggested reading Grace Cossington Smith, exhibition catalogue, Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2005. Jane Hylton, Modern Australian women: paintings and prints 1925–1945, Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2000. Bruce James, Grace Cossington Smith, Roseville, New South Wales: Craftsman House, 1990. Daniel Thomas, Grace Cossington Smith: a life from drawings in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 1993. For further information visit the Gallery’s website: nga.gov.au/CossingtonSmith/ Sources for the information in this education resource: Grace Cossington Smith, exhibition catalogue, Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2005; Bruce James, Grace Cossington Smith, Roseville, New South Wales: Craftsman House, 1990; Grace Cossington Smith, interviews with Alan Roberts at Cossington, Sydney, 9 January 1970, 29 January 1970, 9 February 1970 and 28 April 1970; and Grace Cossington Smith, interview with Hazel De Berg, 16 August 1965, National Library of Australia. GRACE COSSINGTON SMITH BIOGRAPHICAL TIMELINE 1890 Ernest Augustus Smith marries Grace Fisher 1891–97 The births of Mabel (1891), Grace (1892), Margaret (Madge, 1896), and twins Gordon and Charlotte (Diddy, 1897) 1910 At the age of 18 Cossington Smith begins drawing classes at Anthony Dattilo Rubbo’s atelier in Sydney 1912–14 Cossington Smith, her father and sister Mabel travel to England; Cossington Smith attends art classes at Winchester Art School 1914 Cossington Smith returns to Sydney and begins painting in oils at Dattilo Rubbo’s atelier 1915 The sock knitter is painted and exhibited at an exhibition held by the Royal Art Society of New South Wales 1916 Study of a head: self portrait is painted 1920 The Smiths buy a property in Turrumurra and name it Cossington; a studio for Cossington Smith is built in the garden 1922 Portrait of Diddy drawn around this time 1925 Centre of a city (a work in which the tonal influence of Max Meldrum can be seen) painted around this time 1926 A return to bright colour can be noted in Cossington Smith’s works; she makes a break with her teacher, Dattilo Rubbo; becomes interested in theosophy and the symbolic importance of colour; Eastern Road, Turrumurra is painted around this time; Cossington Smith exhibits for the first time with the Contemporary Group 1927 Lily growing in a field by the sea painted around this time 1928 Cossington Smith holds her first solo exhibition at Walter Taylor’s Grosvenor Galleries 1929 Four panels for a screen: loquat tree, gum and wattle trees, waterfall, picnic in a gully is painted 1930 Bridge in-curve is painted around this time 1931 Cossington Smith’s mother, Grace, dies; Cossington Smith paints Poinsettias and Hippeastrums growing 1932 Cossington Smith holds her first solo exhibition at the Macquarie Galleries (this gallery would become her main exhibiting venue) 1935–36 The Lacquer Room is painted 1938 Cossington Smith’s father, Ernest, dies and Cossington Smith moves her studio into the main house; Cossington Smith undertakes many painting trips into the countryside with fellow artists Helen Stewart, Enid Cambridge and Treania Smith 1940 Cossington Smith volunteers as an air-raid warden at Turramurra 1941–42 Church Interior is painted 1944 Dawn landing is painted 1947 Cossington Smith elected to full membership of the Society of Artists, Sydney 1948 Cossington Smith sails for England with her sisters Madge and Diddy (Madge remained in England permanently); during the trip, Cossington Smith draws Top deck, the Arawa, Shaw Saville Line 1949 Cossington Smith travels to Italy and then back to England 1951 Cossington Smith returns to Sydney 1954 The first of Cossington Smith’s large interiors, Interior with verandah doors, is painted 1962 Diddy dies; Cossington Smith begins painting Interior in yellow before breaking her hip, which is followed by a long convalescence (subsequently, Interior in yellow was not completed until 1964) 1973 Cossington Smith is awarded an Order of the British Empire for services to art in the New Year’s Honours List; a retrospective exhibition of Cossington Smith’s work, organised by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, is held and tours major capital cities 1978 Cossington Smith moves from Cossington to Dalcross Hospital and then to the Milton Nursing Home, Roseville 1983 Cossington Smith awarded the Order of Australia 1984 Cossington Smith dies, 20 December, at the age of 92 Grace Cossington Smith Study of a head: self portrait 1916 PORTRAITS Grace Cossington Smith Study of a head: self portrait 1916 oil on canvas on board The Holmes à Court Collection, Heytesbury Pty Ltd, Perth The portraits by Grace Cossington Smith are intimate, descriptive and perceptive. She was not interested in producing large, formally posed portraits. Members of her family sitting and reading, friends, and children of friends were the subjects of her gentle, intuitive portraits. Many studies of her family lounging in cane armchairs fi ll her sketchbooks; she delighted in the interplay between the lineal structure of the chair and the soft silhouette of the body. Painted as an art student in her early twenties, Study of a head: self portrait 1916 suggests the young artist’s vitality and determination, along with her love of colour and structure. Cossington Smith’s sensuous use of vibrant blues, greens and rosy pinks, along with the dramatic passages of light and dark anticipate her later work. Her characteristic style, with fan-like brushstrokes, had not developed at this early stage of her career; instead she uses bright dabs of colour, demonstrating her awareness of British and European Post-Impressionism gleaned primarily from her classes with Anthony Dattilo Rubbo at his atelier in Rowe Street, Sydney. Visual analysis Note the use of parallel diagonals to animate the composition. The collar, jaw line, nose and parting in her hair form diagonals that counterpoint the strong compositional line from bottom left to top right. Her dark hair is balanced by the dark, bottom right-hand corner. The artist separates the cheek from the background with a bright edge of light paint. Discussion points •What characteristics of Post-Impressionism are evident in this portrait? •What does this portrait convey about the artist? Grace Cossington Smith Portrait of Diddy c. 1922 FAMILY Grace Cossington Smith Portrait of Diddy c. 1922 pastel, charcoal and pencil on paper National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1974 Grace Cossington Smith was the second of fi ve children – she had three sisters and a brother. Her mother, also named Grace, was a cultured woman with a love of music and languages; her father, Ernest, was appointed Crown Solicitor of New South Wales in 1890 and later established his own fi rm. Theirs was a close, supportive family. The family liked nicknames: Margaret was known as Madge and Charlotte as Diddy. Cossington was the name of the ancestral home of the artist’s mother in Great Britain, and it was the name given to the house where Cossington Smith was born on 22 April 1892, in Neutral Bay in Sydney, and later to the family home in Turramurra.
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