Paris to Monaro Learning Resource Download
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National Portrait Gallery Learning resource paris to MONARO Pleasures from the studio of HILDA RIX NICHOLAS About the exhibition works it provides questions and activities National Portrait Gallery Paris to Monaro: Pleasures from the studio to prepare students to visit the exhibition 31 May – 11 August 2013 of Hilda Rix Nicholas tells the story of one of at the National Portrait Gallery or online at the many twentieth-century settlers of the portrait.gov.au, questions for discussion Education Bulletin ACT and surrounding region who came in in the exhibition and post visit extension Subscribe to the National Portrait Gallery curiosity and hope, bringing a rich personal questions and activity. Education Bulletin for educators at history and wide experience of the world. The resource has strong connections with portrait.gov.au/site/subscribe.php The exhibition includes over 200 works and the Australian Curriculum and is designed objects including costumes, minikins, paper primarily for upper primary to middle Learning resources ephemera, artists’ materials, household school teachers of English, History and Learning resources can be downloaded at objects and drawings and paintings from Visual Arts to engage students with the portrait.gov.au/site/education_downloads. 1907 to 1961. Many of these works of art and themes, ideas and stories of the paintings, php objects are on public display for the first drawings, ephemera and objects in the time with artefacts, furniture, garments, exhibition. Tell us what you think and travel souvenirs brought directly from Curriculum links include: The National Portrait Gallery is committed the studio Hilda Rix Nicholas designed and Visual Arts: the exhibition can be examined to providing opportunities for all audiences created for herself at Knockalong. The through practices and processes (including to access exhibitions and the Collection. exhibition features a recreation of her technique, medium, and materials) and We welcome any comments or suggestions studio and paintings of the other studios in viewpoints. The exhibition encourages about this learning resource. Please contact which she has worked. exploration of the students own ideas for Amanda Andlee Poland, Manager, Learning Hilda Rix Nicholas travelled widely between art-making that relates to their personal Programs [email protected] 1907 and 1926, spending long periods in background and experience. Students are 02 6102 7062. London and Paris, where her work was encouraged to develop an understanding admired and exhibited. During this time of the ways audiences construct multiple Hilda Rix Nicholas made two significant meanings in response to art works. visits to Morocco. Having come home with History: the paintings, drawings and objects her paintings and exotic mementoes, she can be interrogated through the lens of visited the Monaro for the first time in 1922, the past and present, beliefs and values as painting several key works. well as a study of World War 1 along with In 1927 she returned to Canberra to paint its effects. Students are encouraged to on Red Hill and Mount Pleasant. Around this identify a range of questions to stimulate time she resumed her acquaintance with a historical enquiry. grazier, Edgar Wright, whose grandfather English: the ideas, experiences and art had owned Lanyon. They were married in works in the exhibition can be used to 1928, moved to his property, Knockalong, create inspired texts and include literary near Delegate, and together established references and illustrations. a flourishing homestead with the raw and Themes include: burgeoning Canberra its closest ‘city’. • Autobiography • Australia and World War 1 About the resource • Family, loss and longing This resource, structured around the • Land and identity King Edward Terrace Canberra biography of the artist Hilda Rix Nicholas, • Travel and the exotic act 2600 is a companion to the exhibition Paris to • Nationalism Education and group visit enquiries Monaro: Pleasures from the studio of Hilda • Time and place email [email protected] or Rix Nicholas. With a focus on selected • Role of women telephone (02) 6102 7000 National Portrait Gallery paris to Learning resource MONARO For the students In the Gallery After the visit Before the visit to the exhibition Autobiography Autobiography Autobiography • Find connections between the objects • Create a portrait of the artist that tells • Create a still-life of objects that are special and costumes represented in the more than one moment in her life. to you or hold some memories such as exhibition with those included in the Consider your choice of media, style, travel or significant events. Arrange them paintings. What is the purpose of these scale, colour and composition. What and draw them, considering composition objects in her work? (visual arts) would you include in the portrait? (visual and meaning. Share with three other • Who were the subjects in the paintings? arts) students and ask them to describe the In what ways do you think her • Consider the entire exhibition as a person in your art work, after close viewing. relationships with the subjects influenced portrait of the artist and craft her portrait Discuss their interpretations. (visual arts) the way she conveyed the person/people? as a short story or poem? (english) Land and identity Use several specific examples to support Land and identity • Research a number of artists who have your argument. (visual arts) • Draw or paint a view of the Australian represented the Australian landscape in Land and identity rural landscape. To what extent are there the 1900s through oil painting. Annotate • Identify and compare the different any similarities between what Hilda Rix their key ideas about the Australian materials Hilda Rix Nicholas used. How Nicholas painted and yours? (visual arts) landscape (visual arts) does the choice of material affect your • The curator describes Knockalong as a • Experiment with different drawing and reading and interpretation of these place …”where her wounded soul healed”. painting materials to capture a landscape works? (visual arts) Hilda wrote of her first experience of (visual arts) • Which do you consider to be the more the Monaro region with her travelling • Who were Hilda Rix Nicholas’ artistic successful portraits in the exhibition and companion, Dorothy Richmond “a contemporaries in Australia and in Paris? why? (visual arts) peace such as I would not have dared Is there any evidence of their influence? If • Many of Hilda’s paintings are brightly dream of has stolen my heart”. Write so, in what ways? (visual arts) coloured. Describe the colours used an imagined monologue in the voice of Travel and the exotic in one painting being as specific and Hilda that captures her character and • Map the places that Hilda Rix Nicholas creative as you can in your description. her experience of living at Knockalong. visited and lived, and represent them (english) (english) visually in a timeline with information. • Survey the portraits in the exhibition and Time and Place (history) observe the gaze of the subjects. Where • Look closely and consider one of the • Research what travel was like at the time are they looking? How does that impact pictures in the exhibition and write a diary Hilda Rix Nicholas went to Europe with her on our response to the work. Consider entry, letter or news article in the voice of family members. To what extent is travel the effect of the poses the subjects hold. the subject. (english) similar or different today? history( ) (english) • Present, plan, rehearse and deliver a • Dress a sitter in a costume from another Time and place presentation that reflects a diversity of place and time. Create an observational • Are the artworks and objects in the viewpoints of the Arab Market Scene drawing of the subject. Include some exhibition documents that can be used based on your impressions of the props as clues to the identity of the sitter. as evidence to achieve an accurate painting. (english) Does this constitute a portrait? Why or perspective on the period and social • Why do you think there is an absence why not? (visual arts) context? (history) of Indigenous representation in this Time and Place • What 3 questions would you like to ask exhibition and Hilda Rix Nicholas’ work? • Research the works of Hilda Rix Nicholas one of the subjects about their life? What might this tell you about the time in by visiting the Gallery’s website, www. (history) which she lived? (history) portrait.gov.au/site/exhibition_subsite_ • Find an object in the exhibition that you • Research the traditional owners of the hildarix.php and place her work within a are interested in or are curious about. land that the studio is built on, land period of history. Choose 3-5 works and Make a quick sketch to help you examine that was provided to Hilda’s husband’s place them in chronological order. What it and consider what it is? What is the father as a solider settlement package. was this period of history like? Describe purpose of the object? Do you have any (history) the period including key world events. use for it today? (history) • Look at the works of the Australian (history) Role of Women female artists Joy Hester, Margaret • How were purchases made by those • Choose several artworks of women and Preston, Grace Cossington Smith and living in rural Australia? How might they describe how the women led different Thea Proctor. How do Hilda Rix Nicholas’ have purchased furnishings for domestic lives to the lives of women today. Which style and subjects differ to the other use in the 1930s? Research the local aspect would be of most interest for you artists of her time? (history) papers for the Delegate NSW region or to research? (history) • What key beliefs and values emerged your local area in the 1930s. (history) from Hilda Rix Nicholas’ paintings, Role of Women drawings and objects? How do you think • Think about the life experiences of Hilda they influenced society? history( ) Rix Nicholas.