Helen Ogilvie Australian Modernism and a Changing Sense of Place Amelia Saward

Helen Ogilvie Australian modernism and a changing sense of place Amelia Saward

Australian artist Helen Ogilvie (1902– taught’ and, moreover, found the rigid demonstrate that Ogilvie’s work 1993) is perhaps best known for her technique ‘difficult and boring’ and can not only tell us something of early linocuts and woodcuts, and her at odds with the ‘liberal education Australian women artists’ careers later oil paintings, which primarily I had enjoyed in the country’.6 in the 20th century, but can also be depict rural colonial buildings, Moreover, the school at the time was used to explore social and cultural representative of a 20th-century still—like much of the Australian art themes of the era, including shifts inter-war Australian vernacular.1 world—a male-dominated and rather in Australian identity that were Her works are valuable examples of a patriarchal place.7 influenced by the value given to modernist Australian vision, reflecting The trajectory of Ogilvie’s career certain places, a value that over the experimentation with contemporary altered when, in around 1928, she century was increasingly given to the styles and modes of art of the early purchased a book on linocutting by city over the colonial rural life and century, but in a rather Australian English artist and teacher Claude architecture that Ogilvie frequently fashion. They display the significant Flight, which was illustrated by the depicted. influence of the modernism of George author and his friends with prints that Bell, whom Ogilvie encountered were considered ‘daringly modern’ Prints and text: Russell briefly in 1925 at the National Gallery by Australia at that time.8 Probably Grimwade’s Flinders Lane School in Melbourne, where he was fuelled by this discovery, Ogilvie Many of Ogilvie’s prints serve a the drawing master for a short time, produced many linocuts and wood decorative or illustrative purpose, such and share similarities with the work engravings from the 1930s onwards, as the frontispieces or tailpieces of of other printmaking artists, including before switching to oil landscapes books. They are evidence of a 20th- Eveline Syme.2 The linocuts and oil in her later years. Her diverse career century rapprochement between paintings by Ogilvie that are now spanned not only printmaking and those forms of art intended to stand in the University of Melbourne Art painting, but also from 1949 to 1955 alone, such as easel painting, and Collection provide evidence of such the role of director of the Stanley those that also serve other ends, styles, influences and methods.3 Coe Gallery in Melbourne (later such as book illustration. They also Ogilvie grew up in country the Peter Bray Gallery), where she reflect the interdisciplinary nature New South Wales, before moving organised exhibitions of the work of the art and cultural industries of to Melbourne and attending the of emerging artists such as Sidney the time. Although printmaking National Gallery School between Nolan, Helen Maudsley, John Brack, in Australia almost came to a 1922 and 1925.4 Before moving to the Ian Fairweather, Arthur Boyd and standstill as a result of World War I city, she would go out sketching in Margo Lewers.9 and the Great Depression, it did the local area with mother, Henrietta, In this discussion I touch on two continue.10 Moreover, women artists a competent watercolourist.5 At the main facets of Ogilvie’s career— of the era who were trying to forge National Gallery School Ogilvie printmaking and oil painting— a career faced many obstacles, and reportedly had difficulty relating to and use works in the University this was true for Ogilvie, despite the ‘dark academism which was being of Melbourne Art Collection to her strong connections in the art

32 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 23, December 2018 Right: Helen Ogilvie, Heading illustration to Chapter 7 of Flinders Lane: Recollections of Alfred Felton, 1947, wood engraving on tissue paper, 4.8 × 7.9 cm (image). 1973.0417, gift of the Russell and Mab Grimwade Bequest 1973, University of Melbourne Art Collection. © Reproduced courtesy of the estate of the artist.

Below: Helen Ogilvie, Heading illustration to Chapter 2 of Flinders Lane: Recollections of Alfred Felton, 1947, wood engraving on tissue paper, 5.4 × 9.8 cm (image). 1973.0391, gift of the Russell and Mab Grimwade Bequest 1973, University of Melbourne Art Collection. © Reproduced courtesy of the estate of the artist.

world, including the Boyds and the to Chapter 2, for example, depicts a the way that earlier, even obsolete, Grimwades.11 A diverse practice group of four people sitting around technologies were viewed and was often necessary to make ends a table listening to a phonograph represented. meet; even ephemeral items such as (below). Through her use of shading Similarly, the heading illustration Christmas cards could be a useful and dramatic lines, Ogilvie has to Chapter 7 (above) depicts a roaring source of income. Friend and patron created a stage-like illusion, in which steam train at Spencer Street Station, Russell Grimwade commissioned the figures are set against a brightly which accompanies text recalling a Ogilvie to illustrate his book Flinders lit background. Through her stylistic journey to Bendigo on the Thursday Lane: Recollections of Alfred Felton and compositional choices, Ogilvie before Easter, 1899.16 This print (1947).12 She also illustrated Stolne emphasises the importance of the evokes technological advancement, & surreptitious verses (1952) by John technological equipment, though for example, in the technique used Medley,13 vice-chancellor of the it is not of Ogilvie’s own era. The to depict the steam, capturing a University of Melbourne from 1938 prominence afforded to technology— substance in a state of constant flux to 1951, and a friend of Grimwade’s.14 for example the depiction of the and effectively representing it in a Although Ogilvie’s prints for electrical wiring— suggests the two-dimensional medium. Flinders Lane depict subjects from influence (even a subconscious one) Themes of modernity, of machines an earlier period (the 19th century, as of the 20th century’s valuing of and technology, are also evident in described in Grimwade’s text), they technology and the transmission the tailpiece to Chapter 3, which are modernist in style, reflecting the of information. As Grimwade’s depicts a man firing a gun.17 Though use of line and shape by artists such as text was published not long after the corresponding event in the text is Dorrit Black, Thea Proctor and Ethel World War II, technological advances vastly different, set on a rural property, Spowers.15 The heading illustration of that era may well have influenced it nevertheless evokes imagery of machinery and weaponry, common in the works of the Futurists and other early- to mid-20th-century artists who were living through those turbulent decades. Created immediately after World War II, Ogilvie’s images have a distinct simplicity and stability, yet are also dynamic. They can be seen as part of the new ‘living modernism’ that developed after 1945.18 As Cody Hartley commented in regard to a recent exhibition of works by Georgia O’Keeffe and Margaret Preston, modernism was ‘a global

Amelia Saward Helen Ogilvie 33 phenomenon representing a set of unhappy experiences at the National of New South Wales and my mother reactions and artistic strategies that Gallery School).22 From this time on, encouraged an unrestricted and open- emerged around the world as a means painting indeed appears to become air life’.23 Thus Ogilvie evokes the rural of making sense of the conditions of her preferred medium. lifestyle as one of freedom, uncluttered modern life’.19 Even if less overtly by the people and machines of the than some artists, Ogilvie’s works (Rural) buildings and social city. The decline of Australian rural show a keen awareness of trends of transformation: Ogilvie’s idealism in the 20th century and the modern life, such as dynamism and later paintings parallel physical decay of traditional the role of technology, weaponry and Ogilvie’s later works offer a realist colonial dwellings are themes that machinery. Thus her art is part of the view of buildings that had been recur in Ogilvie’s paintings. international dialogue of modernism. typical of early settler Australia, but Ogilvie’s Stone house, Portland During the war, Ogilvie was a were fast being left behind as the (opposite) depicts a forgotten colonial member of the Red Cross rehab- nation’s culture evolved in the second building, isolated in the landscape. It ilitation service, working at the half of the 20th century. They evoke is a simple stone cottage, with a tin 115th Australian General Hospital a change in the sense of place in roof with a chimney at each end, and (Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital), Australian life and culture at that a central cream timber door flanked helping injured servicemen with time. Though the depictions are by small sash windows. In the lower- handcraft activities.20 Like many almost all of rural structures, these are left foreground is a single wooden of her era, Ogilvie appears to have buildings in decline, thus marking the post, from which some barbed wire possessed a keen awareness of shift towards urban culture during the hangs slackly: a dilapidated reminder the times in which she was living era and allowing for the consequences of the fence that once stood there and and, whether intentionally or not, of this shift (the demise of rural, thus of the working history of such expressed this in her art. In a 1962 colonial Australia) to be documented properties. The cottage is surrounded article she commented that ‘the war and questioned. Stone house, Portland by dry, yellowed grass, trees lining years enforced on me a long pause (1964) and Galvanized iron shed the horizon and a harsh blue sky with for thought and consideration on with gig (1972) are examples of these clouds. While the work has some the work I had done’. Although she realist paintings. similarities to 19th-century Australian was satisfied with that work, she During the 20th century, Australia rural scenes, Ogilvie’s roughly textured believed that, because it was all in was urbanising rapidly and shifting and less blended brushstrokes, the print medium, it was ‘limited’.21 from rural life as the epitome of together with her treatment of the This appears to be the moment of national identity. Having grown subject matter, sway the work towards her transition to painting, which she up in country New South Wales, a contemplative realism, the subject saw as ‘a possible medium to express Ogilvie would have been familiar matter a remnant of the past that the new ideas that were forming in with rural surroundings. In a 1962 it symbolises: the opposite of the my mind’ (her previous desire to article she recalled that ‘We lived in romantic idealism of colonial-era paint having being dampened by her a small country town in the plains works.

34 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 23, December 2018 Helen Ogilvie, Stone house, Portland, 1964, oil on board, 12.5 × 18.0 cm (sight). 1973.0008, gift of the Russell and Mab Grimwade Bequest 1973, University of Melbourne Art Collection. © Reproduced courtesy of the estate of the artist.

Moreover, Ogilvie’s paintings those things most people don’t give history’.26 Thus, the buildings are demonstrate how highly she valued a second glance’.25 Lyndall Crisp presented as nostalgic reminders of the buildings themselves, and serve stated in 1979: ‘To Helen Ogilvie Australia’s past, as well as speaking of as an archival record of the Australia a run-down galvanised tin shack in the changes that have since occurred, of these left-behind structures.24 As the back of beyond is not an eyesore which have led to their more a newspaper article from 1970 put but a thing of beauty to be recorded neglected appearance by the time it, Ogilvie simply wished ‘to record and preserved as part of Australian Ogilvie is depicting them.

Amelia Saward Helen Ogilvie 35 Helen Ogilvie, Galvanized iron shed with gig, 1972, oil on composition board, 15.3 × 20.0 cm (sight), 1996.0024, gift of Dr Joseph Brown 1996, University of Melbourne Art Collection. © Reproduced courtesy of the estate of the artist.

In 1963 Ogilvie exhibited 34 works at the Leicester Galleries, in Mayfair, London.29 The subject matter was probably unfamiliar to a British audience in the 1960s, and whether Ogilvie managed to convey her nuanced take on the contemporary status of these dwellings is hard to say. A short biography in the exhibition catalogue states that the works ‘record some of the architecture of the country and suburbs peculiar to Australia, which belong to the early period of the present century … [and] are fast disappearing’.30 While perhaps merely a turn of phrase, the description of the buildings as ‘peculiar to Australia’ possibly suggests that the works were received as documentary records of unfamiliar colonial architecture and culture, with London viewers perhaps missing their subtle representation of a changing society and of a landscape The documentary nature of the typically Australian atmosphere of shifting away from what these paintings is suggested by Ogilvie’s her subject matter by using oil paint dwellings represent. Back in Australia, method of working. She explained: on a white background, which she Daniel Thomas in Sydney’s Sunday ‘[I] usually draw the building when said provided a transparency that Telegraph commented in 1968: ‘When I see it and photograph it in the resembled bright light.28 This realist they are gone they will presumably morning and at night to record the and documentary nature of her works seem as peculiarly Australian to different shadows … then it might can also be seen in Galvanized iron us as they already are to foreigners be 18 months before I get round to shed with gig (see above), which … for although Miss Ogilvie has painting it’.27 This reveals the works depicts a rusted corrugated iron shed, scarcely exhibited here, her London to be carefully documented records of with a water tank on the left and exhibitions are often noted with specific subjects, not merely transient an old buggy—a long-abandoned respect in the English magazines’.31 perceptions or impressions, although technology by this time—visible In the 1960s and 1970s Ogilvie widely Ogilvie was careful to capture the under its shelter. exhibited her series on Australian

36 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 23, December 2018 colonial buildings in a variety of 1 Helen Maxwell, ‘Helen Elizabeth Ogilvie 13 John Medley, Stolne & surreptitious verses, Australian galleries, including b. 1902’, Design & Art Australia Online, Melbourne University Press, 1952. www.daao.org.au/bio/helen-elizabeth- 14 Geoffrey Serle, ‘Medley, Sir John Dudley Macquarie Galleries in Sydney and ogilvie/biography/ (viewed December 2018). Gibbs ( Jack) (1891–1962)’, Australian Leveson Street Gallery in Melbourne. 2 Sheridan Palmer, All this I knew: Helen dictionary of biography, vol. 15, Melbourne They were also included in a major Ogilvie retrospective exhibition, Ballarat Fine University Press, 2000. Art Gallery, 1995, pp. 1–2; Kate Robertson, 15 Helen Topliss, Modernism and feminism: retrospective in the mid-1990s that ‘George Frederick Henry Bell b. 1 December Australian women artists 1900–1940, Sydney: toured regional Victorian galleries, 1878’, Design & Art Australia Online, Craftsman House, 1996, p. 141. including Bendigo Art Gallery and www.daao.org.au/bio/george-frederick- 16 Grimwade, Flinders Lane, pp. 53–4. Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, as well as henry-bell/biography/ (viewed December 17 Helen Ogilvie, Tailpiece illustration to 2018). Chapter 3 of Flinders Lane: Recollections of 32 travelling to Launceston and Sydney. 3 Works by Ogilvie in the University of Alfred Felton, 1947, wood engraving on tissue Helen Ogilvie’s art, as exemplified Melbourne Art Collection include two oil paper, 5.0 × 7.7 cm (image). 1973.0409, gift of in these particular works now in paintings from the Grimwade bequest and the Russell and Mab Grimwade Bequest 1973, one donated by Joseph Brown; 26 wood University of Melbourne Art Collection. the University of Melbourne Art engravings (a near-complete set) and two 18 Helen Rayment, Australian modernism: The Collection, represents the continued early-state engravings from Flinders Lane: complexity and the diversity, Melbourne: presence of the rural in the Australian Recollections of Alfred Felton (all Grimwade Malakoff Fine Art Press / Lauraine Diggins settler psyche of the 20th century. bequest); a full set of wood engravings Fine Art, 1992, p. 6. from Medley’s Stolne & surreptitious verses 19 Cody Hartley, in Lesley Harding and Denise Through her reflective renderings (donated by Ogilvie); and some Christmas Mimmocchi (eds), O’Keeffe, Preston, Cossington of rural landscapes and structures, cards and wood engravings depicting the Smith: Making modernism, Melbourne: Heide mostly in a state of decline or garden at Miegunyah (Russell and Mab Museum of Modern Art, 2016, p. 3. Grimwade’s house in Toorak), together 20 ‘Australian reeds for Red Cross craftwork’, decay, Ogilvie comments on the with the woodblocks from which they were Argus, 14 November 1942, p. 10; Helen social and environmental changes printed (Grimwade bequest). Ogilvie also provided these services at the of the 20th century from a point 4 Maxwell, ‘Helen Elizabeth Ogilvie’. Ballarat Base Hospital and the Sydney of view somewhat at odds with 5 Helen Ogilvie, ‘All this I knew’, The Painter Hospital. and Sculptor: A Journal of the Visual Arts, 21 Ogilvie, ‘All this I knew’, p. 29. dominant narratives of progress and vol. 5, no. 2, 1962, p. 26; Palmer, All this I 22 Ogilvie, ‘All this I knew’, p. 29. urbanisation. Her later rural paintings knew, p. 1. 23 Ogilvie, ‘All this I knew’, p. 26. are a realist recording of the landscape 6 The printmakers, mainly of the thirties, 24 Palmer, All this I knew, p. 9. Melbourne: Important Women Artists, 1979, 25 ‘History in oils: Two women painters put that she knew so well, and represent p. 7; Ogilvie, ‘All this I knew’, p. 26. Australia on canvas’, Herald, 15 October 1970. that which has been left behind. 7 Palmer, All this I knew, p. 1. 26 Lyndall Crisp, ‘The beauty of an old Australian 8 The printmakers, p. 7. tin shack …’, Australian, 12 July 1979. 9 Maxwell, ‘Helen Elizabeth Ogilvie’; Palmer, 27 Helen Ogilvie, quoted in Crisp, ‘The beauty of Amelia Saward is a Master of Art Curatorship All this I knew, p. 6. an old Australian tin shack …’. student at the University of Melbourne. An 10 Sandra Warner, Australian printmaking: The 28 ‘History in oils’. emerging curator, writer and illustrator, she wrote second wave, 1940s–1960s, Sydney: Josef 29 Helen Ogilvie: Australian country dwellings, her honours thesis on the diversity of 19th‑century Lebovic Gallery, 1991, p. 3. London: Leicester Galleries, 1963. Australian women artists’ careers. Amelia is 11 Palmer, All this I knew, pp. 2–3. 30 Helen Ogilvie: Australian country dwellings. especially interested in the development of 12 Russell Grimwade, Flinders Lane: 31 Daniel Thomas, ‘Corrugated iron forever’, alternative and new art histories, as well as in the Recollections of Alfred Felton, Melbourne Sunday Telegraph, 6 October 1968, p. 85. role of art in creating and reflecting social change. University Press, 1947. 32 Palmer, All this I knew, p. 9.

Amelia Saward Helen Ogilvie 37