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