INNOVATIVE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN 2020: online and onsite LAURAINE • DIGGINS • FINE • ART JESSIE SCARVELL 1862 - 1950 Glenalvon, Murrurundi NSW 1895 oil on canvas 50 x 89 cm n the current global climate of shifting raise the profile of women artists, resulting in attitudes towards gender biases, the an increase of exhibitions highlighting female celebration and recognition of women artists and seeing more of their work on the artists is growing around the world. Such art market.12 International movements and art Iinterest and support of women artists is not a collectives also reflect this trend.13 new phenomenon, tending to follow the ebbs and flows parallel with general cultural trends.1 It is in this context, as well as a tribute to the late Lauraine Diggins OAM, that this exhibition Australian female artists have been integral to celebrates innovative Australian women artists, our artistic culture throughout history, with showing artwork from a period of over 100 years. women students at art school2, including a significant number of Australian artists studying Women have been a vital part of the Australian in Europe3; women artists represented in national art system as career artists; students and and international art exhibitions, competitions teachers. Skillful drawings, such as the life and prizes4; women as active members of art studies by Nora Heysen, with their sense societies5; teaching art students6; reproduced of immediacy and skilled modelling, are in art publications7; working as professional indicative of her dedication to a career as an artists, including commissioned positions such artist, as seen in Male Nude and Standing as Official War Artist8; and collected by major Female in Profile. Many Australian women institutions as well as private collectors. artists, like Heysen, travelled to Europe, particularly Paris and London, to further their However, along the way, many female artists studies, sometimes enabled through various have not enjoyed the career growth, support art school opportunities, such as the NGV MARTHA BERKELEY 1813 - 1899 and recognition of their male counterparts Travelling Scholarship which was first awarded (Portrait of a Young Woman) 1848 and have become ‘lost’ in time, a symptom of to a woman in 1908 and then in secession to watercolour on paper society’s embedded gender discrimination, 1935. Travel opportunities were not without 32 x 25.5 cm irreg. creating a barrier to opportunities and value. their own limitations, particularly financial, but There have been concerted efforts in the also those more uniquely placed on women at past to rekindle the awareness of Australian the time, such as the expectation of a travelling female artists, through the important work of companion for a single female. These artists had scholars9; major exhibitions10 and dedicated a broad influence on their return to Australia, efforts of supporters and collectors.11 helping to disseminate the ideas they had been Such efforts are at the forefront of the artistic exposed to throughout the local art scene, not world today, with numerous campaigns to only through their own work but also through teaching others, invigorating Australian art with new ideas and developments. Yvonne Audette has followed her interest in abstract art throughout her career, stimulated by her extensive travels in Europe and America. She is Australia’s leading abstract expressionist and continues to inspire and motivate students in Australia today. Cantanta Giublante painted in Australia in 2014 divulges her continuing links to Italy. Sculptor Norma Redpath also spent time in Italy, winning a scholarship to Milan in 1961 and acquiring traditional bronze casting skills whilst there. Drawing and even painting (particularly watercolours) have long been considered appropriate pursuits for ‘young ladies’, exemplified through the elegant painted fan by Miriam Phillips (later Moxham), the literary inspiration a logical choice for this published poet. Women artists pushed beyond expectations and continue to practice in a wide variety of artistic fields from textiles, including the success of indigenous weavers; photography (from Olive Cotton to Tracey Moffatt); EMMA MINNIE BOYD 1858 - 1936 ceramics; printmaking; installation; video; (Woman with a Parasol and a Girl on the Beach) decorative arts and sculpture, represented here oil on canvas through Torso by Maria Kuczynska, where 51 x 68 cm the delicate folds highlighted by shimmering glaze defy the rigid porcelain material; Dianne Coulter’s figurative work, instilled with social justice, and the abstract work of Norma Redpath. Other artists who built their reputation overseas are perhaps better known outside their county of origin – including Bessie Davidson in Paris and Sheila Hawkins and Dora Meeson in London. Davidson was appointed a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur by the French Government in 1931. Still Life with Bowl of Fruit makes clever use of horizontal and vertical lines and is evident of her interest in light, atmosphere and colour. Meeson became intimately connected with Chelsea’s bohemian art scene, upholding a successful career, and was an integral figure in the suffragette movement. (Waiting for the Tide) is reminiscent of her well-known River Thames subjects, with marine settings and their links to industry, labour and poverty at the docks, conventionally a thoroughly male domain. As well as dedication to her own career, Meeson continued to support her artist husband, George Coates, in a similar way to Ethel Carrick Fox whose paintings reflect the travels and interests of herself and her husband, Emanuel Phillips Fox. This can be seen in Au Marche, her salon painting of 1908, an en plein air depiction of the flower markets of Paris, with an impressionistic concern to interpret the modern world through colour and light. Painting directly in front of a landscape was a key element of the growing Australian Impressionist movement. Desirable landscapes included coastal scenes and the area around Ricketts Point and Mentone were well represented, continuing to attract artists FLORENCE ADA FULLER 1867 - 1946 generations later, including Sybil Craig and Whilst Yet the Days are Wintry Bertha Merfield. Many women artists identified oil on canvas with the Heidelberg School, some whose 125.5 x 101.5 cm reputations have been revived, including Jane Sutherland; Florence Fuller and Jessie Laver immediate and demanding subject, as seen in Evans, whilst others are only coming to light, the delightful Frankie Payne depiction of her such as Jessie Scarvell. Glenalvon, Murrurundi, child at the beach, caught in the sun glare and was included in the Royal Art Salon of the Art enjoying the sand running through fingers. Gallery of New South Wales in 1895 and is After her marriage separation, Payne supported reminiscent of the atmospheric paintings by her her three sons through her art career. There peers Charles Conder and Arthur Streeton. is an implied question for female artists - the Whilst landscapes were an integral subject for dedication to career against the expectation the impressionist painters, flowers and still life of family. This gives an added dimension to paintings were themes often favoured by women Sheila Hawkins’ Gypsy Mother, which radiates artists, as an ‘acceptable’ subject matter and strength and power. The most available sitter for ones perhaps readily available. Rehfisch’s Urn of any artist is in the mirror, with a long tradition Flowers and Geese shows her modernist approach of self-portraits throughout art history. Naomi with a bold use of colour and unusual framing Simon presents herself as a confident young device adding complexity to the composition. artist, locking eyes with the viewer with her brush in hand – a suitable pose for an artist Portraits were another subject taken up by hung at the Royal Academy in London. women artists, who often turned to their family and peers for ready sitters. In a Besides the popularity of portraits, artists Churchyard is a contemplative portrait by the turned to the world around them, inspired by young Constance Parkin of her soon-to-be- landscapes, often at their doorsteps. Margery husband Eric Stokes, perhaps depicted waiting Withers followed in her famous father’s for his intended to return from artistic studies footsteps, using an impressionist style to in Europe, which surely inspired the landscape depict the streets around her home in Eltham; in this work. Josephine Muntz-Adams was Isabel Tweddle’s Rooftops, Melbourne shows an acclaimed portrait artist, undertaking BERTHA ELIZABETH MERFIELD 1868 - 1921 numerous commissions. (Portrait of a Woman) Mentone 1904 is a less formal work, where Muntz-Adams is DORA MEESON 1869 - 1955 oil on board able to make full use of her expressionist, loose Waiting for the Tide 1907 34 x 20 cm brushwork and textured paint surface. oil on canvas on cardboard Acquired by City of Whitehorse Artists who were also mothers had an 41 x 51 cm ETHEL CARRICK FOX 1872 - 1952 Au Marche c.1908 us the view from her studio window in Collins Thea Proctor moves beyond the scenery to oil on Baltic pine panel Street. Clarice Beckett often ventured from explore modern life. The Game is an elegant 27 x 35 cm her home at dawn or dusk, art materials at the composition of outdoor leisure pursuits, the ready, to record the modern world accessible vigorous movement captured in the dynamic to her in her tonalist style. Horse and Rider, shapes and strong use of pattern and colour. Beaumaris exemplifies her unique vision, Contrast this with Marie Tuck’s Playful capturing changing suburban life, as she looked Interlude, a sedate Edwardian interior in soft, to the streets and coastal clifftops of her warm tones where a woman occupies her cat’s bayside home. interest with a feathery fan. Landscapes, rural and urban, also provide an historical account of a particular environment. Lina Bryans’ Exhibition Buildings in Carlton as familiar today some seventy years after its painting; Lilla Reidy’s San Antonio Cremorne capturing the wisteria over red rooftops against the boat filled harbor.