Glenalvon, Murrurundi depicts an area Jessie Scarvell painted on several occasions, the rural landscape around the picturesque mountains of the Liverpool Ranges in the Upper Hunter region of NSW. Scarvell painted en plein air and her harmonious use of colour is clear, with the muted soft purples, grey and green of the background contrasted against the brighter green, blue and touches of pink in the foreground.
The viewer’s eye is attracted by the detailed thistle foliage, echoed in the grasses across the stream, with the white sheep in-between. Textured brush marks and soft light colours give way to a stronger band of green which draws our eye back to the purple mountain range, birds wheeling in the sky amid an aura of calm in this celebration of pastoral beauty.
The painterly marks, particularly evident in the depiction of the stream and grassy bank, and the focus point of yellow flowered pasture weed are reminiscent of archetypical Australian Impressionist paintings such as Charles Conder’s Herrick’s Blossom c.1888 and Arthur Streeton’s Golden Summer, Eaglemont 1889.
Scarvell’s painting Glenalvon, Murrurundi was included in the Art Society of New South Wales annual exhibition in 1895 and illustrated in the catalogue. It appears to be in its original frame.
Scarvell exhibited regularly with the Art Society of New South Wales in the 1890s and was included in the Exhibition of Australian Art in London at the Grafton Galleries in 1898. Her career spans over a short period of perhaps six years in the 1890s, prior to her marriage.
Jessie Scarvell is represented in the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the S. H. Ervin Gallery, where an exhibition of work in 2012 brought new awareness to this female artist of the Australian Impressionist School.
Isobel Rae was known as “Iso”, her nickname a somewhat relevant and familiar word to us today, as was her likely experience of isolation. At the outbreak of World War I, Iso Rae remained in Etaples, France with her mother and sister, whilst most foreigners moved away from the former peaceful fishing village, which had been home to a thriving expatriate artistic community.
Iso and her sister Alison worked for the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) with the British Red Cross from 1915 – 1919. As an artist, Rae depicted the scenes around her, producing around 200 drawings, mostly pastels and gouache, depicting the daily life of the military camp at Etaples.
Her lively and sensitive drawings are now recognised as important historical and social documents, beyond their artistic merit. Although not officially appointed as a war artist, Iso Rae was one of two Australian women who documented the war for many years (the other being Jessie Traill who worked in a military hospital during World War I).
The camp at Etaples was a place where allied troops – French, British, Canadian, Scottish, New Zealand and Australian forces, gathered before being called up to fight; a training facility; supplies depot; a detention centre and home to thousands in tent cities and ordered hospitals. Iso Rae captured camp life in her drawings of soldiers; the barracks; the hospitals; the prisoners, both German and allied; their accommodation; the horses; their training and recreation (football, cinema, theatre).
Iso Rae was a skilled draughtsperson, her marks lively and capturing a spontaneity, yet balanced with thought-out and balanced compositions. This is a particularly fine drawing depicting a group of soldiers huddled around a brazier at night, embers blowing in the breeze and their individual uniforms bathed in an eerie glow. We have identified the figures as Scottish; the blue coat of the Hospital Blues worn by convalescents; Australian with the slouch hat and New Zelander with the ‘lemon squeezer’ hat. The peaked tents in the background provide an anchored backdrop giving a further intimacy to the group of figures.
There is an aura of quiet and calm, the relaxed poses and dangling cigarettes, but one laced with tension or perhaps boredom; the holding pattern of an unknown future the nature for many at Etaples. This is not a depiction of heroes of war, rather the gritty reality and the daily grind of behind the scenes. Rae’s use of coloured paper highlights the contrast between the army brown and the bright red and orange balanced against the blues and touch of green found in a hat band.
The drawing is accompanied by a letter of dedication from the matron at Etaples on behalf of the nurses and VAD to a Captain MacIlwaine.
Ethel Carrick Fox 1872 – 1952 Au Marche c.1908 oil on wood panel 27 x 35 cm
“The energy and liveliness of outdoor crowds occupied Ethel Carrick Fox throughout her career, and she was particularly fascinated by markets, parks and beaches. Perfect subjects for her swiftly wrought impressions, these turn-of-the-century public spaces were being transformed by modernity.” Angela Goddard, ‘Modernity in Motion: Ethel Carrick’s crowds’ in Art, Love & Life: Ethel Carrick & E. Phillips Fox, Queensland Art Gallery, 2011, p.79
Ethel Carrick Fox has been described as ‘colourful’ and ‘daring’, both in her art and her life. An inevitable comparison with her husband Emanuel Phillips Fox certainly bears this out, as she moved beyond an impressionist sensibility to the more colourful and linear style of post-impressionism, as would have been the flavour in Paris. Her paintings of daily life; flower studies and works inspired by travels, are imbued with vibrant colour, strong composition and a concern to explore light. Her inclusion in the Salon d’Automne (created in 1903 as a move away from the academic and bringing movements such as fauvism and cubism to greater notice) from 1906, further highlights her lifelong trend of not conforming to social expectations of the time; particularly focussing on her career.
Ethel Carrick Fox is best known for her vibrant paintings created en plein air, capturing the leisure class of Paris – the markets; parks; gardens and beaches of France. The rich dabs of pure bright colour and a focus on decorative rather than narrative elements, allow the strength of her understanding of colour and her considered compositions to shine through.
Carrick Fox established her successful career in Paris and London and in her regular visits to Australia, where she held exhibitions of her work and undertook painting excursions. A painting of a French flower market by Carrick Fox sold at auction in 1996 becoming the highest price achieved by an Australian woman artist; with more recent sales over one million dollars (in 2008 and 2019) overtaking this earlier precedent.
Charles Blackman OBE 1928 – 2018 Portrait of a Young Girl with a Bow in her Hair charcoal on paper on composition board. 50.8 x 38.4 cm Copyright the Estate of Charles Blackman
Charles Blackman is one of Australia’s most celebrated and significant figurative artists and was an exceptional draughtsperson. His use of pen and ink, charcoal and pencil – from quick sketches to large sized works on paper – was a constant throughout his life. His drawings bear evidence of the personal nature of his art, used to record ideas, capture daily life, and explore composition in an expressive manner. There is, of course, an immediacy to drawings, particularly black and white images with no distractions other than the dark line across a page.
The 1960s saw Blackman complete a number of strong graphic works, many depicting his family, particularly with the arrival of his son Auguste in 1957 and daughter, Christabel, in 1959. In 1960 Blackman was awarded the Helena Rubenstein prize and selected to exhibit in the Whitechapel Gallery in London, where the Blackman family moved before returning to Australia in 1967, when this drawing was completed.
Portrait of a Young Girl with a Bow in her Hairis a direct and sweet work, full of love and the innocence of childhood, with the child directly engaging the viewer. There is a calm and gentleness to the drawing, perhaps emphasized through the use of charcoal with its richness of texture and softer edge than pen or pencil. As McCulloch noted when the work was exhibited in 1994, “Interesting to contrast is 1967’s Young Girl with a Bow with 1984’s Beatrice Drawing on Herself – both drawings of his two daughters at the same age. The latter has a saccharine sweetness absent in the earlier, more direct but equally delicious work.” (Susan McCulloch, ‘The bush characters’, Herald Sun, Melbourne, 20 April 1994, p. 7)
Blackman is represented in the National Gallery of Australia and in all state galleries, as well as numerous regional and university galleries, in addition to private and corporate collections throughout Australia and internationally. He was awarded an OBE in 1997 and honoured with a survey exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, Schoolgirls and Angels, in 1993.
“There is something immensely exhilarating when tall white gums tower into the blue heavens – the subtle quality of the edges where they meet the sky – how mysterious.” Carrol, A., North, I., and Treganza, J., Hans Heysen Centenary Retrospective 1877 – 1977, Art Gallery Board of South Australia, 1977, p.12
This striking watercolour highlights the majesty of the Australian gum tree rising even beyond the picture plane and is typical of Heysen’s celebrated landscapes, many painted around his home in Hahndorf where his conservation efforts continue to be enjoyed at The Cedars today. Heysen had a passion for depicting such ancient trees, especially with a glow filtering through the branches, providing a contrast between light and shadow. The resting figure and quiet horses lend a calm atmosphere and give perspective to the heroic trees.
BESSIE ELLEN DAVIDSON 1879 – 1965 Still Life with Bowl of Fruit oil on cardboard 46 x 39.6 cm
The growing global interest in women artists is reflected in the increasing number of exhibitions highlighting their work. A number of artworks from our current exhibition of Innovative Australian Women are currently on loan to other exhibitions:
Joy Hester Remember Me at Heide Museum of Modern Art is showing until 4 October 2020 (check their website for updated viewing times). Further details and video tour of the exhibition with Curator Kendrah Morgan can be viewed here.
Bessie Davidson & Sally Smart – Two artists and the Parisian avant-garde at Bendigo Art Gallery which is showing until 26 July 2020. Australian artist Bessie Davidson forged a successful artistic career in France and is the great great aunt of contemporary visual artist Sally Smart who was profoundly influenced by Davidson, and who has created a new work in response to and to comment upon Davidson’s work and life.
Lauraine Diggins Fine Art is pleased to have assisted Bendigo Art Gallery with client loans of five Davidson artworks for this important and revealing exhibition, three of which are subsequently included in our current exhibition Innovative Australian Women. Bendigo Art Gallery has provided a walkthrough video of their exhibition which can be viewed here. The exhibition is also accompanied by an extensive catalogue which can be viewed here.
The Innovative Australian Women exhibition has been extended indefinitely due to Melbourne’s stage 3 health directions currently in place by the Victorian Government, allowing the Davidson works to physically re-join our Innovative Australian Women exhibition and awaiting a time for visitors once stage 3 directives in Melbourne are eased.
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Bessie Davidson is a name being heard more now in Australia, the country of her birth, although her reputation in her adopted home of France has always been greater. In fact, Davidson was appointed Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur for Art and Humanity by the French Government in 1931, the highest accolade the French government can bestow.
The exhibition at Bendigo brings together over 50 of Davidson’s still lifes, interiors, portraits and landscapes, characterised by a sense of intimacy and a beautiful use of light and tone, an increasingly daring use of colour and vigorous brushstrokes.
“A courageous and pioneering artist, Bessie Davidson left the comfort of her home and family in Adelaide to pursue an artistic career in Paris, making a name for herself as a painter of modern impressionist works, in the French style.”
Her legacy, besides her paintings of light-filled interiors, women at leisure and still lifes, is her impact as a female artist – her success in her lifetime and continued celebration of her career; the growing recognition of her leadership in supporting women artists, including through formal organisations, and the path she left for others to follow and her contribution to Australian art, perhaps only now being acknowledged.[i]
Adelaide-born and with a Scottish background, Davidson studied art under Rose McPherson (later Margaret Preston) and exhibited with the South Australian Society of Arts in 1901-03. She travelled to Europe with Preston in 1904 studying briefly in Munich, before moving to Paris where she attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. She exhibited at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français and at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris at the height of fauvism in 1905. She was a founding member of the Salon des Tuileries.
She returned to Adelaide towards the end of 1906 and held a joint exhibition with Preston in March 1907. The National Gallery of South Australia purchased Davidson’s Portrait of Miss G.R. (ceramicist, Gladys Reynell) in 1908. Davidson returned to Paris in 1910, establishing a studio in Montparnesse, with only brief visits home in 1914 and 1950. At the outbreak of the First World War, Davidson hastened back to Paris and volunteered for the French Red Cross working as a nurse. She was forced to flee Paris during the Second World War, living in Normady, but able to return to her studio in 1945, where she remained until her death, aged 85.
Davidson fits within the numerous international artists who made Paris their home, including a growing group of Australians, particularly women, such as Iso Rae; Edith Fry; Hilda Rix Nicholas; Marie Tuck; Alice Muskett; Bessie Gibson; Anne Alison Greene; Kathleen O’Connor; Dorrit Black; Grace Crowley; Anne Dangar.
As Tansy Curtin, curator of the Bendigo exhibition, notes, maintaining her artistic career in Paris and as a female artist depicting foreign landscapes, her friends and their domestic interiors, and still life subjects has meant Davidson has been sidelined from the Australian artistic narrative with its particular focus on the idiom of the Australian landscape.
Her continuing interest in light, atmosphere and colour and confident brushstrokes are evident in the paintings included in our Innovative Australian Women exhibition:
Still Life with Pears (the pears especially reminiscent of Cézanne) is a beautiful example of her thought-out composition, expressive brushstrokes, and harmonious use of colour. Like all still life subjects, stripped of any narrative, it is a painting about painting. “Visually rich in its handling of colour, texture, volume, composition and paint itself, its appeal to the senses extends to the scent of pears. … Still Life with Pears finds curve repeating curve, as all moves towards a painterly abstraction.” [ii]
Still Life with Bowl of Fruit makes clever use of horizontal and vertical lines to focus the viewer’s eye and the unusual perspective … “where the viewer is made to feel as though they are seated at the table, across from their companion and about to drink tea and eat fruit.” [iii]
Laundry Boat on the River Seinec.1914 Many artists flocked to the vibrant cosmopolitan Paris in the early twentieth century, including a number of Australian women artists attracted by the proximity to international modernism, the more accepted status of women artists and the perceived social freedoms. “Davidson saw herself as belonging to the ‘modern French impressionist school’, combining the colour and light of impressionism with the more robust painting techniques of post-impressionism, and to a degree cubism, to illustrate everyday life in Paris” – capturing the day-to-day of her surrounds, such as the Laundry Boat on the Seine. [iv]
Ruth Lovell Gallery Manger
Public Collections include: Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Fonds municipal d’art contemporain, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris Musée des Beaux-Arts de Beaune, Beaune Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, Rouen Musée d’Art et d’Industrie Andre Dillgent, Roubaix City of Edinburgh Council, Scotland City of Fife Council, Scotland
Exhibitions: Bessie Davidson, Osborne Art Gallery, Adelaide, 1967 Bessie Davidson: Une Australienne en France, 1880- 1965, Australian Embassy, Paris, 1999 Australian Impressionists in France, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2013 Bessie Davidson An Australian Impressionist in Paris, Bendigo Art Gallery, 2020
[i] Curtin, T. Bessie Davidson An Australian Impressionist in Paris, Bendigo Art Gallery, 2020, p. 14 [ii] Thomas, D. Collectors’ Exhibition 2017, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, p. 14 [iii] Curtin, T. Bessie Davidson An Australian Impressionist in Paris, Bendigo Art Gallery, 2020, p. 13 [iv] Curtin, T. Bessie Davidson An Australian Impressionist in Paris, Bendigo Art Gallery, 2020, p. 8
We are really excited that indigenous artist Genevieve Kemarr Loy has been selected as a finalist in this year’s Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, an annual prize that was launched in 2017 to advance art and opportunity for emerging and established female artists in Australia. It is the highest value professional artist prize for women in Australia.
The current global situation has meant a delay in the exhibition which is now scheduled to open 27 November, showing until 12 December at the Ravenswood School for Girls, Gordon, NSW. As their website mentions, although up to 70% of art school graduates are female, women artists make up less than half of represented artists in exhibitions and prizes around Australia, with State museums showing 34% of female artists amongst their collections. This is something many galleries are continuing to address. The Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize provides a platform to promote female visual artists, assisting in career development, providing opportunities for greater connections and inspiring current students.
Genevieve follows the tradition of her grandmother, Nancy Kunoth Petyarr and was taught to paint by her father, Cowboy Loy Pwerl, an indigenous elder in Utopia and custodian of the Bush Turkey Dreaming. On a superficial level Genevieve’s paintings often depict the tracks the Bush Turkey makes as it searches for seeds and other ‘tucker’ and makes its way to the waterhole. Genevieve’s complex and detailed paintings are characterised by a beautiful and careful handling of paint; a harmonious sense of colour; and great control of the delicate spidery marks that make their way across her canvas. Her meticulous lines can be difficult to read in a digital reproduction and are best understood and appreciated in person.
Read more about Genevieve on our site or view available works in the Stockroom. Please contact the Gallery for any further details. Lauraine Diggins Fine Art is currently open by appointment.
Genevieve Kemarr Loy Bush Turkey Tracks 2020 synthetic polymer on linen 150 x 121.5 cm
Congratulations to all involved in making the D’art movie, a rollicking ride resulting in a vintage Goggomobil Dart car painted in artist Robert Clinch’s signature paper darts. Filmmaker Karl von Möller is deservedly recognised with the work’s inclusion in the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival for 2020, opening 30 June. Enjoy watching from the comfort of your own home, as the Festival will be online this year, with possible screenings scheduled for December.
Things are already off to a great start with US site Documentary Drive exclaiming:
“From its opening sequence, “D’art” commands your attention with its zappy swing music and montage of fine artist Robert Clinch launching paper darts into the air as collector Jeff Brown puts on a fire retardant suit and whooshes down a racetrack.
You know their two worlds are about to meet. You don’t know how or why but you know it’s going to be a sensational adventure and you want to come along for the ride.
Directed by Karl von Möller, “D’art” raises the bar on what a film about art can be.”
We are delighted that the recent Queen’s Birthday honours saw Yvonne Audette awarded the AM (Member of the Order of Australia) for her significant services as one of Australia’s leading abstract artists.
Audette undertook early studies in Sydney at the Julian Ashton School with Henry Gibbons and then from 1951 with John Passmore, who was to inspire her with his grater emphasis on colour and building a composition through geometric building blocks, influenced by Cezanne. She furthered her academic learning at the East Sydney Technical School with Lyndon Dadswell, as well as drawing sessions with Godfrey Miller, his abstract focus entwined with a personal mysticism. On the completion of her studies, Audette travelled and, unlike the traditional European tour, she started in America, living in New York at a time when abstract expressionism was just coming to the fore through the work of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky and Mark Tobey, among others. In 1955, Audette travelled to Europe, settling in Italy where she remained for more than a decade, taking in the influence of European abstraction and developing her own unique language based on a wide variety of experiences, including encounters of contemporary art as well as diverse periods from both east and western art history through her extensive travels.
A dedicated artist, Audette actively sought to surround and expose herself to contemporary art sources, experiences and teachers in order to absorb and redefine her own unique oeuvre. Her creative output undergoes rigorous examination, with later work referring to and reenergised by earlier constructions. Her abstraction is complex, deliberate and carefully constructed, although there is an element of intuition, with the formal construct often based on capturing the essence of a sensation, season or place. Much of her drawing and painting relates to music, a natural fit being a synthesis of discipline and creativity. Yvonne continues to paint, draw and teach, inspiring students with her experience and enthusiasm.
The 2014 monograph about Audette’s work summarises her artistic development as a “peripatetic journey that began with an ambitious young student going between her distinctively different, somewhat misanthropic but always inspiring teachers. Then there was her shift from Sydney to New York, and the maturation of her work in Italy, a cultural environment beautifully encrusted by the past yet enlivened by modern panache. In mid-career she uprooted herself from all this to return to her city of birth, only to abandon it again for the high pocket of forest growth that became the private space that nurtured her later work.” (Heathcote & Bruce, 2014, p. 173)
Lauraine Diggins Fine Art is proud to include Yvonne’s artwork in our current exhibition of Innovative Australian Women and looks forward to showcasing an exhibition of her work planned for later this year.
MICHAEL McWILLIAMS 1956 – Knee Deep in the Willows 2003 synthetic polymer on composition board 120 x 240 cm
Knee Deep in the Willows depicts a Friesian cow stranded in the mud and includes a frustrated farmer, hands on hips, on the other side of the river, contemplating the next move. The scene is inspired by the artist’s wanderings amongst the willows near his home in northern Tasmania, either fishing or with his dogs, where he is often confronted with a Friesian cow strayed from nearby grazing paddocks. Humans are rare in McWilliams’ painting. However, recent works introduce a human dialogue into his usual animal inhabited world. A further treasure in this painting is a Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger hidden in the shadows, a subtle conservationist statement from the artist who is passionate about their ongoing existence despite human intervention in their environment.
McWilliams’ craft has evolved from smaller scale works, particularly painted wooden panels or painting on furniture, to larger scale canvases where the landscape is the focus. Much of McWilliams’ knowledge of antiques was acquired during his teenage years when he travelled with his father on buying trips around Tasmania for their antique shop in Longford. McWilliams explains “I started painting on furniture simply because I liked the old timber, and it was at hand. I enjoy painting things that are close to me: water, trees and mountains, and familiar local animals.”
In many of his works, it’s a fleeting moment in nature that he captures and preserves. The viewer curious to see what is inside is presented with a delightful surprise. The element of hidden surprise adds an extra dimension to McWilliams’ painting. Look carefully at the artworks as those who undertake the treasure hunt will be rewarded with a glimpse of a thylacine, a favoured motif of the artist. Like many, he is incredulous that human intervention could cause the extinction of this species and hopes that perhaps there are still a few Tasmanian Tigers out there, hiding in the shadows as they are in his paintings. McWilliams has been interested in the Thylacine since he was a child, McWilliams explains “I’ve drawn it since I was small, and have always tried to imagine what it would be like to see one and to consider different relationships we could have, like having one for a pet. I try to imagine them into my life.”
The added element of fun and humour is a familiar trait in Michael’s work although it does not detract from his environmental message which prompts the viewer to question the relationship between humans and animals, whether wild or domestic; the relationship between native and introduced species; and the relationship between humans and the environment and the impact this has made for native species in particular.
AWARDS 2016 Winner, Children’s Choice, John Glover Art Prize for Tasmanian Landscape 2015 Winner, People’s Choice, John Glover Art Prize for Tasmanian Landscape, Tasmania 2014 Winner, People’s Choice, Hanger’s Choice, John Glover Art Prize for Tasmanian Landscape 2013 Winner, Children’s Choice, John Glover Art Prize for Tasmanian Landscape, Tasmania 2012 Winner, People’s Choice, Bay of Fires Art Prize, St Helens, Tasmania 2011 John Glover Art Prize for Tasmanian Landscape, Tasmania, finalist 2010 Wynne Prize for Landscape, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Finalist 2010 John Glover Art Prize for Tasmanian Landscape, Tasmania, finalist 2008 Wynne Prize for Landscape, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Finalist 2008 The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, The South Australian Museum, Winner 2008 John Glover Art Prize for Tasmanian Landscape, Tasmania, Hon. Mention 2008 Fleurieu Biennale Art Prize, South Australia 2007 John Glover Art Prize for Tasmanian Landscape, Tasmania 2006 John Glover Art Prize for Tasmanian Landscape, Tasmania, Hon. Mention 2005 The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, The South Australian Museum, Winner 2004 John Glover Art Prize for Tasmanian Landscape, Tasmania, Winner 1996 Tasmanian Art Award, Eskleigh, Perth, Tasmania, Winner 1994 Trust Bank Open Art Award, Launceston, Tasmania, Winner
COLLECTIONS Queensland Art Gallery Danish Royal Family Tasmania Museum and Art Gallery Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Natural Trust of Australia (Tasmania) Parliament House, Canberra Devonport City Art Gallery The Glover Society Museum of South Australia Lauraine Diggins, Melbourne Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Tasmania
