Studying the Moderns - Australian artists in France and England 1890 - 1940
Andrea Hope, 2024
This page is still under construction
Evelyn Chapman, Girl in Red Hat, (detail) c1918
Introduction
"The Australian artist within the limits to which [they] usually confine themselves, reveals a sense of colour, an eye for affect, and an appreciation of the brightly beautiful that would of themselves redeem any work from being altogether commonplace. The reason why the greatest things are seldom attempted is to be found, partially at any rate, in the attitude of the Australian public. The local market for expensive and elaborate productions of an artistic kind is strictly limited. The man or woman who is confident of ability to produce the very finest work gravitates naturally to the arts centres of the old world. Everything invites [them] to try [their] fortune where rivalry is keenest, where instruction is of the best, where appreciative patrons are most numerous, where prizes are richest and most plentiful."
Western Australian, October, 1905
From the late 1800s many Australian artists travelled to Europe and England to study art – some for short periods and others settling there for most of their lives.
They were exposed to numerous traditional, contemporary and emerging artistic styles, and most chose their own way, not necessarily conforming to what they saw and experienced, but rather adapting composition, colours and techniques to the development of their own work. For example, artists like Tom Roberts returned from England in the mid 1880s with a nationalistic approach to painting light filled paintings outdoors, John Peter Russell influenced Henri Matisse with his use colour on the coast of France, and printmakers such as Dorrit Black returned to Australia, incorporating the modern styles of cubism and futurism into their teaching. They painted landscapes, seascapes, city and country life, figures, portraits and interiors. It was a time when Australian artists sought to find their own voice, without the restrictions they may have faced in submitting works to a conservative Australian audience.
Studying art in Australia in the late 1800s
In the late 1800s and early 1900s the key art schools in Australia were the National Gallery School in Victoria, the Julian Ashton School in Sydney, the Brisbane Technical College, South Australian School of Art and the Perth Technical College.
Generally training in these schools was traditional, naturalistic and representational, based on 19th Century conventions of academic training in Europe. However, there was a growing interest in painting 'en plein air' (outdoors) with the subject matter reflecting the developing interest in nationalism as Australia moved towards Federation.
H.P. Gill in the lecture room of the school of Design, Adelaide, 1905
National Gallery Art School, Melbourne. c.1901-1906. Jessie Traill (top right), Janet Cumbrae Stewart (top, fourth from right), Constance Jenkins (bottom right), Norah Gurdon, (bottom, second from right), Janet Cumbrae Stewart
Julian Ashton was one teacher who was a strong advocate of plein air painting. (He was to open his own school, Academy Julian, in Sydney – drawing on the Académie Julian in Paris where he’d studied briefly in 1874.)
However, Bernard Hall, who was the longest-serving director of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and the head of the Gallery Art School from 1892 until his death in 1935, wielded enormous influence over local taste-making and the building of national art collections (largely through the Felton bequest). Hall had been trained in Britain and then Germany, and was committed to the classical academic tradition and 'instituted an austere regime of painting' i. Nonetheless, he initiated a shift away from sentimental paintings towards decorative figure compositions and a sense of 'art for art’s sake', with a more textured and broader handling of paint, but he had no interest in supporting modernist painting techniques. His approach limited options for development for students at this major art school.
Hall's early students included Hugh Ramsay, George Bell, Max Meldrum, Violet Teague and Rose MacPherson (Margaret Preston), all of whom were to later travel overseas.
Overview - Art Styles in Australia 1890 - 1940
Post Impressionism,
1910 - 1940
1840 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940
Tonalism
1915 - 1950
Surrealism
1929 - 1945
Abstract Art 1940 -
Includes Expressionism
Colonialism
1790 -1880
Naturalism & Australian Impressionism
1880 - 1920
Federation & Edwardian art
1890 - 1910
Symbolism, Art Nouveau, Aestheticism
1885 - 1910
Tonalism
1915 - 1950
Exposure to British and European art in the late 1800s
Artists in Australia became increasingly aware of broader international developments art through several avenues which included: local artists travelling overseas; training by international teachers; exhibitions which included artwork by overseas artists; books, magazines and newspapers; and reproductions of artwork sent from overseas.
Artists such as Julian Ashton, Alfred Daplyn, Arthur Loureiro, Emma Minnie Boyd, Tom Roberts, Elizabeth Parsons, David Davies, John Longstaff, Emanuel Phillips Fox, and Tudor St. George Tucker all travelled overseas for short periods around 1880 - 90. Their destination was predominantly London and Cornwall and their focus had primarily been on Realism and Naturalism, which influenced Australian Impressionism and then Federation art in particular.
Florence Fuller, Weary, 1888
Tom Roberts, A Quiet Day on the Darebin Creek, 1885
Arthur Loureiro, The Forest at Fontainebleau, 1882
They brought back with them new approaches to painting which informed and educated a new generation of artists, but their experience predated Modernism.
The National Gallery Travelling Scholarship, which first awarded in 1887, was designed to enable the most talented students at the Gallery’s School to complete their art training abroad. The Scholarship was to be awarded 'to the best work exhibited by students at the National Gallery art classes' although in 1898 the terms of the award expanded to allow students from outside to be considered, although only under 'certain conditions'.
Although the terms of the award dictated that at least one original canvas and two Old Master copies from each recipient which would be added to the Melbourne collection, it did provide them with a stipend of £150 per year, for three years, to travel and study in the 'principal art centres of Europe'ii.
Although the terms of the award dictated that at least one original canvas and two Old Master copies from each recipient which would be added to the Melbourne collection, it did provide them with a stipend of £150 per year, for three years, to travel and study in the 'principal art centres of Europe'ii.
Numerous Immigrant teachers travelled to Australian throughout the 1800s. One such important teacher was Italian artist Girolamo Nerli. Nerli studied in Florence and was an advocate of painting outdoors. After travelling to Melbourne in 1885, and then later Sydney, he influenced Australian Impression with his free brushwork and often sketcherly approach. He later travelled to New Zealand where he taught Frances Hodgkins, who in turn was to teach Australian artists in Paris in the early 1900s.
Hodgkins also exhibited her modernist art in both Sydney and Melbourne, where her work was critically acclaimed.
French sisters Berthe Mouchette and Marie Lion came to Australia in 1881 and provided private classes in art in Melbourne and later Adelaide (with their students including Margaret Preston, who later taught Bessie Davidson in Adelaide, before they travelled together to Paris). The sisters had exhibited at the Paris Salon and were amongst the first teachers to enable women to study life drawing with nude models.
South African born Florence Fuller arrived in Perth in 1904, after working for some years in Europe and exhibiting at the Paris Salon and Royal Academy of London. She was to have a strong influence on artists such as Kathleen O’Connor, who was encouraged to travel overseas herself in 1906.
Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo conducted an art school in Sydney for some forty-three years from 1897, having arrived in Sydney from Italy the previous year. He quickly established himself and taught many of the leading Australian modernists, including Norah Simpson, Grace Cossington-Smith, Tempe Manning, Donald Friend, Alice Danciger, Mary Webb, Frank Hinder, James Cant and Gerald and Margo Lewers iii.
Several major exhibitions featuring overseas artists were held towards the end of the century, for example, The Anglo-Australian Society of Artists held exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide in 1880s and 1890s and the Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition from 1888-89.
In the Introduction to the first Anglo-Australian Society of Artists exhibition it was stated that;
"The Council of selection and invitation secured over 200 works from leading artists of the Royal Academy the Royal Society of painters in water colours, the Royal Institute of painters in watercolours, the Royal Society of British artists, the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Hibernian Academy, and the new English Arts Club."
Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition 1888-9
However, unsurprisingly, the exhibitions prior to the 1900s contained many traditional artworks, including portraits, landscapes and seascapes.
Publications from overseas, and then from within Australia, were an important part of art education.
The English art journal The Studio was a useful source of information for Australian artists from the late 1890s. The magazine included articles on art and exhibitions in England, as well as in France, and numerous colour and black and white prints. Occasionally it featured information about Australian artists working in England, such as George Lambert. In 1903, it provided advice on the best ateliers (studios) in Paris for women to receive training in art.
Connoisseur was another popular magazine and the British Australasian and The London Times would have also been read widely. these publications also included articles and information about artists and exhibitions.
From about 1910, a number of publications about modern art began to become available to an Australian audience. For example, in London Roger Fry published articles in Vision and Design (1920) and produced eight books from the mid 1920s, notably Transformations (1927) and Cézanne (1928). The treatise Du Cubisme by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger had been translated into English in 1913.
Gleizes was later to teach Grace Cowley, Dorrit Black and Anne Dangar in Paris. Andre Lohte, who was also sought out as a teacher by many Australian students, produced a number of articles which were translated into English.
The Australian magazine Art in Australia was published several times per year between 1916 and 1942 and included articles about local and overseas artists and events. It also included numerous colour and black and white reproductions. Artist Roland Wakelin wrote several articles, including one titled The Modern Art Movement in Australia, in 1928. He wrote:
"It was about the year 1913 that the first glimmerings of what is now called "modern art” came to us in Sydney—I remember seeing in a Sunday paper a cubist "Nude Descending a Staircase.” It was puzzling, but I wanted to know more about these pictures. The names of Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh were then unknown here. We art students knew a little of the French Impressionists, Manet, Monet, Degas and Rodin, but more of the English Impressionism of Whistler."
(Duchamp had seen photographs by Eadweard Muybridge, which influenced this early Futurist artwork.)
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, 1912
Eadweard Muybridge, Man descending stairs, from Animal Locomotion, 1887
Wakelin's comments reflect the general level of understanding by the Australian population about developments art in Europe in the early 20th Century.
It wasn’t until about the mid 1920s that Modern art in Australia by Australians began to be shown, with The Sock Knitter, by Grace Cossington Smith in around 1915, being the first generally acknowledged modernist work.
Grace Cossington Smith, The Sock Knitter, c1915
An artist’s life overseas
How did Australian artists make the most of the opportunities overseas?
While some artists made the journey on their own, other chose to be with family or friends – there are many instances of artists sharing the same accommodation and travelling together. As had been common for centuries, they copied works in art museums.
Many travelled through several countries to visit museums which held work by artists they admired, or just to observe the different light and lifestyles, and some joined artist colonies or summer schools. They mixed socially with local and international (and other expatriate) artists, often living in close proximity to cultural hubs, such as Montmartre and Montparnasse in Paris and Chelsea in London.
Aside from taking formal lessons at academies and schools, artists worked closely with private teachers, respected artists and friends at a range of ateliers (studios). They joined art societies and clubs and exhibited with local artists. Artists also applied to exhibit with formal and established galleries and Salons, and developed relationships with local art dealers.
Many artists won prestigious awards, both in England and France. Australian artists developed and explored new styles of art - not only painting, but also printmaking, sculpture, pottery, fabric and costume and set design. While some remained relatively true to traditional styles or Impressionism, others embraced modernism, from Cubism through to Abstract art.
Regardless of what directions they took, all the artists who spent any time overseas would have been influenced to some degree by what they saw and who they met. In particular a greater use of colour and design can be seen reflected in works from this period.
However, there was a large cohort of Australian painters, including Tom Roberts and Hans Heysen, who, particularly up until well after the end of World War I, remained largely focused on portraying Australia’s post Federation national identity through nostalgic paintings of rural homesteads, gum trees and intimate views of the middle class enjoying afternoon tea on the verandah. “The favoured view was of homestead paddocks with milking cows casting long shadows in early morning or twilight, as they grazed in cool temperate pasture”iv
While some remained overseas for most of their lives, others returned to Australia to progress their careers, and influence a new generation of artists.
While overseas during the period from 1890 to 1940, Australians were exposed to significant change affecting France and the UK – two world wars, the depression of the late 1920s and early 30s, vast modernisation of very day life (motor cars, electricity etc), the ‘roaring twenties’ and increasing interest in women’s rights, including the suffragette movement in England. These changes were to influence artists’ decisions about their involvement in these significant events, and whether they chose to remain or return to Australia.
The development of Modern art in France and the UK
Art Styles in France 1890 - 1940
1840 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940
Expressionism
1905 - 1914
Surrealism
1924 - 1945
Fauvism
1904 - 1908
Abstract Art 1910 -
Includes Constructivism, Suprematism, De Stijl, Dada
Romanticism
1780 -1840
Impressionism
1870 -1890
Symbolism
1880 - 1920
Realism
1830 - 1880
Post Impressionism
1885 - 1910
Cubism
1908 - 1922
School of Paris
1900 - 1940
The Bauhaus
1920 - 1935
Impressionism, with its focus on light and capturing momentary effects, had been the emerging style attracting artists in France from the early 1870s. Post Impressionism, which is largely identified with the work of Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Seurat and Paul Gauguin, saw experimentation in composition and colour, with Cezanne and Seurat in particular being interested in science and its application to how our eyes perceive images. Both Impression and Post Impressionism, which in a large part led to Modernism, persisted as important influences well in the 1900s.
Since the late 1800s art styles had been changing dramatically in Europe. Artists were experimenting with Symbolism, Expressionism, Fauvism and Cubism - all Modernist forms of art. From the early 1910s there was a move towards Abstraction. The opening up of new avenues for exhibiting work from the second half of the 19th Century meant that artists no longer needed to rely on the academic Paris Salon to show their works, so felt freer to explore new techniques and subject matter.
Jeanne Jacquemin, Daydream, 1894
Ernst Kirchner, Potsdamer Platz, 1914
Henri Matisse, Open Window, Collioure, 1905
Albert Gleizes, Man on a Balcony, 1912.
Sonia Delauney, Rhythm, 1938
France and Modernism
Paris around the turn on the century saw the construction of the Eiffel Tower, the Paris Métro, and the completion of the Paris Opera. Three lavish "universal expositions" in 1878, 1889, and 1900 brought millions of visitors to Paris to see the latest innovations in commerce, art, and technology.
The city was a thriving centre of artistic activity that provided unparalleled conditions for the exchange of creative ideas during the first half of the 20th Century. Writers, philosophers and artists flocked to the neighbourhoods of Montmartre and later Montparnasse.
Montparnasse, c1900
Paris was at the cutting edge of Modernism up until the second world war, with artists travelling from other European and overseas countries to form what became loosely known as the École de Paris - or the School of Paris.
Artists working in Paris around 1900 included (to name just a few) Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Mary Cassatt, Georges Seurat, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gaugin, Henri de Toulouse - Latrec, Paul Signac, Susan Valadon, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy, Émilie Charmy, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Sonia Delauney, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Marie Laurencin, Marie Vorobieff, Pierre Bonnard, Marc Chagall, Romaine Brooks and Amedeo Modigliani, James McNeil Whistler and John Singer Sargent. These artists, in particular, were keen to develop new ways of looking at, and presenting, the world.
However, not all artists and art institutions saw themselves as part of the avant- garde. In both France and England academic conservatism continued to attract a large body of artists focused on traditional subjects and techniques.
Pablo Picasso, Woman in White, 1923
After World War I, there was also a revival of classical artistic techniques and subject matter (known as Return to Order). Many artists, some of whom had previously worked in avant-garde styles, sought to return to painting representational figures and calm, balanced compositions. For example, Pablo Picasso, who had been a leading figure in Cubism, began to paint large neo-classical works such Woman in White, 1923.
Art Styles in England 1890 - 1940
Whistler, Sargent
New English Art Club
Post Impressionism
1910- 1940
1840 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940
Surrealism
1930 - 1945
Abstract Art 1910 -
Bloomsbury Group
1910 - 1940
Symbolism &
Art Nouveau
1860 -1900
Realism
1870 - 1940
Corwall Schools
1870- 1940
Aesthetic
Movement
Fauvism & Cubism
1910 - 1940
British Impressionism
1880 -1910
Vorticism & Futurism
1910 - 1930
Grosvernor School
1926 - 1930
British Surrealist Group
1936 - 1950
Camden Town Group
1911 - 1913
England and Modernism
Despite their close proximity, artistic developments in France and England had differed through the 1800s and into the early 1900s.
British art had been fairly isolated from the radical developments that had been taking place in Paris, perhaps due in part to the political upheaval, and therefore relative isolation, of France, although Impressionists artists such as Monet, Pissarro and Sisley took refuge in England as a result the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the fall of the Second Empire and the Paris Commune. However, in the 1870s French Impressionism was still in its infancy.
The turn of the century was a time of cultural change in England, following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. For a short period up until World War One (WWI), known as the Edwardian age, there was a relaxing of the strict repression of Victorian society. King Edward VII created an atmosphere enabling greater social change and modern art, without the restrictions of moralistic approaches, to expand and flourish.
During the first two decades of the 20th century of a number of new groups, or movements, were created. They were often short-lived, generally for no more than two or three years. Artists were often associated with one or more such associations simultaneously. Some published dynamic manifestos, others simply assembled as exhibition groups.
One group, the Camden Town group, which was founded in 1911, would create truly avant-garde movements such as Vorticism in 1914.
Although at the time of the Group’s founding, British art was fairly isolated from the radical developments such as Cubism that had taken place in Paris, members had a shared interest in common urban subjects, the streets and people of London, everyday scenes, sometimes mundane, sometimes extraordinary.
David Bomberg, Figure Study (Racehorse), c 1914
Robert Upstone, curator of Modern British Art at the Tate wrote;
“With their pulsating colour harmonies and urban subject matter, the Group were consciously identified as modern but they occupied a comfortable — and perhaps quintessentially British — middle ground between tradition and the truly avant-garde” v.
England didn't generally begin to embrace Modernism until British art critic Roger Fry (together with art critic Clive Bell) organised the first Post-Impressionist exhibition at London’s Grafton Galleries in 1910.
The exhibition was officially titled Manet and the Post-Impressionists. It featured Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent Van Gogh as well as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, André Derain, Georges Seurat and Maurice de Vlaminck. It was a major commercial success, attracting over 25,000 visitors over the two months it was on display. (The term Post Impressionism was coined by Fry and later became generally accepted.)
Australian artist Thea Proctor, who had moved to London in 1903, stated;
"We had the Post-Impressionists’ exhibition ... another thrilling experience ...it was rather a shock, because I had been trained to draw the figure realistically,and of course, with the Gauguins, the form was very simplified ...But the colour was thrilling".vi
Both Proctor and fellow Australian artist George Lambert were persuaded by Fry’s view that formal design was more important than naturalistic representation in art. Lambert also became convinced that artists should adopt an ‘almost cubic construction’ and ‘reduce nature’s complicated design to a definite form’vii .
This approach also influenced George Bell’s modernist teaching principles in his art school in Melbourne during the 1930s and 40s. Bell had also been in London in 1910 at the time of Fry’s exhibition.
Another feature of Fry’s principles relating to art was that it should be ‘decorative’, which although not clearly defined, related to the aesthetics of art and ideas of a formalist approach to composition.
Roger Fry, Still life- jug and eggs, 1911
Margaret Preston, Native flowers, c 1927
One Australian artist who responded to this approach was Margaret Preston (Rose McPherson), who had initially travelled to Europe in 1904 with Bessie Davidson, studying for three years in Munich and Paris.
Fry held a second Post Impressionist exhibition in 1912, together with other members of the Bloomsbury group - a circle of artists, writers and intellectuals in the first half of the 20th century, originating in the Bloomsbury home of Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell. The Bloomsbury artists were strongly influenced by and responsive to the European movements of their day, especially Post-Impressionism, Cubism, as well as artworks from Africa and Asia. Their previously conservative artistic styles changed dramatically after they viewed works by Picasso, Matisse, and Cézanne during a 1909 visit to Paris.
According to the Tate Gallery, the 1912 exhibition is still the most comprehensive survey of post-impressionist art that has been displayed in England viii. For many young British artists this was their first encounter with post-impressionism, and led to them experimenting with colour and abstraction.
Key British artists in the early 20th Century included Augustus John, Walter Sickert, Paul Nash, Frank Brangwyn, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Stanley Spencer, Tristram Hillier, Gwen John, Spencer Gore, William Orpen, Walter Sickert, Graham Sutherland, Edward Burra, Glyn Philpot, Stanhope Forbes, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Claude Flight, Edward Burra, Dod Procter, Percy Wyndham Lewis, and Laura Knight, Frederick Brown, Christopher Wood, Wilson Steer and Henry Tonks.
Life and Study in England
Doora Meeson, Members of the Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps: At Work in the Cookhouse, Royal Air Force Camp, Charlton Park, 1919
Perhaps the most popular area for Australians living in London was Chelsea, which like St John’s Wood and Bloomsbury, was known for its creative and somewhat bohemian lifestyle, and its proximity to artistic and educational institutions, such as the Royal College of Art. Artists were also attracted to Chelsea because of its history, site on the Thames, and its reputation as an artist’s and writer’s community ix.
Artists Dora Meeson and her husband George Coates established themselves in Chelsea in 1906. They became members of an extensive circle of Australian expatriate artists and the couple provided strong support for fellow Australian artists, with their studios being venues for social and political functions. Their circle included Tom Roberts, George Lambert, Fred Leist, Bess Norris, Ruby Lindsay and Will Dyson. Meeson was a suffragette, and as women were excluded from the Chelsea Club and other male only networks, she went to great lengths to make welcome and support women artists, developing her own extensive networks, and championed the rights of women to be included in artistic activities.
Other Australian artists living in Chelsea included Thea Proctor, Marion Jones and sculptor Margaret Baskerville. Baskerville described Chelsea as “the great students’ district, corresponding to the Latin Quarter of Paris”x.
London c 1900
Dora Meeson, On a Chelsea Balcony, 1912
Academies and Schools
Not surprisingly, because of its ties with colonial Australia, England was often the first choice for artists travelling overseas around the turn of the century.
London offered formal study at the very traditional and academic Royal Academy, which was founded in 1768, and the Slade School, which opened in the 1870s.
The establishment of the Royal Academy was in part due to events in Europe. British artists had sought inspiration by travelling to European museums to view the masters first hand, but during the French Revolution, and the Revolutionary wars in the late 19th century, British artists were unable to travel to Europe. Until the late 1800s, almost every important artist in Britain was associated with Royal Academy, either as an elected member, or by displaying work at its annual exhibitions.
Australian artists such as Nicholas Chevalier, Tom Roberts, John Longstaff, Rupert Bunny, Arthur Streeton, E Phillips Fox, Margaret Preston, Agnes Goodsir, Jessie Traill and William Dobell were educated, and/or exhibited and subsequently gained reputation through the RAxi . George Lambert become an Associate of the Royal Academy.
Arriving in London in 1919, sculptor Daphne Mayo attended the Royal College of Art briefly and worked as an assistant to the sculptor John Angel, before entering the Sculpture School of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1920. She was awarded Royal Academy of Arts medal (gold) in 1923.
However, by the early 20th century, as the art world was adapting to new movements, the Royal Academy was ceasing to be at the centre of British art, although for many, the Royal Academy's annual summer exhibition remained an important event.
Writing to Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton describes the Royal Academy as having, “an inartistic atmosphere” and claims he “hasn’t the least desire to go again”xii .
Arthur Streeton, Corfe Castle, 1909
Agnes Goodsir, Girl on a Couch, c 1915
The Slade offered female students an education on equal terms as men, making it attractive to Australian artists, although the fees made study there prohibitive, with many artists choosing to attend classes in France instead. A number of British artists studied there before training in Paris (where it was not only much cheaper but also generally less academic).
Tasmanian born Derwent Lees (1885-1931) left Melbourne to enrol in the Slade in 1905 under Frederick Brown and Henry Tonks, where he was soon regarded as the outstanding student of the time. 15 of Lee‘s 19 drawings won prizes there in 1907, and in 1908 he received First Prize in Life Drawing. He was immediately appointed to the staff as drawing master and remained at the Slade until 1918, during which time he taught a generation of English modernists including Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell and Paul Nash. Lees was considered a progressive teacher and was held in high regard. He exhibited with the New English Art Club from 1911 to 1917 and Vanessa Bell‘s Friday Club from 1911 to 1916, where his work was hung beside many of his former studentsxiii .
Lees travelled widely in Europe during this time and his paintings of landscapes and figures were made using pure strong colours.
Unfortunately, in 1918 Lees was committed to an asylum in Surrey, suffering from schizophrenia and he remained there until his death in 1931.
The techniques and colours in some of his landscapes are evoked in the paintings of Elioth Gruner after his travel through Europe from 1923. Although Gruner responded to the works of Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne that he had seen in London and Paris, his use of colour and technique are similar to many of Lee’s works. Gruner made a living from sales and commissions while overseas, which included time spent walking and painting in France and Italy, with trips to Paris, Rome, Naples and Capri and an extended stay in St Tropez in 1924xiv .
English born Ethel Carrick, who later married Phillips Fox, studied at the Slade in the early 1900s.
Dora Meeson was one Australian artist who studied at the Slade (from 1892-93) and had her work exhibited at the Royal Academy. She also studied at the Académie Julian in Paris and had her work exhibited at the Paris Salon. Meeson worked as a policewoman on night-duty in an ammunition factory during the war and painted a number of war-related subjects.
She later became a noted maritime painter. In 1919 she became the first Australian woman member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. She was also a founding member of the Society of Mural Decorators and Painters in Tempera.
Meeson’s style was initially influenced by Impressionism. She readily admitted her enthusiasm for Monet's 'brilliant light and colour' and wrote: “Neither did he (George Coates) understand my struggle to express light and colour, but always wanted me to lower my work in tone, whereas I would urge him to lighten his. But we went our separate ways quite harmoniously. The crampedness of painting and living in a studio drove me out to study the river and the multitudinous forms of water, and to try to give it weight and movement and glorious, ever-changing colour, while George concentrated more and more on figure painting" xv.
She lived not far from Whistler's home in London and her Thames views show his influence. She deliberately painted scenes of labour on the Thames embankments, and scenes of shipping on the river itself. Meeson insisted on going out on a boat on dangerously stormy days and painting during dangerous wind storms.
Some of her paintings show the impasto (thick painting) and rich colours of the Post Impressionists, demonstrating how Meeson experimented and developed her style during her career.
George Coates had travelled to Europe in 1897 on a National Gallery Travelling Scholarship. Initially he studied in Paris at the Académie Julian, where Meeson was a fellow student. In 1900, Coates moved to England where he became known principally as a portrait painter, as well as a war artist. Essentially, he remained faithful to his representative approach.
George Coates, A Russian Lady, c1920
George Coates, Australian official war artists, 1916–1918
standing l-r: John Longstaff, Charles Bryant, George Lambert, A. Henry Fullwood, James Quinn, Septimus Power, Arthur Streeton, seated back l-r: Will Dyson, Fred Leist, front: George Bell.
The Grosvenor School of Art, which opened in London in 1925, is an important part of Australian art history, as it offered printmaking classes in linoblock, linocut, lithography and etching, as well as tuition in life drawing, painting and composition. As the school had no entrance exams or fixed terms, students could attend for any period of time.
According to its prospectus, the school aimed to 'encourage students to express their own individual ideas rather than be forced to accept worn-out academic theories'
A key teacher at the school was Claude Flight, who had been influenced by Italian Futurist writer Marinettini. Marinettini had stated in his Futurist manifesto that ‘the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed xvii’. The early 1900s was a period when there were major advances in modes of travel, including motor cars and aeroplanes, as well as the speed of travel.
Natalia Goncharova,(Russian Futurist) Cyclist, 1913
Claude Flight, Brooklands, c. 1929
Particularly under Flight's tuition, a number of Australian artists such as Dorrit Black, Ethel Spowers and Eveline Symes perfected the art of linocuts, often adopting a Futurist style, including the avant-garde art movements of British Vorticism, Italian Futurism and Art Deco. They combined abstraction and dynamism with geometric elements to create the sense of rapid movement. These three artists went on to become leading printmakers in Australia from the 1930s.
Dorrit Black had attended Julian Ashton's Sydney Art School in 1915 where she adopted oils as her main medium, and soon showed the influences of both Ashton and Elioth Gruner. During the 1920s she was increasingly focused on 'modernising' her practice and in 1927 travelled to Europe in order to acquire "a definite understanding of the aims and methods of the modern movement and in particular - the cubists "xviii. Initially staying in London, she spent three months studying with Flight before moving to Paris.
Dorrit Black, The Pot Plant, 1934
Eveline Syme, who had been studying at art schools in Paris in the early 1920s, had discovered Claude Flight's textbook, Lino-Cuts (London, 1927), in Melbourne in 1928. This inspired her to enrol in his classes at the Grosvenor School in 1929, together with her friend, Ethel Spowers xix . She wrote;
“Here was something new and different, linocut no longer regarded as a base form of woodcut, but evolved into a distinct branch of 20th century art. I had seen nothing more vital and essentially "modern" in the best sense of the word than the reproductions in this book ... Soon after my arrival in England I became one of the pupils at the Grosvenor school ”xx.
In 1932 Syme wrote that ‘One can learn all the intricacies of any form of art at the Grosvenor School of modern art’xxi
Eveline Syme, San Domenico, Siena. 1931
After returning to Melbourne later in 1929 with an exhibition of contemporary wood-engravings from the Redfern Gallery, London, Syme became a cautious advocate of modern art.
The founder of the Grosvenor school was Iain Macnab, a progressive teacher who offered books of tickets for his classes. He focused on compositions, colour schemes and way of treating and symbolising forms. Macnab’s aim was;
‘Not so much to train students to paint what they saw as to teach them to isolate from nature the elements that are truly pictorial, and then to develop their own personalities. His ambition was to first make artists’xxii . He shared Flight’s focus on vitality and was also interested in ‘looking for repetition of lines and patterns and stressing them’ xxiii.
Other Australian students who studied with Macnab in the 1930s included Peter Purves Smith, George Bell and Nutter Buzacott.
From 1938 to 1940 Purves Smith painted in Paris and London, joining the British Army in 1940. Inspired by contemporary French painting his owed much to the organic imagery of the Surrealists, having viewed the International Surrealist Exhibition in London mid 1936. (He was also influenced by English artists Christopher Wood and Paul Nash, and French artists Amedeo Modigliani, Rousseau and Maurice Utrillo.
Back in Australia, he later studied with George Bell in Melbourne, together with his friend, artist William Drysdale. Unfortunately, Purves Smith died from complications from major lung surgery in 1948 in Melbourne, although he influenced many of his contemporaries with his modernist style during his short artistic career.
Peter Purves Smith, Burke and Wills, The Perish, 1937
Peter Purves Smith, Nude, 1937
The London School of Art was known as ‘Brangwyn’s’ after one of its founders, Frank Brangwyn. The School was soon regarded as a success, prompting The Studio to report in 1906 that it ‘had already made for itself a position amongst the leading institutions of its kind in London’ and two years later it had developed a reputation that extended beyond England and Europe, with a London correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald reporting in 1908 that the School provided ‘the best tuition to be had in this part of the world’xxiv .
Brangwyn was a Welsh artist, painter, printmaker, illustrator and designer who worked across a broad range of artistic fields. He had been influenced by European Realists, the Arts and Crafts movement, Whistler and the Pre-Raphaelites and later Symbolism and Art Nouveau xxv .
He had worked for William Morris from 1882 to 1884, where he learnt the principles of design and decorative arts and at the age of just 17, Brangwyn exhibited his first painting at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, later becoming a full member.
During WWI, Brangwyn produced official war posters and made prints to raise money for the war effort, also serving as the President of the Royal Society of British Artists.
Kathleen O’Connor was one Australian student who studied with Brangwyn.
She recalled “He usually took up the brush & made an illustration to show his way of doing things. One girl I remember was trying to paint white tulips in water colours & he said don’t bother about the lights, just paint the shadows, in the shapes and low and behold the flower was there”xxvi .
Kathleen O'Connor, Still Life, Paris, Study in whites, 1936
Printmaker Jessie Traill was strongly influenced by Brangwyn. She studied at the school for several years from 1907, during which time she dramatically changed in her approach. Brangwyn worked with Traill directly in the production of her early plates, guiding her through the development and printing of individual printsxxvii. He taught her the formal principles and technical methods that underpinned his decorative concept of printmaking.
Jessie Traill, The roadside, Flanders, 1907
etching on zinc24.8 x 19.9 cm Inscr. lwr left ‘F. B. Printed by Brangwen, J. Traill’s plate’
Inspired by Whistler’s etchings of Venetian façades and boat yard interiors, The Charing Cross Bridge, London etching shows Traill’s interest in fusing the lessons of Brangwyn with her regard for Whistler.
She interrupted her career to work as a voluntary nurse in France during WWI, later raising funds for and revisiting war-torn Europe.
When she returned to Australia Traill's prints displayed complex arrangements of light and shade as well as aggressive mark making. These characteristics led to a tonal aesthetic and created a ‘pleasing decorative rhythm ’xxviii in her work. In addition to being one of the most important printmakers in Australia in the 20th century, Traill helped popularise the medium. She mentored the next generation of artists in printmaking. including Arthur Boyd, Fred Williams and Franz Kempf.
In 1910, the London School of Art was amalgamated with the New Art School in Logan Place, run by poster artist John Hassall, where it reopened as the London and New Art Schoolxxix .
St John’s Wood Art School (subsequently the Anglo-French Art Centre) established the pattern of inviting famed artists of the day to criticise the students’ work in a relaxed atmosphere, and to present prizes.
Thea Proctor studied there briefly in 1903, before taking private lessons with Australian artist George Lambert, who would become a close friend and mentor.
George lambert, Miss Thea Proctor, 1903
While in London, Proctor’s artistic circle included William Orpen, Augustus John, Wilson Steer and expatriate Australians Charles Conder, Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts xxx . She was as equally absorbed by the sleek figures of contemporary fashion (such as those featured in the pages of the newly launched Vogue magazine) as she was by the silken-mysterious beings in Conder’s fan compositions xxxi.
After living in London for 18 years, Proctor returned to Sydney in 1921 and taught at Julian Ashton’s art school.
Charles Conder, The New Moon Fan, 1896
Norah Simpson studied at the Westminster School of Art with Walter Sickert in 1912.
With ties to painters such as James McNeill Whistler and Edgar Degas, Sickert strengthened the artistic connections between Britain and France. Unlike the majority of the Camden Town Group, Sickert gained a reputation as one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century British art.
In 1883, he had travelled to Paris and met Edgar Degas, whose use of pictorial space and emphasis on drawing would have a powerful effect on Sickert's work. Degas encouraged Sickert to tackle a wide range of subject matter, portraying urban scenes in Paris and Dieppe, including forms of entertainment such as music-halls and the circus. From here he developed his personal version of Impressionism.
Edgar Degas, Four Dancers, c1899
Walter Sickert, Wellington House Academy, 1914
Walter Sickert and Edgar Degas
Working with Sickert, Norah Simpson gained an insight Into French impressionist theories and practises. This was followed by a visit to Paris, where she closely studied Impressionist paintings, and through introductions to dealers and collectors, viewed works by Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso.
Simpson left for Australia in 1913 but by 1915 she had returned to London, before moving to Glasgow in 1919 and on to France in 1920.
When the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts first opened in 1898 Camberwell under the, it offered day and evening instruction across a wide range of subjects from Architecture, Furniture Design, Life Drawing and Stained Glass Work to Dressmaking, Pottery and Typography.
Margaret Preston had returned to London in 1912 with Gladys Reynell, where she saw the second post-Impressionist exhibition organised by Fry in 1912.
Preston and Reynell lived in Paris and Brittany in 1913-14, where Preston furthered an interest in Japanese printing processes and principles of design, and responded to the work of Cezanne. It was during this time that Preston recognised ‘a picture that is meant to fill a certain space should decorate that space ’xxxii.
Returning to London at the outbreak of war, Preston exhibited at the Royal Academy, the New English Art Club and the Society of Women Artists. In 1916, she enrolled at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts as a student of pottery, at the same time developing her interest in fabric printing and dyeing, basket weaving and printmaking, for which she was to become best known in her career after returning to Sydney in 1919.
Gladys Reynell, Teapot, 1922
Margaret Preston, Beaker, 1917
Artists’ Clubs
Artists’ clubs functioned as a meeting space for artists to engage in a stimulating artistic environment and gain introductions to leading figures in the art world. The club environment in London had a significant impact on male Australian artists as it offered opportunities for them to become integrated into the English art world, to become known and to establish reputations.
The New English Art Club (NEAC) which had been founded in 1885 by artists such as Whistler (who quickly left the group), John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert and Stanhope Forbes. Initially it had been known for exhibiting new and innovative British art, with its first exhibition in 1886 including en plein air works by artists who had been studying in Paris, but by 1910 it had become a more conservative body. By 1913 the Times could describe the NEAC as ‘one of the strongest conservative forces in the country"xxxiii .
The London Savage Club attracted many Australian expatriates. It had been formed in 1857 and members were drawn from fields of art, literature, law, music, science, and drama. (In 1894 the Melbourne Savage Club, which modelled on the London Savage Club, opened.)
In 1890 a group of artists formed the Chelsea Art Club. Key members included Whistler, William Orpen, Augustus John, and Sargent. Numerous Australian artists, such as Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts joined the Chelsea Arts Club. Other Australians included, John Longstaff, James Quinn, George Coates, and Will Dyson, along with Sydney artists Henry Fullwood, George Lambert, and Will Ashton. The Chelsea Arts Club served as a venue for artists to entertain and host visitors from “home”. In late 1902, Streeton wrote:
“I belong to the Chelsea Arts Club now, & meet the artists – MacKennel says it’s about the most artistic club (speaking in the real sense) in England. … They all seem to be here – McKennal, Longstaff, Mahony, Fullwood, Norman, Minns, Fox, Plataganet, Tudor St. George Tucker, Quinn, Coates, Bunny, Alston, K, Sonny Pole, other minor lights and your old friend and admirer Smike – within 100 yards of here – there must be 30 different studios ”xxxiv.
Arthur Streeton, Frosty Noon, 1901
Tom Roberts, Thames Barges, c1909
John Longstaff, Untitled (Coastal View & Cliffside)
James Quinn, Wimbledon Park
George Coates, Will Dyson, c 1917
Will Dyson, Going over the old ground with B..., Pozieres, 1917
Henry A Fullwood, Whistler's House, the Vale, Chelsea
George Lambert, Portrait group (The mother), 1907
Will Ashton, Barges on the River
Although he had a strong reputation in Australia, Arthur Streeton didn’t initially have the same luck in England and he made his money by selling his paintings at home. However, in 1909 he travelled to Venice, producing many works of art, and later began to exhibit regularly in London and Paris. He was elected as a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 1910.
Tom Roberts had been contracted to paint the 'Opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia by H.R.H. The Duke of Cornwall and York, May 9, 1901' in 1901 and for the next two years he continued working on the ‘Big Picture’, before leaving Melbourne to return to London to finalise a number of portraits needed to complete it. Unfortunately, the two year detailed commission seemed to have drained him of much of his inspiration and energy, and with the onset of eye trouble, he entered what has been described as his 'black period'.
Encouraged by Streeton, Roberts became particularly active in London’s Australian expatriate artistic community and later became Vice-President of the Chelsea Arts Club. His work 'A Norfolk Barn', 1909, was exhibited at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, London, and in 1910, two of his works were exhibited at the Royal Academy, to which he had gained membership several years earlier.
Tom Roberts, A Norfolk Barn, 1909
However, Robert’s style did not evolve in the same way as it had from his earlier trip to England in the 1880s. With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, he enlisted with Streeton and other artist colleagues from the Club, becoming an orderly at the 3rd London General Hospital in Wandsworth. However, unlike Streeton, he didn’t become a war artist.
With women excluded (or having limited rights) from most clubs, from the late 1800s a number of women only clubs were formed. Australian women were drawn to the Ladies’ Empire, Imperial, Austral and the Lyceum Club.
The Lyceum Club for women opened in Piccadilly in 1904. Its aim was to “focus the women in art, literature, science, medicine, music, public service, journalism, drama and other important directions ”xxxv and included gallery space for exhibitions. At the time it was a part of the feminism and suffragette movement, placing an emphasis on professional networking and international connections. Dora Meeson presented a lecture on Ancient and Modern Art there in 1921. (Not long after the London club opened, Australia also opened a number of Lyceum Clubs, with similar values and aims.)
Galleries and Exhibitions
The London Group was an exhibiting group which was formed in 1913 as a reaction to the Royal Academy's dominance of the British art world, and the restrictions placed on artists in what they were taught and how they exhibited. The original members set out to radicalise the art scene by giving artists access to affordable exhibition venues. It embraced the whole spectrum of modern art in Britain at the time.
The Camden Town Group was established in 1911, shortly after Fry's first Post Impressionist exhibition. The group's choice of everyday subjects, their bold, anti-naturalistic colouring and interest in progressively simplifying forms, presented a type of painting that was new and different. They occupied a comfortable middle ground between tradition and the truly avant-garde. Australian born artist Henry Taylor Lamb was a founder member of the Camden Town Group and then of the London Group in 1913.
Opportunities for exhibiting work also included the Modern Society of Portrait Painters in London, and numerous art clubs such as the New English Art Club and the International Society.
Margaret Preston exhibited regularly at both the New English Art Club and the Royal Academy. She embraced the principles of British ‘decorative’ art and Japanese woodcuts in her still-life compositions notable for their flattened perspective, tonal colour harmonies, contrasting black and white and the introduction of decorative elements.
After being awarded the Society of Artists Travelling Scholarship in 1900, George Lambert had sailed to Europe. After settling in London, he exhibited at both the New English Art Club, the Chelsea Arts Club and the International Society, as was elected as an associate of the Royal Academy in 1922. and a founder of the Modern Society of Portrait Painters.
Lambert was not a modernist - he particularly admired the seventeenth century artists Rubens, Vandyke and Velasquez, as well as contemporaries J. M. Whistler and John Singer Sargent, whom he felt had preserved the qualities of old masters.
George Lambert, The Charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba, 1917
In December 1917 he was appointed an official war artist, A.I.F. and commissioned to execute 25 sketches and to paint The Charge of the Light Horse at Beersheba on 31 October 1917.
Lambert was principally known as a portrait artist, developing a significant reputation as an academic realist. After serving as a war artist he returned to Sydney in 1921, becoming a major active influence on contemporary art, popular with artists who wanted him to exhibit with them, dealers who wanted his works and clients who wanted commissioned portraits. In 1927 he was awarded the Archibald Prize.
George Lambert, Mrs Murdoch, 1927 (Archibald prize winner)
The Grafton Galleries (Grafton Gallery), where Roger Fry's two famous exhibitions of Post-Impressionist works in were both held 1910 and 1912, was also where the French art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel had shown the first major exhibition in Britain of Impressionist paintings in 1905. (In 1898 there had been a major exhibition of Australian art at the gallery – the Exhibition of Australian Art in London. It featured 371 artworks made in Australia by 114 artists. Interestingly, although the exhibition featured many painting from the Heidelberg region, the drawings and watercolours of the exhibition's women artists, especially their Australian floral subjects, comprised almost half of the sales.)
The Women’s International Arts Club exhibited at the gallery on numerous occasions and in 1930, Australia artists were invited to exhibit with this group. Society of Women Artists.
The following article about the British Colonial Art Exhibition held in London in June 1902, indicates the number and diversity of Australians painting in Britain and France at the time. A ‘special correspondent’ reported in the South Australian Advertiser that;
“The best pictures are by Australian and Canadian artists who have studied in Paris, and their styles are rather distinctively French than typically colonial. There are 156 paintings …. The Victorian contingent is most strongly represented, and the works of Rupert Bunny, Arthur Streeton, Hugh Ramsey, and Ambrose McC. Patterson make the most powerful appeal to the eye. George Coates has a portrait of his fiancée, Miss Dora Meeson, and she a somewhat Rembrandtesque portrait of a girl in red and black. E. Phillips Fox contributes one portrait, a girl in a white evening dress. Mr. B. E. Minns snows considerable humour in his "Old Reminiscences,'' a group of characteristic Chelsea pensioners. His other contribution is a long panel of Sydney Harbour which is also pictured by Mr.J. Hamilton Hammon. Percy Spence, who has a show of his own on in the Woodbury Gallery, sends a profile portrait of the late Sir Andrew Clarke, and A. H. Fullwood a landscape of Auckland Harboor on the occasion of the Ophir's arrival. The young Queenslander, R. J. Randall, and Miss Florence Fuller are perhaps most Australian in feeling, and H. S. Hopwood's "Lighting Up" deserves a special word, South Australia is well represented by Miss Madge Cockburn’s study of a young girl's head (the subtle modelling of which I heard praised by one of the English critics) and a bowl of yellow roses. Mrs. Arnold's portrait of her husband, Miss Ada Egan's"Roses," Mrs. Maude Wholshaw's and Miss J. L. Wilson's red gum blossoms, Mr. James Ashton's picture of a rolling surf, and Mr. J. W. Ashton's "Evening," Mr. R. Hayley Lever's "Winter Evening on the Seine." "Sunny Afternoon, Charenton," and "Making for the Fishing Grounds," are vigorous,and show the influence of his French training; Mr. E. W. Christmas has five pictures, which are among the most typically Australian in atmosphere and colouring .”xxxvi
Other private galleries in London included the Baillie, Carfax, Chenil and Goupil.
Artists Colonies in Cornwall
Both Newlyn and St Ives were popular artist colonies in Cornwall, which for the most part had a strong focus on Realist art, or Naturalism, which had earlier been a significant influence on Australian Impressionism.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s most of the British and Australian artists painting en plein air in England didn’t adopt the high key colour and small brushstroke of the French Impressionists. They were less concerned about the optics, or science of colour, than artists such as Cezanne and Seurat. A greater influence was French naturalist painter Jules Bastien-Lepage who was interested in paintings people and places in natural conditions – and the coast of England proved to be a popular location to achieve this.
The work of the Newlyn and St Ives artists was introduced to Australia by the Anglo Australian Society of Artists exhibitions held in the late 1880s 1990s in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney. After the success of these exhibitions Australian artists were drawn to the colonies of Newlin and St Ives to experience artistic and financial freedom and to train and work alongside artists who were highly regarded within Art Academy circles xxxvii .
George Bell became associated with a group of painters, including Elizabeth and Stanhope Forbes, who were based in St Ives in around 1906. Prior to this he'd travelled to France where he studied at the Académie Julian, Colarossi's and La Grande Chaumiére. Bell left St Ives in 1908 to work in a studio in London and became a member of the Modern Society of Portrait Painters, painting portraits and interiors in the tonalist realist manner he had been exploring during the previous few years. His work was hung in the Royal Academy and he was a member of the Chelsea Arts Club.
Emmanuel Phillips Fox arrived in St Ives in 1890 after studying at the Académie Julian in Paris and visiting many of the popular French artist colonies including Etaples, Giverny and Brittany. After returning to Australia in 1892 he was awarded the Gilby Bequest in 1900. Two conditions of the bequest were that the works be of historic importance to Australia and be produced in England. Fox chose to revisit St Ives in 1901 to complete the commission, The landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay 1770 . In 1904 he completed St Ives, Cornwall demonstrating the atmospheric qualities of the early morning and late night views, that were strong elements in the works of many artists at St Ives.
It was during this second visit that he met art English born student Ethel Carrick, who had trained at the Slade school. They were married in 1905 and settled in Paris until 1913, before further travel in Europe and northern Africa. By 1908 Carrick Fox was a member of the Union Internationale des Beaux-Arts et des Lettres; in 1911 she became sociétaire of the Salon d'Automne, later an associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and prior to 1913 was the vice-president of the International Union of Women Painters. In 1928 she won the diploma of honour at the International Exhibition of Bordeaux. Carrick Fox painted a number of colourful. light filled scenes in a Post Impressionist style, including in Australia which she visited on several occasions, before settling semi-permanently in Sydney in the 1940s.
George Bell, River Landscape with Boats as a Port, Houses and Figures, c1909
Emmanual Phillips Fox, St Ives, Cornwall, 1904
Ethel Carrick, Flower Market, c1926
David Davies was another Australian Impressionist painter who spent almost two decades in Cornwall after arriving in Paris in 1892. He was probably introduced to the beauty of St Ives and Cornwall through Philips Fox, “I could not keep my eyes off the sea and for a whole year painted nothing but seascapes” xxxviii . Davies exhibited with the new English Art Club and the Royal Academy. Although he had moved to France by 1900 his family he moved between England, Wales and France until finally settling in Cornwall in 1932.
David Davies, Cornish village at sunset, c 1905
Other Australians who spent time in Cornwall included Will Ashton, May Vale, Emma Minnie Boyd, Vida Lahey, William Osborne, Richard Hayley Lever, Arthur Burgess, Charles Bryant, George Lambert and Charles Conder.
Life and Study in France
One of the earliest artists to travel to travel to France was Iso Rae, who travelled with her family in 1887. Developing an Impressionist style, she remained in France for most of her life, although her work was exhibited in Australia. Another early traveller was Rubert Bunny, who moved to Paris in 1886, after studying in London for two years. Bunny married a French woman and although he made several return visits to Australia he mainly lived in France until the 1930s.
John Peter Russell was another Australia expat who moved to Europe in the late 1870s, not returning until the 1920s. Russell was a friend of Vincent van Gogh and Monet. His Impressionist style, and interest in pure colour, was a major influence on the young Henri Matisse, whom he met and tutored on the island of Belle-Ilein the late 1890s. Matisse reportedly stated "Russell was my teacher, and Russell explained colour theory to me",xxxix
John Peter Russell, Stormy Sky and Sea, Belle île, off Brittany, 1890
John Peter Russell, Van Gogh, 1886
Henri Matisse, Boat, Brittany, 1896
Russell also shared his knowledge about Impressionism with Tom Roberts on a walking tour of Spain in 1883, and they had regularly corresponded after this time xl.
Early in the 20th century a large number of European artists such as Renoir, Dufy, Valadon, Picasso, Dali, Mondrian, Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, Toulouse and Modigliani lived in the Montmartre section of Paris. The area was abuzz with cafes, cabarets and artist studios. However, after the outbreak of WWI many of the artists moved to the Montparnasse quarter on the left bank. The group of artists living there included Leger, Picasso, Cocteau, Chagall, Miro, Modiglian, Max Ernst, the Duchamps and many others.
Will Ashton, Boulevard Montparnasse, Paris
Cafe Dome Montparnasse c1928
Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso and André Salmon, 1916, in front of the Café de La Rotonde
As a large community of English speaking artists lived in this area it attracted a number of Australian artists who studied at the same ateliers (studios), frequented the same clubs and painted in the same artist colonies during the summer. Hilda Rex (Nicholas) moved there in 1907 and Bessie Davis in 1910. Stella Bowen, who had lived in England since 1914, relocated to France in 1923 where she lived in the same building as Bessie Davidson (whom she described as ‘the Old Australian Impressionist’xli. Both Grace Crowley and Anne Danger came to Paris to study modern art with Andre Lhote, with his Academy being located near the Montparnasse Station. Dorrit Black, who had been in London taking classes with Claude Flight, joined them in 1928 for Lhote’s summer school at Mirmande.
However, unless artists had private means, living in Paris was difficult, where the cost of living was quite high.
Art Schools
Australian artists gravitated to Académie Colarossi, Académie de la Grande Chaumiere, Académie Julian, Cormon’s, and Atelier Delécluze. These academies in particular were opened women and there were also more opportunities for women to exhibit their work than in London.
The prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts was the leading educational institution of academic art in France. Entry was made extremely difficult for foreigners, who had to sit a particularly difficult examination in French.
Between 1864 and 1904, more than 2,000 students received at least some of their art education through Gérôme's atelier at the École des Beaux-Arts. Places in Gérôme's atelier were limited, keenly sought after and highly competitive. Only the very best students were admitted and aspirants considered it an honour to be selected.
Gérôme's Studio
Emanuel Phillips Fox, Art Students, 1895
Emanuel Phillips Fox studied there in 1887, where he received rigorous academic training. That summer he painted in plein air artists' communities at Etaples and Brittany and visited Giverny, developing an interest in impressionist painting, before moving to St Ives in Cornwall in 1890. Phillips Fox returned to Melbourne in 1892, and with fellow plein-air painter Tudor St George Tucker, opened the Melbourne School of Art and conducted a summer school at ‘Charterisville’ in Heidelberg teaching the impressionist methods he had learnt in Europe, favouring the naturalist style of Bastien-Lepage he’d worked with in Cornwall, as well as incorporating his academic tuition from Gérôme.
Académie Julian
The Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1937
The Académie Julian was regarded as a stepping stone to the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Opened in 1867, it initially it consisted of a small room in Montmartre, where it offered students access to studies of live models, followed by two sessions of weekly “corrections” with well-reputed artists.
At the heart of Académie Julian’s ethos was the Atelier Libre (free workshop) movement, which provided a space for artists to work from life models without the constraints of academic norms xlii. This movement, born out of the atelier’s progressive spirit, encouraged self-expression.
In 1880, the director opened a course exclusively for women, initially with no more than 40 students. However, in 1885 the school had 400 female students, four years later reaching 600. Within two decades there were nine new ateliers scattered around Paris, five of which were for male students and four for females xliii.
The Academie prepared students for the entry exams to the Ecole and were granted the right to compete for the prestigious Prix de Rome, an annual scholarship awarded to promising young painters, sculptors or printmakers, which enabled them to study art for three to five years in Rome.
Ida May Plante, the Boulevarde, Montparnasse, c1904
Evelyn Chapman, European Street Scene, 1916
George Coates, Portrait of Doora Meeson
The Academie also held its own art competitions, and its students were also encouraged to submit works to the Paris Salon. Ada May Plante studied there, as did Evelyn Chapman, George Coates and Harold Septimus Power.
Harold Septimus Power studied at the Académie two years from 1905-07, where he further developed his love of painting animals, especially horses. He later moved to London, where he indulged his passion for animal painting with commissions from wealthy English patrons, regularly exhibiting at the Royal Academy.
In 1915 the Australian government invited to become an official war artist Xliv. The artist Max Middleton described his style;
“It was based on three points. First, his diligent study of human and animal anatomy and his keen eye for the tones and colours of nature. Secondly, his ability to combine human and animal figures with the landscape and create striking compositions. And, perhaps, the most important of all, his talent for creating a feeling of movement and drama” xlv.
(In 1927 the Commonwealth selected Power to depict the opening of Parliament in the new Commonwealth building in Canberra.)
Evelyn Chapman initially trained in Sydney under the Italian-born artist Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo, together with fellow students Grace Cossington Smith and Norah Simpson.
She moved to Europe with her family in 1911 and attended the Académie Julian in Paris, gaining a classical training in life drawing.
When war broke out in 1914, the family moved to London and Chapman spent time in the artists’ colony at St Ives, Cornwell.
She began painting vivid works in tempera and oil, demonstrating her assimilation of French post-impressionist techniques.In early 1919, together with her father, a member of the New Zealand War Graves Commission, Chapman visited the area near Villers-Bretonneux in France, where many Australian and New Zealand soldiers had lost their lives.
She became the first Australian female artist to depict the devastated battlefields, towns and churches of the western front. Chapman remained overseas, only returning to Australia for a visit in 1960.
Académie Colarossi, which had been established in the 1880s, was one of the first professional art schools in Montparnasse. It was also one of the first art schools to admit both genders and in mixed classes, and therefore became very popular with students from across the globe.
The teachers there included James Abbott Whistler and the sculptor Auguste Rodin, and among the many students were Paul Gauguin, Alberto Giacometti, Amedeo Modigliani, Jeanne Hébuterne, and Henry Moore.
Académie Colarossi
George Lambert, Hugh Ramsay and Agnes Goodsir attended there around the turn of the century and Bessie Davis and Rose McPherson (Margaret Preston) from 1904. Jessie Traill enrolled for a term and in 1909 her etchings were hung at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français.
Primarily a portraitist, Hugh Ramsay had arrived in London in 1900, visiting Scotland and seeing the works of Whistler at the National Gallery of Scotland, and then later Sargent, whose work influenced his greatly. From 1901 he lived in Paris for 15 months. He not only studied at Colarossi’s but also paid frequent visits to the Louvre where he was influenced by the old masters such as Velasquez (known as the master of tonal values), Rembrandt and Ribera.
John Singer Sargent, Lady Helen Vincent, Viscountess d’Abernon, 1904
James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 1 The White Girl, 1861-2
Diego Velázquez, The Waterseller of Seville, c1620
Ramsay wrote to Professor Baldwin Spencer in Melbourne;
“I am quite settled down now in Paris to hard work, and what a grand place it is to work in. You simply get drawn into the swim. I am working at Colarossi’s Atelier, taking Mr Longstaff’s advice. Start in the morning here at 8 and work until 12, and then again at night from 7 till 10…I’ve had some good criticisms at Colarossi’s which included some slatings that I thoroughly deserved, and which have done me a lot of good". xlvi
His second year in Paris brought phenomenal success when four of his paintings were included in the New Salon - The paintings were 'Jeanne', 'A Lady of Cleveland, U.S.A.', 'René Puaux' and 'Still Life: Books, Mask and Lamp'. This was an unprecedented honour for an Australian artist. The paintings were displayed favourably alongside work by artists such as John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert and James Abbot McNeil Whistler.
As he wrote to his father on 28 March 1902;
‘I’ve had 4 pictures accepted by the Salon. Just fancy 4 when one would have made me feel lucky & quite content … It’s a rather extraordinary thing, so I’m told, as they seldom accept more than 2 even from experienced and recognised men, let alone a young fellow like myself, practically exhibiting for the first time…’xlvii
Unfortunately Ramsay was to die at the age of 28 from Tuberculosis, just four years after returning home to Australia in 1902.
George Lambert studied at Colarossi's and at the Atelier Delécluze, but after a year in Paris, Lambert moved to London. However, he an associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts Paris, a council-member of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers.
In 1910, highly successful New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins became the first woman tutor of any nationality at Colarossi’s, teaching watercolour. Hodgins often travelled to Australia, and in 1908 she had shared first prize in the Australian section of women's art at the Franco-British Exhibition with Thea Proctor, before returning to Europe to train and teach.
At Colarossi’s she had a ‘clear understanding of what she was seeking to achieve in her work, … her paintings from this period gradually move from being purely representational to her own individual form of impressionism ’.xlviii
At around this time and until about 1928, her subject matter was primarily women and children, street and harbour scenes, and she assimilated modernist ideas. Colour remained all-important and with her muted subtle harmonies Hodgkins became one of the most remarkable colourists of her time. Her work became more abstract, with simplified forms and surfaces enriched with patterning xlix .
In 1911 she opened the ‘Frances Hodgkins School of Watercolour Painting’ in Paris and taught at the French seaside town of Concarneau. Concarneau, in Brittany, not far from Pont-Aven, was a popular location for artists. They were attracted by the region’s traditional and rural qualities, which were in sharp contrast to the rapid industrialisation then taking place in the cities of Europe.
In 1914, she moved to St Ives on the south-west coast of England where she held summer classes, teaching Vida Lahey, who was also to become known as a great colourist. From 1921 to 1927, Hodgins taught in both France and England.
Vida Lahey, Bruges, c1914
Ambrose Hallen, Laurie Thomas, 1939
Ambrose Hallen, Beside the Red Cliff, Collioure, 1927
Amongst many others, her students included Australians Ambrose Hallen and Bessie Gibson around 1910. At the age of 19, Hallen had moved France, where he became familiar with artists such as Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse and John Russell, who clearly also had an influence on his style. Hallen was to live for some thirty years in France, including working with John Peter Russell, and his work was to retain the influence of the Ecole de Paris artists, before returning to Melbourne in the 1930s where he taught painting.
Another important Australian figure studying at Académie Colarossi was Elizabeth Fry. Fry was a strong supporter of Australian artists overseas. She had studied art in Sydney and subsequently went to Paris, including a stint at Colarossi's. In 1924 she organised the Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by Australian Artists in Europe at the Faculty of Arts Gallery, London. Not only was she involved in organising exhibitions, she also regularly wrote newspaper articles, informing an Australian audience of the successes and activities of Australian artists overseas. Following the success of her 1924 exhibition, Fry founded the Australian Artists in Europe group, which included approximately fifty Australian (and a few New Zealand) expatriate artists who had established their career in London or Paris, including George Coates, Fred Leist and Dora Meeson.l
The Académie de la Grande Chaumiere had close links with Colarossi’s and opened in 1904, with Manet, Picasso and Cézanne participating in its creation. It offered training in both painting and sculpture and was considerably flexible.
In 1923 the Australasian newspaper reported that;
“Paris is a happy hunting ground for artists from all over the world … Very fascinating, indeed, must be the quick sketching classes, at the Grand Chaumiere, where students of every nationality meet together every afternoon from two o’clock until half-past 7. The ‘sittings’ go on without intermission, one model after another posing for periods varying from two hours to five minutes. Many of the models are professional dances or well-known chorus girls, famed for their exquisite posing at the ateliers. The classes are always crowded, and are run on an excellent system. By which every student buys a book of tickets [each ticket admitting to 1 sitting], and these tickets can be used just when and how the students like, a great advantage for visiting artists who may not be able to attend on consecutive days” li.
Ethel Spowers, Val de Grace, Paris, 1923
Eveline Syme, Study For Still Life with Plaster Cast charcoal on paper
Artists Eveline Syme and Ethel Spowers studied there in 1922-23, with Syme later studying at the Academie Andre Lhote in Montparnasse.
Margaret Preston, Still life and flowers
Margaret Preston, Still Life, 1927
Fernand Léger, Composition (Definitive State), 1927
Margaret Preston and Bessie Davidson enrolled at the Grand Chaumiere, where they received instruction from Lucien Simon and Rene-Xavier Prinet, and within a year both artists had works accepted for the The Salon des Artistes Français.
While in Paris, Preston saw the work of Cézanne, Matisse, Kandinsky and Rouault. She studied Japanese and Chinese art at the Musée Guimet, including Japanese woodcut prints of the ‘ukiyo-e’ school learning 'slowly that there is more than one vision in art'lii. Fernand Leger's 'decorative' cubism was also to influence her work.
In 1931 Davidson was made a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, the highest honour to be conferred by the French government. She was the first female Australian artist to receive this honour and her work was acquired for the national collection. Davidson was one artist who remained in France during her lifetime, fleeing from Paris during the Second World War, when it’s thought she contributed to the French resistant movement.
Ethel Stephens, Still Life, Paris, c. 1920
Ethel Stephens, Nasturtiums, 1931
Ethel Stephens studied at the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere and exhibited twice at the Paris Salon during 1920-22. During her first trip to Europe in 1910 she visited Florence, Venice, Etaples, Paris, London and Cornwall, and she spent her time visiting galleries, as well as taking some lessons for short periods, particularly in tempera painting. Stephens was to become central to shaping art education in Sydney and Julian Ashton claimed that he had no thought of being an art teacher until Professor Stephens asked him to tutor her daughter liii. However, although she embraced numerous art styles, she didn’t consider herself a modernist.
Academic artist Fernand Cormon, a painter of Oriental and Stone Age subjects and an occasional portraitist, ran a small atelier libre in Monmartre. Cormon had the reputation of being more broad-minded than most academic artists. The students worked there from the nude and the draped model and Cormon used to come once a week to give advice and instruction.
Henry de Toulouse-Latrec had been a head student and Emile Bernard and Vincent Van Gogh also studied there. John Peter Russell was at the studio from the mid 1880s, which is where he formed his friendship with Van Gogh.
On the advice of John Peter Russell, John Longstaff also entered the atelier in late 1887. Longstaff had recently won the National Gallery of Victoria art school's first travelling scholarship with 'Breaking the News', a figure composition depicting the tragic aftermath of a mining accident.
He spent the summer of 1889 at Russell's chateau at Belle-Ile and temporarily lightened his palette and loosened his technique before spending three months in Spain studying the art of Velasquez, whose dark tonalities remained a major influence on his portraiture. During this period Longstaff exhibited each year at the Old Salon; a portrait of his wife and first child received a mention honorable in 1891 and his large-scale allegorical subject, 'The Sirens', (which was painted under the terms of his scholarship), was exhibited at the 1892 Salon and at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1894.
In 1900 in Melbourne, Longstaff was commissioned by J. F. Archibald, founder and editor of The Bulletin, to paint a portrait of poet and short story writer Henry Lawson. The painting prompted Archibald to establish the Archibald Prize, and Longstaff went on to win the prize five times, including with his Henry Lawson painting.
After spending time in Australia, Longstaff sailed to England in 1901 to undertake a commission from the National Gallery of Victoria to depict the explorers Burke and Wills, although it was not completed until 1907. He had almost immediate success as a portraitist, with his subjects including King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. Longstaff was appointed an official war artist and made several portraits of officers in the military. He was also a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters liv .
However, after his permanent return to Australia in 1920, his work settled into what art historian Leigh Astbury calls a “basically academic and conservative” lv pattern .
After his involvement with Australian Impressionists, in 1890 Charles Conder left Australia for Europe, moving between France and England for the remainder of his life. In Paris he set up a studio in Montmartre and studied both at the Académie Julian and Atelier Cormon, mixing with leading artists and writers of the day, including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, McNeill Whistler and Alfred Sisley. He experimented with many styles, including art nouveau.
Toulouse-Lautrec painted his portrait and featured him in at least two of his Moulin Rouge works.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Portrait of Conder, 1893
Charles Conder, The Moulin Rouge, 1890
Eugène Boudin, On the Beach, Trouville, 1887
Charles Conder, The Sands Newquay, 1906
Claude Monet, Haystacks (Effect of Snow and Sun), 1891
Charles Conder, Hayfield, Giverny, France, 1894
He often painted scenes of bathers and the cliffs on the coast of Normandy and along the Siene using transparent colours reminiscent of Eugène Boudin and inspired by Claude Monet’s exhibition of haystack paintings.
Unfortunately, Conder died in London in 1909, still in his early 40s.
Atelier Delécluze
The Atelier Delécluze was regarded as one of the more reactionary, cutting-edge ateliers during its short life from the late 1880s until the mid 1920s.
Hilda Rix Nicholas working at the Atelier Delécluze
Hilda Rix Nicholas who was one of the most successful artists in France during this period, first studied there, as well as at the Académie Colarossi, where she would have come into contact with artists such as Matisse, with whom she shared models.
In 1908 she began lessons with Richard Miller, one of the most successful American painters in France and a highly regarded teacher. His preferred subject matter was the introspective young woman in a luxurious interior or secluded garden, and while his works were characterised by the loose brush stroke and pure colours of impressionism his figures were carefully drawn and rooted in academic practise lvi. His influence is clearly shown in Rix Nicolson's work.
She also credits her lessons at Académie de la Grande Chaumiere with Theophile Steinlen’s croquis (quick sketch) classes with having a lasting influence on her own drawing, she described Steinlen as a “brilliant draughtsman (who) gave correction of quick studies. The models posing for five minutes then a change of position. This was invaluable as one learned to catch the essentials in a few quick strokes of the pencil”.lvii
Early success came when her oil, Retour de la Chasse was hung on the line (at eye level) at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1911. In 1913 she exhibited 35 works painted in Spain and Morocco at La Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français, and a further 11 works there in 1914, after a second visit to Morocco. Her work was purchased by the couturier Leon Worth and the Gallery Luxembourg bought her oil, Le Grand Marché of 1912.
Hilda Rix Nicholas, Retour de la Chasse (Return of the Hunter), 1911
Hilda Rix Nicholas, Grande Marché, Tangier, 1912
Hilda Rix Nicholas, The Studio, Paris
In the 1920s, she divided her time between Australia and France, holding frequent exhibitions, and selling her work to the major galleries. Rix Nicholas worked in bold colours and high values, with many of her best works being grand-scale portraits of common people being either French, Australian or Moroccan.
From 1926 to 1928 her Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings of Australian Life and Landscape toured provincial English galleries and her idealised images of the Australian 'country, its beauty and types of virile manhood',lviii stimulated migration to Australia. As her first husband had died during the war, she considered herself a war widow artist and she also drew and painted portraits of returned Australian soldiers.
She returned to Australia in 1926, continuing to paint the people and landscapes of her immediate environment near Delegate NSW.
Other artists who studied at Atelier Delécluze included Agnes Goodsir, Hugh Ramsey Ambrose Patterson, Bessie Gibson and George Lambert.
Cubist Art Ateliers
Two French artists who taught Cubism to a number of Australian artists were Albert Gleizes and André Lhote, but they approached the principles of Cubism differently, although both were primarily with concerned with applying geometry and mathematics to composition.
Albert Gleizes was any early Cubist artist and in collaboration with Jean Metzinger, wrote Du Cubisme, published in 1912. His way of looking at composition was a key influence on cubists such as Picasso and Braque.
Gleizes had also discovered the effectiveness of the expressive use of colour, often applied in broad areas denoting flatness, from artists such as Cezanne, Gauguin and Matisse. Cezanne had also extremely interested in the science of optics and how the eye captures information, and in his later works, fragmenting and simplifying subject matter, often using geometric forms. He saw art as fundamentally two dimensional – that this, paint laid down on a flat surface.
Like other Cubists, he didn’t wish to create the illusion of three-dimensional space (by the use of techniques such as perspective, shadows etc), rather focusing on a painting being a self-sufficient entity in and of itself and not having to hav a recognisable subject. However, like a number of other artists of the time, he also considered the relationship of art to spiritualism.
Albert Gleizes, Street Scene in Bermuda, 1917
Albert Gleizes, Composition for Jazz, 1915
Gleizes had been convinced of the inevitability of abstract art which he termed ‘pure painting’. He believed that the ‘manipulation of shapes in the abstract was the ideal starting point … those shapes only later being made to denote figures or objects or landscapes’ lix .
Albert Gleizes, Rotation and translation
Henri Matisse, Joy of Life, 1905 - 06
Albert Gleizes, 1912, Les Baigneuses (The Bathers) Moderne de la Ville de Paris, golden rectangle and Fibonacci spiral.
Paul Cézanne, The Bathers, 1898 - 1905
Gleizes was interested in balance, proportion and harmony, while at the same time creating sense of rhythm and movement through ‘rotation’. He based his theories on the mathematical Fibonacci sequence.
André Lhote was also one of the original cubists and had exhibited in the 1911 Salon des Indépendants and in the 1912 Salon de la Section d’Or. His work remained essentially representational, inspired by Cézanne’s later style, while incorporating cubist techniques. His teaching emphasised pictorial composition, the simplification of forms into basic geometry and the use of colour to integrate forms lx. Lhote also drew inspiration from the classical tradition, particularly Renaissance art.
Andre Lhote, July 14th in Avignon, 1930
Andre Lhote, Le Port de Bordeaux, 1915
Lhote’s founded his art school in Paris in 1922, where he taught until his death in 1962. He advised his students:
“You must be classic. Put yourselves before the model in a workmanlike spirit. See nothing in the nude, but the straight lines, the angles, the curves the tones cold and warm, the large, small, and medium sized dimensions, etc lxi…. The more reduced your means will be, the more pure your interpretation will be"lxii .
The staff and students of the Académie Lhote, Paris c.1927. Anne Dangar is directly below Lhote's elbow, with Grace Crowley in the first row below to her right.
Dorrit Black joined them there in 1928.
Aged 17, while on a visit to Italy to finish her schooling, Australian artist Mary Cockburn Mercer ran away to Paris, where she lived a Bohemian life in Montparnasse, mixing with Pablo Picasso and School of Paris artists Marc Chagall, Marie Laurencin, Jules Pascin and Kees van Dongen.
Mercer studied cubist composition with Lhote in France during the 1920s and worked as his assistant and translator. This would have made her a crucial figure in his school, which attracted many non-French-speaking artists from across the globe in their quest to study modern art lxiii .
Mary Cockburn Mercer, Ballet, c1939
She returned Melbourne in 1938, renting an apartment in Bourke Street, where she held art classes. Mercer exhibited her work with the Contemporary Art Society, where her ‘decadent’ nudes, which shocked audiences with their frank sexuality, were often hung behind the doors of the gallery.
Anne Dangar travelled to France in early 1926 with Grace Crowley. Initially they went to Aix-en-Provence to immerse themselves in the ambience of Cézanne’s studio and countryside.
They then travelled to Paris where they commenced private lessons with Beaux-Arts painter Louis Roger, and Dangar also took pottery classes with Henri Bernier in Viroflay, before discovering the work of Lhote. Together with Dorrit Black, they attended the Académie Lhote in Montparnasse in 1927-28 and joined Lhote’s 1928 summer school in landscape painting at Mirmande, la Drôme where they adopted Lhote’s analysis of form, firmly delineating the pictorial elements within the flattened space in their compositions.
Crowley’s work was transformed by Lohte’s teaching as she applied his methods of simplifying form into geometric shapes and using the proportions of the golden mean in the composition.
Grace Crowley, Sailors and Models, 1928
Crowleys' painting, Sailors and Models, was the result of an ambitious exercise set by Lhote. Crowley recalled that for two weeks Lhote would pose models in the mornings from which the students made life drawings. These individual studies were then to be used as the basis for a multi-figure painting. Her painting was constructed according to the geometry of the golden mean and each figure carefully placed along an internal axis, with the head of the standing sailor at the apex of a triangle.
Lhote’s emphasis on pictorial construction was a revelation for Crowley: ‘For the first time I heard about dynamic symmetry and the section d’or – that it was necessary to make a PLAN for a painting of many figures as an architect does for a building and THEN construct your personages upon it.lxiv ’
In early 1929 Grace Crowley had two paintings exhibited alongside Lhote, Lipshitz Leger and other cubists at the The Salon des Artistes Français. She was mentioned in several reviews with one American critic deeming her work equal to Lhote’s.
By this time, Dangar had returned to Australia for a short period of time, but returned to work with Gleizes at his artist community at Moly-Sabata, Sablons. Dorrit Black also spent time at the same artist community.
Exhibitions
The Salons
By 1900 the official Paris Salon had ceased to exist and had been replaced by three major annual salons; The Salon des Artistes Français (known as the ‘Old Salon’); the Société Nationale de Beaux-Arts (known as the Nationale (or ‘New Salon’) and the Salon des Indépendants. The New Salon showed the work of established artists, while the Salon des Indépendants accepted more radical art, without relying on a selection panel.
Following Hugh Ramsay’s at the New Salon in 1902, Bessie Davidson and Agnes Goodsir were both made sociétés (members) of the Société Nationale de Beaux-Arts where they exhibited their work, as well as at other exhibitions spaces, such as the Société of Femme Paintres and Sculpteurs.
Agnes Goodsir, The Letter, 1926
Agnes Goodsir, Girl with Cigarette, c 1925
Agnes Goodsir quickly carved a reputation for her still-life painting and portraits, and her sitters includes Leo Tolstoy and Benito Mussolini. In 1926 she completed The Letter - the same year she was invited to become a member of the Société. It is believed the figure in this painting is of companion Rachel Dunn.
Bessie Davidson spent much of her life in Paris, living in Montparnasse from 1910 until her death in 1965.
Bessie Davidson, in her Montparnasse studio, 1913
Bessie Davidson, artist’s paint box with French coastal landscape, c1930s
Davidson had initially travelled to Europe in 1904 with Margaret Preston, who had taught her art in Adelaide, and they studied briefly at the Künstlerinner Verein in Munich before moving to Paris.
René-François-Xavier Prinet, The Artist working in the open air by the sea
Lucien Simon, Soirée à l'Atelier, 1904
Davidson studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière with artists René-Xavier Prinet and Lucien Simon, both of whom were to become important friends and mentors. Within a year of their arrival, both Davidson and Preston had works selected for inclusion in the Salon des Artistes Français. During this period they also travelled to Morocco and French Algiers.
Bessie Davidson, One of the Three Gates, Tangiers, Morocco
A highly recognised and extremely successful artist in France, Davidson achieved a number of firsts - she was the first Australian woman to be elected to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (1922), a founding Vice-President of the Femmes Artistes Modernes (1930), and the first Australian woman to be awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur for her contributions to French art and life (1931) lxv .
(She has also worked as a nurse during WWI and it’s thought that she may have been a member of the French Resistance during WWII).
She was also a founding member of the Salon des Tuileries and the Société Nationale des Indépendants. In 1930 Davidson was elected Vice-President of La Société Nationale de Femmes Artistes Modernes and she was a founding member of the Société Nationale des Indépendants. She exhibited at the L’Exposition du Groupe Feminin at the Petit Palais in 1938.
Davidson saw herself as belonging to the ‘modern French impressionist school’ lxvi . However, she was to later develop a more prominent sense of form and compositional structure allied to Paul Cézanne and Post Impressionism. Her biographer, Penelope Little describes this ‘Cézannesque’ style, as characterising ‘her most confident and productive years’ xlvii .
Bessie Davidson, La Robe Jaune, 1931
Bessie Davidson, Still Life with a Bowl of Fruit
Private Galleries
Successful private dealer galleries such as Durand-Ruel’s and Georges Petit’s promoted the Impressionists, with other dealers such as Julien ‘Pere’ Tanguy, Ambroise Vollard, Berte Weill and Bernheim-Jeune promoted new and upcoming artists
Berte Weill championed modern artists in her gallery.
Artist Colonies and Communities
Particularly during summer, artists were attracted to artists colonies and communities, mainly on the coast where it was cooler. They travelled to such areas as Sablons, situated on the River Rhône, Mirmande, Etaples, Brittany and Giverny.
Between 1885 and 1915 the village of Giverny, where Monet lived, attracted more than 350 artists – mostly Americans, although Phillips Fox visited for a short period around 1890.
Emmanual Phillips Fox, Wheat Stacks, Giverny, c1890
Until the outbreak of World War One, there were numerous Australians living and working in Etaples, including Iso and Alison Rae, Rupert Bunny, Marie Tuck, Arthur Baker Clack, Hilda Rix Nicholas, as well as Charles Conder, Philips Fox, Grace Joel, Eleanor Harrison, Alice Muskett and Winifred Honey. Ethel Carrick and Frances Hodgkins, also spent time there.
There were also numerous war artists commissioned by the Australian Government to capture scenes from the immense concentrations of Commonwealth reinforcement camps and hospitals at Étaples during WWI.
The coastal port of Étaples, situated between Calais and Rouen, was known for its artistic views and its cheap shopping and was a paradise for painters. (Only a hundred kilometres from England, the port was also perfect for a European base for the British army during the war.)
It had become an artist colony from around 1880, where French, Australian, New Zealand, American, Irish, and British painters congregated, often for short periods of time.
Rupert Bunny, Boat Building, Etaples, 1902
Iso Rae, untitled (Etaples)
Iso Rae, On the Beach at Etaples
One of the artists, American Blanche McManus, wrote that ‘the colony has been formed by buying up, or renting, the fishermen’s cottages at nominal prices and turning them into studios’. One of her colleagues, British Jane Quigley, added that ‘the artistic sense finds pleasure in its winding cobbled streets and mellow old houses and in the dark-complexioned southern looking people. There is constant work for the sketch book, especially on Monday, when the boats go off for several days, the whole family helping the men and boys to start ’ lxviii.
In 1906 Arthur Baker-Clack travelled to Paris, where he was a pupil of Rupert Bunny and Jean Paul Laurens, eventually focusing on landscape and still life painting. Baker-Clack embraced the Post Impressionist style, finding inspiration from artists such as Cézanne and Seurat. He exhibited both in London at the Royal Academy of Arts and Paris, subsequently becoming a societaire and jury member for the Salon d'Automne and a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts
His style demonstrates his skill with colour, paired with a certain boldness and directness, which creates rich, toned and forceful work. After joining the art colony at Étaples in 1910, Baker-Clack chose live in the region during and after WWI, although his home was bombed and he was forced to shelter on the beach at Paris Plage, near Etaples, until armistice was declared.
Iso Rae, Cinema queue, January 1916
Iso Rae remained in Étaples for the duration of WWI, recording the war through approximately 200 pastel drawings (a number of which are now held at the Australian War Memorial). Rae stayed with her sister in Étaples until 1932. Two years later, alarmed by Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, they moved to England, where Rae died, as a new war began, in 1940.
In nearby Rouen artist Jessie Traill worked at a military hospital. She was another female artist recording the war in France.
Janet Cumbrae-Stewart, Portrait of Jessie, 1920
Official Australian war artists Will Dyson, Fred Leist and ArthurStreeton all spent some time at Etaples.
Dorrit Black, Mirmande (with surrounding hills), 1934
From 1926 André Lhote encouraged his students to spend the summer at Mirmande in the south-east France in order to work together on the study of the countryside, setting up what he referred to as The Fields Academy. It attracted artists from numerous countries, contributing to an international reputation of a village that had previously almost been completely abandoned. Grace Crowley, Anne Dangar and Dorrit Black attended a summer school there in 1928.
In Paris, Dorrit Black had studied with André Lhote and later with Albert Gleizes at Moly-Sabata, Sablons, south of Lyon, alongside the Rhône River. Moly-Sabata was established as a self-subsistence cooperative where artists were expected to earn their living by practicing various crafts. Through Lhote and Gleizes she was introduced to cubism, which revolutionised her approach to painting.
Black remains especially significant for bringing a form of cubism to Australia in late 1929. Soon after her return to Australia, Black established the Modern Art Centre (MAC) in Margaret Street, Sydney, which became a small, but potent, hub of modernism and where through exhibitions and classes, she presented the most advanced ideas of modern art. When Black moved back to Adelaide, she was active in the art scene as a teacher at the South Australian School of Art and in 1942 became vice-chairman of the newly established Contemporary Art Society. She exhibited regularly in London, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney until her death in 1951.
Anne Dangar had returned to Australia around the end of 1928, but after reading La peinture et ses lois, a treatise published in 1924 by Gleizes, she felt challenged by his ideas and asked Crowley and Black to made contact with him in Paris. In early 1930 Dangar returned to France and joined his artists’ colony of Moly-Sabata.
Anne Dangar making pochoirs at Moly-Sabata, c. 1931,
Anne Dangar, The Guitarist, c1947
Anne Dangar, Tea Service, c1945-51
She was to spend much of the rest of her life there. Gleizes’s demand that artists should return to the land – le retour à la terre – and work with the Earth’s elemental materials – water, fire, earth and air – appealed to Dangar and she began to make pottery lxix . Dangar became respected as a teacher of drawing and design, and successfully exhibited her work in France, including the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris – also sending shipments of her pots to Australia.
Legacy of the exposure to English and French Modernism
Australian artists who travelled to Europe from the late 1800s were excited by the opportunities they found, and most moved around over time, travelling to several countries, visiting numerous galleries, attending different schools and becoming part of different artist or cultural communities.
They were exposed to the academic tradition, Impression and Post Impressionism and the more avant garde styles that were emerging around the turn of the century such as Futurism, Fauvism and Cubism.
They were also exposed to new techniques in making art, such as different forms of printmaking. From the legacy of artists such as Cezanne they learnt the importance of design and geometry. Fry’s Post Impressionist exhibitions in London, and artists such as James McNeil Whistler, showed artists that art could be decorative.
Artists colonies, such as those in Cornwall and the coast of France, focused heavily on exploring light – in Cornwall English artists such as Stanhope Forbes worked with the tonal values of light, while in France the legacy of Impressionism made its mark.
Through clubs, exhibitions, ateliers, and cafes artists had direct relationships with key artists at the time, such as Matisse, van Gogh, Modigliani, Toulouse-Lautrec and xxx
Artists such as Dora Meeson and Dorrit Black took leadership roles, becoming key members of artist organisations. Others, such as John Peter Russell, Bessie Davidson and Anne Dangar, become a long term members of their local community, contributing to the artistic development of others.
The skills of many artists were acknowledged through the awarding of honours, and the placement of their art in significant exhibitions. While some artists, such as Bessie Davidson, were able to make a living from their artwork overseas, others relied on financial support through scholarships or from family. Unfortunately, import tariffs imposed in Australia at the time made it difficult for artists to make money by sending their work back to Australia.
Numerous artists contributed to the war effort, either serving directly on the front, or as nurses or in other support roles, and they captured their experiences through paintings, drawings and prints. Several artists remained overseas for much of their life, returning only briefly to Australia. Many of those that returned set up schools or became teachers, or formed art societies where they could promote what had captured their imagination from their travels. Some found it difficult, at least initially, where their work represented the Avant Garde, just as artists in Europe had struggled to have their own work accepted when it didn’t meet the accepted norms of the day.
The list of Australian* artists in the UK and France in the early part of the 20th Century is quite extensive, and includes;
Iso Rae, Agnes Goodsir, Marie Tuck, Bessie Gibson, Dora Meeson, Alice Muskett, Ethel Carrick, Ada May Plante, Margaret Preston, Kathleen O'Conner, Anne Alison Green, Bessie Davidson, Jessie Traill, Gladys Reynell, Vida Lahey, Mary Cockburn Mercer, Janet Cumbrae Stewart, Hilda Rex Nicholas, Ann Dangar, Evelyn Chapman, Grace Cowley, Dorrit Black, Stella Bowen, Madge Freeman, Constance Stokes, Moya Drying, Betty Quelhurst, Margaret Olley, Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Arthur Streeton, Emanuel Phillips Fox, Ethel Spowers, Eveline Syme, Max Meldrum, Thea Proctor, George Lambert, Violet Teague, Charles Conder, Rupert Bunny, George Bell, Horace Brodzky, Ivan Brooks, Charles Bryant, Arthur Burgess, Robert Campbell, Hilda Cholmondeley, Isaac Cohen, Archibald Colquhoun, Joseph Connor, Antonio Dattilo Rubbo, Mary Degen, William Dobell, Douglas Dundas, John Eldershaw, Albert Hanson, Clewin Harcourt, Weaver Hawkins, Hans Heysen, George Hyde-Pownall, Derwent Lees, Richard Hayley Lever, Kenneth MacQueen, James Quinin, James Quinn, Portia Geach, Hugh Ramsay, Lloyd Rees, Norah Simpson, Helen Stewart, Bess Tait, Dorathea Toovey, Roland Wakelin, John Watkins, Leslie Wilkie, Blamire Young, Bertha Merfield, Edith Alsop, Rah Fizelle, Daphne Mayo, Charles Wheeler, Will Ashton, Fred Leist, George Coates, Will Dyson, Ruby Lindsay, Florence Rodway, Norman Carter. B E Minns, Ambrose Patterson, Peter Purves Smith, Daphne Mayo, James Cant, Charles David Bryant, Kathleen Sauerbier, Ambrose Hallen, Lilian Albert, Daisy Walder, Ethel Stephens, Gladys Reynell, Arthur Baker Clack, Grace Joel, Eleanor Harrison, Alice Muskett, Winifred Honey, Elioth Gruner, Beth Norris, Nutter Buzacott, Bertram McKennal, John Longstaff, Francis Mahony, A H Fullwood, Plataganet, Tudor St. George Tucker
*Not all the artists included in this list were born in Australia - those who weren't spent some considerable time here.
Endnotes
I Sarina Noordhuis-Fairfax, Spowers & Syme, National Gallery of Australia, 2021, p21
ii https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/constance-jenkins-her-painting-friendly-critics-and-the-national-gallery-of-victoria-travelling-scholarship/
iii Rex Butler and A.D.S. Donaldson, French, Floral and Female: A History of UnAustralian Art 1900-1930 (part 1) https://index-journal.org/media/pages/emaj/issue-5/french-floral-and-female-by-rex-butler-and-ads-donaldson/010624421e-1589782525/butler-and-donaldson-french-floral-female.pdf p9
iv https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/the-lost-art-of-federation-australias-quest-for-modernism/
v Robert Upstone (ed.), Modern Painters: The Camden Town Group, exhibition catalogue, Tate 2008.
Vi Thea Proctor, interview with Hazel de Berg, 1961
Vii Sergius, Farewell Advice, Undergrowth, Sydney, July-August, 1926, p10
Viii Tate Gallery, Lifestyle and Legacy of the Bloomsbury Group https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/b/bloomsbury/lifestyle-lives-and-legacy-bloomsbury-group
Ix Angela Woollacott, To Try Her Fortune in London Australian Women, Colonialism and Modernity, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, p78.
x Student Life in London, The Doctrine of Hard Work, New Idea, 6 September 1906, p240
xii Arthur Streeton, et al. Smike to Bulldog: Letters from Sir Arthur Streeton to Tom Roberts. Sydney: Ure Smith, 1946, p77.
xiii Rex Butler and A.D.S. Donaldson, French, Floral and Female: A History of UnAustralian Art 1900-1930 (part 1) https://index-journal.org/media/pages/emaj/issue-5/french-floral-and-female-by-rex-butler-and-ads-donaldson/010624421e-1589782525/butler-and-donaldson-french-floral-female.pdf p10
xiv Deborah Clark, Elioth Gruner: the texture of light, p8. https://cmag-and-hp.s3.amazonaws.com/heracles-production/ec5/a46/346/ec5a4634622b1108b796fbde0e18fee792e2d2392302d24cf9cdd7f2e432/Elioth%20Gruner-texture%20of%20light%20catalogue%20essay.pdf
xv Dora Coates, George Coates. His Art and Life. (London: Dent, 1937), p. 62
xvi Grosvenor School prospectus quoted in CLAUDE FLIGHT AND HIS FOLLOWERS, The Colour Linocut Movement between the Wars https://nga.gov.au/exhibitions/claude-flight-and-his-followers/
xviihttps://www.arthistoryproject.com/artists/filippo-tommaso-marinetti/the-futurist-manifesto/
xviii As quoted by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Dorrit Black, Mirmande https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/6.2015/#bibliography
xix https://nga.gov.au/learn/learning-resources/spowers-and-syme-secondary/
xx Eveline Syme, Claude Flight and His Teaching, The Recorder, No. 3 (September, 1929)
xxi Ethel Spowers, The Grosvenor School of Modern Art, The Recorder (Melbourne), April 1932, PP 5-6.
xxii HE Grimaditch, Artist of note Ian McNabb, The Artist: An Illustrated Monthly record of arts crafts and industry, (London), 13 April 1937, P 56.
xxiii Albert Garrett, Wood engravings and drawings of Iain Macnab of Barachastlain, Midas books, Tunbridge Wells, 1976, pp 49 - 50.
xxiv ‘Studio-Talk’, The Studio, 39, no. 169, November 1906, p. 166; W. T. Whitley, ‘Art School Notes’, The Studio, 45, no. 187, 1908, p. 77; Anonymous, ‘The London School of Art’, The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 19 February 1908, p. 5.
xxv https://www.leightonfineart.co.uk/artist/sir-frank-brangwyn-r-a/
xxvi Amanda Curtin, Kathleen O’Connor of Paris, Fremantle Press, 2018
xxvii Rebecca Laura Edwards, The Supremacy of Decoration: The Influence and Legacy Of The Decorative Practice Of Frank Brangwyn In The Edwardian Era, School Of Culture And Communication, The University Of Melbourne June 2019, p211
xxviii Anonymous, ‘Exhibition of Etchings’, The Argus, Wednesday 10 August 1921, p. 7.
Xxix W. T. Whitley, ‘Studio-Talk’, The Studio, 49, no. 206, 1910, pp. 331–2.
Xxx https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/proctor-thea/
xxxiArt Gallery of NSW, Thea Proctor, Biography, https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/proctor-thea/
xxxiiSourced from Butler, Roger. The Prints of Margaret Preston : Gallery 4A 8 August to 18 October 1987. Canberra: Australian National Gallery, 1987.
xxxiiiTimes, 1 December 1913
xxxiv Arthur Streeton, et al. Smike to Bulldog: Letters from Sir Arthur Streeton to Tom Roberts. Sydney: Ure Smith, 1946, p94.
xxxv The Purpose of the Lyceum Club, Lyceum (monthly journal of the Lyceum Club) April 1920), 4
xxxvi The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), Sat 2 Aug 1902, Page 5, Colonial Art
xxxvii Tracy Cooper- Lavery, Australians in Cornwall: the simple life, in Wild colonials Australian artists and the Newlin and St Ives colonies, Bendigo art gallery, 2009 p73.
xxxviii British-Australasian, 29 November 1906, p 20, quoted in Tovey, Pioneers of St Ives at home and abroad.
xxxix (https://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/archived/booktalk/the-unknown-matisse/3627290).
xl(https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/john-peter-russells-dr-will-maloney/)
xl(https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/john-peter-russells-dr-will-maloney/)
xli Penelope Little, A studio in Montparnasse: Bessie Davidson: an Australian artist in Paris, Craftsman House, Melbourne, 2003, p. 55.
xlii Life Drawing Montmartre, https://lifedrawingmontmartre.com/blog/the-story-of-academie-julian-and-its-impact-on-art-education-in-paris/
xliv The Australian War Memorial Septimus Power, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P66263
xlv As quoted in https://brightoncemetery.com/h-harold-septimus-power-1879-1951/
xlvi Hugh Ramsay, letter to Professor Baldwin Spencer, 12 February 1901
xlvii Hugh, Ramsay: Bright Star, https://nga.gov.au/stories-ideas/hugh-ramsay-bright-star/ accessed 24 July 2024
xlviii Jonathan Gooderham & Richard Wolfe, FRANCES MARY HODGKINS, https://www.franceshodgkins.com/biography
xlix Linda Gill. 'Hodgkins, Frances Mary', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1993. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2h41/hodgkins-frances-mary (accessed 7 July 2024)
l Marie Ruiz and Bénédicte Miyamoto (eds), Art & Migration: Revisioning the Borders of Community, Manchester University Press, 2021, p230
li Social Notes, Australasian, Melbourne, 3 February 1923, P44.
lii Isobel Seivl, 'Preston, Margaret Rose (1875–1963)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/preston-margaret-rose-8106/text14151, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 11 July 2024.
liii Into the Light, https://sheila.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Into-the-Light-Donor-Circle-Acquisitions-2021_WEB.pdf, p11.
liv Leigh Astbury, 'Longstaff, Sir John Campbell (1861–1941)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/longstaff-sir-john-campbell-7230/text12519
lv John Gregory, Longstaff, John (1861-1941; Australian), Before Felton, https://www.beforefelton.com/longstaff-john-1861-1941-australian/
lvi Mosman art gallery, Un Australienne, Hilda Ricks Nicholas in Paris Tangier and Sydney, 2014, P12-13.
lvii Mosman art gallery, p16
lviii Avenel Mitchell, 'Rix Nicholas, Emily Hilda (1884–1961)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/rix-nicholas-emily-hilda-7837/text13609, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 12 July 2024.
lix Christpher Green, Cubism and its enemies: modern movements and reactions in French art, 1916-28, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1987, p26
lx Elena Taylor, Grace Crowley : Being Modern. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2006, p16
lxi Cubism A Lecture by Lhote to a woman’s University Club in Paris, Undergrowth: a magazine of youth and ideals (Sydney), March to April 1928.
lxii Fanny Drugeon, From Paris to Mirmande: International aspects of Lhote’s Academy through Lhote’s writings and correspondence, in Kuban and Will (eds), 2020, P44.
lxiiihttps://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/art/watch-listen-read/read/the-work-of-women/
lxiv Janine Burke, Grace Crowley, Grace Crowley student years, Australian women artists 1840 - 1940, Collingwood VIC, Greenhouse 1980 P82.
lxv Elle Freak, Curator's Insight - Artist’s paint box with French coastal landscape
THE VIGOROUS POST-IMPRESSIONIST STYLE OF BESSIE DAVIDSON, AGSA Magazine Issue 36.
lxvi ‘SA Artist returns 40 years in Paris’, Mail, 27 May 1950, p. 4.
lxvii Penelope Little, A Studio in Montparnasse; Bessie Davidson: An Australian in Paris, Craftsman House, Melbourne 2003, p. 87
lxviii As quoted in Ingeborg van Teeseling, The unrecognised importance of war painter Isobel Rae, September 18th, 2023
https://australia-explained.com.au/art/the-unrecognised-importance-of-war-painter-isobel-rae
lxix Anne Dangar, Art Gallery of New South Wales https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/dangar-anne/
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