Turning their back on success in the art and theatre worlds of Sydney in the 1960s, Janet Dawson and Michael Boddy headed for a bush love-nest, settling for some 40 years on a faraway farm they named Scribble Rock.
1 Summer 1986, 1986. © Janet Dawson/Copyright Agency, 2024. 2 Michael with beetroot sprouting, 2008. © Janet Dawson/Copyright Agency, 2024. 3 Self portrait, between 1951 and 1953. © Janet Dawson/Copyright Agency, 2023, Currently on display. All Janet Dawson.
Janet Dawson was only seventeen when she painted this self-portrait in an evening class taught by renowned portraitist William Dargie. Later, the pioneering abstract painter and printmaker fell in love with erudite playwright Michael Boddy. As collaborators and soulmates, the couple left the bustle of Sydney to live on a farm near Binalong, NSW. Janet painted and drew the natural world around her, including beetroots. Michael embraced sustainable farming and wrote about their small community. Summer 1986 was painted in stifling heat – with Boddy reclining on the couch in the sunroom – and rendered in the summery hues of the paddock outside. Boddy called it ‘A human landscape’. ‘My only stipulation’, he said, ‘was that I should be awake, conscious of the viewer, and not at all welcoming’.
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