WEBVTT

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Hello, I'm Dr Emma Kindred, Curator here
at the National Portrait Gallery.

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Welcome to today's virtual highlights tour.

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I'm joining you from the beautiful sun filled
lands of Ngunnawal and Ngambri country,

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and I would like to pay my deepest respects
to Elders past and present

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and extend that respect to any First Nations
community who are joining us today online.

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So I'm quite excited to be here in Gallery 2 at the Portrait
Gallery in a display titled The Cosmopolitans,

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and it was about the sort of push and pull between Australia
and the cultural centres of Paris and London

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in the late 90th century and early 20th century.

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And I've picked out three works, three self-portraits
today by women artists

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that will sort of take us through
the journey of women artists

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practising in those very first
decades of the 20th century.

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And it was quite a shift from the experience of the
sort of generations that had preceded them.

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Though this was a group of women that
had access to formal art training

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and the art schools had a kind of very
active membership of women artists.

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And so this kind of creates a buzz of women
exhibiting, being reviewed in the press.

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And it's a real kind of shift where we have women
artists in these kind of first decades

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being able to pursue art as a career
and owning that as a profession.

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So I'm going to talk about this work here by Evelyn
Chapman, another self-portrait by Stella Bowen

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and one of my favourite portraits from the National
Portrait Gallery collection by Nora Heysen.

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So this portrait here by Evelyn was
is a sort of departure point

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for my kind of thinking about what I
wanted to talk to you about today.

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I had found this really interesting review
when the work was exhibited in 1911

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in the Daily Telegraph that said, "Her
portrait is worth looking at too

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for the sake of colour scheme and the painting of
the silk wrapper thrown over her shoulder."

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And what I started thinking about
is the role of these garments.

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What was it about this silk wrapper,
about the choice of dress

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that established Evelyn sort of within the kind
of the field or the art world at this time?

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So she exhibited this work as a student.

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She had been studying under
Dattilo Rubbo in Sydney

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and she exhibited this under the
title of "Une Jeune Fille".

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So she's almost kind of gesturing to the sort
of next steps she'll take in her career

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when she leaves for Paris, special
study at the Académie Julian.

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So she's almost kind of making a nod to that cosmopolitan
experience just in that title.

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But so when we look at this portrait, we see a woman who
is very much kind of wearing the fashion of the time.

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She has the sort of pouched bodice of Edwardian
dress since she did it the waist.

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Here you have the sort of very high
neckline, possibly boned,

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that has this sort of really lovely delicate detail that
connects to this sort of band across the forearm.

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And she has just laid in with her brush
the sort of teal reds and pinks.

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So this kind of subtle detailing that sort
of does connect to this sort of lovely

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mottled red and brown in the background.

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Her face is framed by this lovely large black picture hat
with these kind of curls of black ostrich feathers,

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very fashionable at the time,
and these fabric flowers.

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Interestingly, it's very brown and almost the sort of color notes
that she selected for her dress connect with the background.

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So it sort of resides.

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And what that does is it pushes forward
this amazing silk wrapper.

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And that's what sort of grabbed the attention
of the reviewers at the time.

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And this was a really well received work.

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So of the sort of hundred or so pictures that
were on display at the Art Society in 1911,

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this work was illustrated at least
two times in the papers,

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and only sort of two or three
would be illustrated.

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And it did kind of merit mention each time for the wrapper, but
also for her really beautiful handling of these hands.

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And they kind of follow the kind
of the fall of the wrapper.

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And what she's doing here is quite interesting.

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So she's using hands, which are
notoriously tricky to paint.

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And this kind of amazing articulation of the drape here
of this silk fabric to announce her mastery,

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to say, you know, I'm a competent artist.

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You know, this is almost sort of like
a way of overplaying her hand.

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If you think about how wearing a silk wrapper,
how that fabric might fall,

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it's not quite as exciting as this.

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She's giving us drama in the sort of the light undulations
and the way sort of shadow falls.

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There's a lot going on in the way that this
fabric kind of sits around her body.

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And so she's using that as a vehicle
to kind of show us her wedge.

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And she's showing us that she's
a very successful artist.

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And it's interesting when we think of the use of fashion
in portrait historically to situate a sitter,

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whether it's their connections, their status,
the circles in which they're moving.

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And, you know, this is an artist who's very aware of the choices
she's making in the selections of those garments.

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So she has made a choice to use this
as a sort of as a vehicle.

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And she does it very successfully.

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So Evelyn, like the next two artists
that we're going to look at,

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she heads off to study in Paris at the Academy
Julienne and she doesn't return.

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It's kind of an interesting kind of pattern that's followed by a number of artists where
they're sort of seeking to really set out their careers through further study

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and sort of broader opportunities for exhibition
in the Royal Academies and the Paris Salon.

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And so that's where we kind of, we might
lift off over to Stella Bowen.

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So we've sort of, we've made a bit of
a leap here over that 25 years.

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And we're looking at a work by Stella
Bowen that she painted in 1934.

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We might just do a little bit of a background.

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She was born in Adelaide and grew up there in a
sort of reasonably happy middle-class family.

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But she had a mother who was not particularly thrilled
that she wanted to pursue her career as an artist.

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And so she really had to kind of fight to, you know, to argue for
the importance of art and the way that she could, you know,

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e-count a career as an artist.

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Her mother sort of eventually allows her to study at the South
Australian School of Art and Craft and then at 17.

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She undertakes study with our marvellous Margaret
Preston working from live today's week.

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And Stella talks about this experience
as exhilarating.

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And you can imagine that for a young, aspiring artist
that had sort of been denied, you know, this space,

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this opportunity would have been, you
know, a sort of a real shift.

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And she, like Evelyn was, was looking abroad.

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And in 1914, well, her mother passes away
as well, she heads off to London.

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And she studies at the Westminster
School under Walter Sickert,

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who has an incredible influence on her
approach to composition and colour.

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And she finds herself in these incredible
circles of poets and writers.

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It's Rapun, T.S. Eliot, Yates.

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And in 1917, she meets Ford Maddox Ford, who's married at
the time, but she falls desperately in love with him.

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And he becomes sort of a focus for
that sort of next decade.

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She has a child, Julia, in 1920, and really
just gives up painting at that time

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with mother hoid and service to Ford's career sort
of becoming the sort of focus and priority.

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But it's dormant in a way.

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In 1924, she travels with Ezra
and D'Oipi Pound to Italy.

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And there's this really sort of important moment
where she sort of comes face to face

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with the Italian primitives, Giotto,
Friangelo Co., Simone Martini.

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And while she's not sort of actively working as a
painter, these kind of compositional elements,

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the palette of Giotto, this really kind of thin application
of pigment has quite a long lasting effect.

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And we can kind of sort of, once we sort of sit
in the thirties when she's painting again,

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we can look back to this moment and the way that it,
you know, how influential that trip was to her.

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Five years later, she and Ford
Maddox Ford separate.

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And, you know, the sort of weight of that relationship and the
way that it really sort of thwarted her artistic energies

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can be seen in sort of what happens next.

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So she's kind of put in the position where she actually
needs to rely on her work as an artist

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to make a living, to support herself,
to support her daughter.

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And, you know, in the years that follow, we can see sort of
her building that sort of assurance and independence

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and kind of finding her own voice
in her painting again.

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But we have the kind of tricky economic situation
heightened by the Great Depression.

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So in 1932, at the suggestion of her
friends, she heads off to the US

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and it's there that she, you know, undertakes
a number of corporate commissions.

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So she's sort of working on these particular
sort of mode of representation

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and she practises on friends, children
to kind of hone a new technique

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where she is painting on cardboard and it's
a really kind of swift application.

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So she's wanting to work in a way that allows her to
produce these commissions in two to three days.

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So it is swift, dry application
of paint worked back.

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And this portrait is a really good example of her
sort of working into that sort of new method.

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So by this point around 1934, she's
had to return to England

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and she sort of works for the sort of next period
as a painter, as a teacher, as a critic.

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But this portrait here was painted when she's 41,
my age now, but she looks very youthful.

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There's this kind of gorgeous softness in the face
and the way that she's modelled her features,

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which is quite different to say a portrait that
sits in the Art Gallery in South Australia

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that is really quite severe with this very
strong shadow cast on the face.

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And it's kind of interesting to see the way that
Stella's modelling of the face changes

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and shifts in the coming years.

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And you know, it's almost, you know, for
the way I kind of read this portrait,

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this kind of technique allows that softening.

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So you can see a very kind of dry brushwork.

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And she is, she's almost relying on this,

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and you can sort of see it through the
hair probably the most clearly,

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but she's actually pulling back the paint.

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So she's using maybe the end
of a brush or a sort of a,

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a very kind of sharp implement
to kind of scratch back.

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So she's creating these layers of texture.

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And it's, it gives this lovely spontaneity
because it doesn't feel overworked.

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You know, you can sort of see each line constantly
worked in as she kind of models,

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you know, that these lovely sort of curls
of her, of that sort of updo.

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Even the way she kind of articulates just
these little lines around the eyes.

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So delicately handled.

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And you do really love these, you know,
the decorative swathes of fabric,

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maybe curtains, likely in the studio space
that she was working in England.

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And how, how kind of they're set in against
this just hint of a green blouse.

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And you can see just the sort of
lightest under drawing here.

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And then with a very dry brush, she's
sort of worked in sketchily,

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just the outline of the form of the blouse,
its color and these, you know, two,

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two ties that sort of just fall in casually.

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And sort of against the sort of detail
and working here, it's almost this,

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this lightness, it's almost like it's sort of
floating the form and not working it in,

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tells us something as well about why
she was painting this work.

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You know, self portraits are often a way for
artists, I mean, it's an easy model.

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So she's selects herself as the subject in a way
that she can sort of explore this technique.

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And she paints another portrait in a very
similar way of her daughter Julia,

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that's in the National Gallery
of Australia collection.

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And you can really see her kind of
playing with the application.

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And, you know, it's interesting to sort of
see the freedom that that allows her.

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It's not a serious exhibition work in the way that say
the Art Gallery of South Australia portrait use.

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So we might move on now to another Adelaide
artist painting at the same time.

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Laura Parson.

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So this portrait is, for me, one of the most
engaging portraits in our collection.

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And one that catches me every
time I walk past it.

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There's something in the way that
that gaze anchors you.

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And, you know, it's interesting when you think
about the way she paints, you know,

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it's the same time as that portrait
by Stella Bowen.

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But she's a younger artist.

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She has only just made it to London.

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Nora Hython is one of Australia's most
distinguished portrait painters.

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She was the first Australian woman artist
to win the Archibald Prize

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and the first Australian artist to become an official
war artist during Second World War.

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And you can see in the way that
she models the face.

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There is clarity in that expression.

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So we have an artist who is very competent
in the way that she paints a portrait.

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And Nora is an artist who returns to self-portrait
her throughout her career.

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We see her painting in her very early years
self-portraits in her father's studio

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right through to when she's 70 and she's
painting herself in an art of smock.

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So it's interesting for us looking at that span
because we are very familiar with Nora's face

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and the way she handles the painting of her face.

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But also in the racism that I've done, across
what she's wearing in the 30s,

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this kind of habit of representation in a way,

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the way that she is clothing herself and using articles
of clothing specifically again and again.

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So it's a sort of play in dressing up that tells us something
about how the artist wanted to be perceived.

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So Nora Heysen was one of eight children,
the daughter of Sir Hans Heysen

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and his wife Selma who herself was
quite a competent artist.

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So it was a very kind of rich artistic
space that she was growing up in.

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And she began her studies very early and at 15 she was
enrolled at the School of Fine Arts and Adelaide

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and while still a student was
exhibiting at the...

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I might do that again.

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Sorry, yeah.

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Go ahead and I'll just...

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Yeah.

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Poor Nora, darling.

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Okay.

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Nora was one of eight children of
Hans Heysen and his wife Selma

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who herself was a very capable artist.

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So she was growing up in this very sort
of rich artistic cultural space.

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She began painting and drawing very early and by 15 she
was enrolled in the School of Fine Arts and Adelaide.

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And as a student she is putting works in for display
at the Society of Artists in Sydney

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and by 1931 she has had works acquired
by the Art Gallery in South Wales,

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the Queensland Art Gallery and the
Art Gallery South Australia

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which was incredible for an artist of this...
a woman artist of this period.

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And I think what is really lovely about this work
is it tells us something about that success.

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Now with the earnings from the sale of
her works she bought a brown jacket,

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a brown velvet jacket that she
took with her to London.

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She had gone to Europe with her parents in 1934 and she
stayed in London to study at the Central School.

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And in March 1935, so a few months into that time
where she's living by herself and studying,

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she writes to her father, they had this sort of wonderful dialogue
over years, writing back and forth very frequently.

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She writes of a long days painting.

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It is self-portrait that I'm painting just
the head and shoulders full on.

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I think it is a better likeness than I usually
aspire to and it is a better painting.

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So we have this close-up front on perspective
and it's really minimal dark background.

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And it's quite a contrast to many of the other self-portraits
where we see her sort of side on, holding a palette

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and kind of addressing us in a very different
way. This is quite stark and quite direct.

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And the way that just her face is the
focus, it's extremely arresting.

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But I love the way that she paints so gently the
sort of soft fall of this velvet jacket.

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And you can sort of see it as it kind of comes over the shoulder
and, you know, the sort of rounded fullness of the collar.

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And that sort of sits over this really beautifully set in blue jumper, which
has kind of fine line detailing of the sort of ribbing of this collar.

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And these knits appear quite a few times
in her portraits throughout the 30s.

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And there's a cream knit in particular that she writes about sort of 60 years
later when she's recalling sort of the way she felt about these portraits,

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what she was wearing, the experience at the time.

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And she wrote, "I rather like that portrait because it was all sort
of handmade. I knitted the sweater and I made the skirt."

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So it's sort of my hunch with this work that
the blue knit is also handmade by Nora.

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And, you know, this is an artist living in London,
sort of, you know, making dude in a way.

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But it shows just in what she's wearing here, very simply, you
know, an artist who sort of announces her independence,

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her identity and her ambition as a young artist, wearing a velvet jacket that
she had bought with her own earnings and a jumper she had hand knitted.

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So she's confident she's taking up this space.

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And I think that's what comes across in this work is that way that
she, you know, while she's not wearing an artist's mock,

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the way she does an other portrait, she
is announcing herself as an artist.

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So, you know, as we reflect on Evelyn Chapman,
Stella Bowen and gorgeous Nora Heysen,

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you know, it's really interesting to see how the way
a garment is worn and the reason a garment is worn

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and how that kind of gives out this lovely insight into
the artist themselves, the artist as individual.

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And, you know, there's this active agency in the selection of
these garments when an artist is producing a self-portrait.

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It's a very conscious decision about the way that they
will, you know, don these clothes for themselves.

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You know, and it's this kind of very articulation of the fabric and
the sort of feel of cloth, you know, on the body that becomes,

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I mean, especially for Evelyn Chapman, it's like this
assertion of mastery, you know, I can paint.

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You know, and it's, it is these deliberate
decisions by these artists that I love.

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And I'm so glad to share with you today that the way that these three
artists have been able to produce such enduring, engaging works

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that tell us something about the way that they navigated a very
kind of male dominated environment as artists, as profession,

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you know, professional artists working at that time in this very particular
time and space in the first decades of the 19th century.

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Thank you for your time. Join us next Tuesday
for another virtual highlights tour.

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