The new charge: Australian women modernists is a Lismore Regional Gallery project which showcases and celebrates the work of a group of influential female Australian artists: Grace Cossington Smith, Thea Proctor, Margaret Preston, Clarice Beckett, Ethel Spowers, Alison Rehfisch, Jean de Courtenay Isherwood and Edna Jane McKenzie.
The core focus of the exhibition is on a work by Thea Proctor that was donated to the Gallery in 1969, three years after the artists death. Proctor was an important artist active in the time between the world wars, and after travelling to Europe returned to Australia and bought with her a new way of working which pushed the boundaries of experimentation in Australian art. During this time she became a dominant figure who helped transform Australian art from the male-dominated, rural depictions of the Australian landscape, to a view that further explored the energy of everyday life from a female perspective.
While based on Proctor’s background, The new charge also includes work by a range of female artists of her era, as well as some more unusual artists from the collection.
Curated by Brett Addlington, the exhibition also takes the opportunity to validate the worth of regional collections, with loans coming from Bathurst Regional Gallery, Orange Regional Gallery, Benalla Art Gallery, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Manly Art Gallery & Museum, and Tweed River Art Gallery. Further loans have also been sourced through Philip Bacon Galleries.
February 9 to April 7, 2013
Lismore Regional Gallery
New South Wales
Image:
Thea Proctor, The Tame Bird, 1924, lithograph on paper, 29.5 x 29.5cm
Permanent Collection Lismore Regional Gallery, kindly donated by Elsin Carter.
