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NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA VIRTUAL EXHIBITION
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![]() | Sophia Campbell (1777-1833) Newcastle, Christ Church in the distance c.1818 | |
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| Australian
Women's Art in the National Library's Collections |
| The exhibition Beyond the Picket Fence: Australian women's art in the National Library of Australia was held from 8th March to 4th June 1995. It was opened on the twentieth anniversary of International Women's Day and was one of more than one hundred exhibitions held in Australia in 1995 to celebrate women's activities and creativity. The idea to hold many exhibitions simultaneously around Australia originated with Professor Joan Kerr and the team compiling a major text devoted to Australian women artists entitled: Heritage: the national women's art book. The exhibition was successful and received media coverage, including mention on the front page of the local Canberra paper. The exhibition is mounted on the Internet in order to make images from the National Library's collection more accessible to all users of the Net. Other images from the Pictorial Collection are accessible through the National Library of Australia Information Server. For further information contact Sylvia Carr on scarr@nla.gov.au |
Sophia Campbell's small sketchbook provided the inspiration for the title of this exhibition. Her detailed sketches of her surroundings in early Sydney and Newcastle can be viewed as typical examples of the art generally thought to be practised by colonial ladies. Art was an acceptable pastime pursued within a lifestyle perhaps offering limited diversions. Women artists preferred to depict their immediate surroundings, their homes and their children, often to create a record to be sent 'home' to beloved family. The works in this exhibition, however, clearly show that women artists went beyond the immediate boundaries of their lives-beyond their picket fence to record a vast range of interests with a vitality and enthusiasm which enables these works individually and as a whole to contribute greatly to our knowledge of Australian history and life over the past two hundred years. |
It is significant that 13 of the earliest works held in the Pictorial collection of the National Library are by a woman, Sarah Stone. Sarah never came to Australia, but was employed by Sir Joseph Banks in London to prepare drawings of Australian plants from specimens collected by various scientific expeditions in the late eighteenth century. |
| Sarah
Stone Snake: Muricated lizard 1790 |
Throughout the nineteenth century there are examples of women artists in Australia producing work of a very high quality, usually in watercolour, and most commonly of local scenery and people. Many of these artists are represented in the Library's collections. For example, Susan Fereday painted and drew many scenes in the young colony of Tasmania to send 'home'. She also drew specimens for her husband's scientific work on algae and seaweeds. A keen and widely travelled artist, many of her sketchbooks date from her youth, including some European sketchbooks compiled during an extensive tour of the continent. In Tasmania, she had her own prints of well-known nineteenth-century art works as models for her amateur studies. This practice of collecting prints for copying and reference was a popular one at the time. |
Women artists of the twentieth century are well represented in the Library's collections; works held include paintings in oil and watercolour, prints, photographs and published illustrations. Some of the best-known names are May Gibbs, Nora Heysen, Olive Cotton and Celia Rosser. Perhaps less well known are Eirene Mort, Ida McComish and Betty Temple-Watts. |
The first exhibition devoted solely to the work of women artists took place in 1907, in Melbourne's Exhibition Building, under the patronage of Lady Northcote, the wife of the Governor-General. Lady Northcote considered that women's art had been overlooked and undervalued. Although this is no longer the case, the current series of exhibitions continues the practice of occasionally highlighting the work of women artists. |
![]() M. & N. Hanhart after Elizabeth Hudspeth Eden, Twofold Bay, Australia c. 1855 | May Gibbs The girls I left behind me c. 1916 (detail) | ![]() |
The works selected for Beyond the picket fence are divided into areas which reflect the principal concerns of women artists. The Over the back fence section relates to the home and its environment. Sophia Campbell, a highly gifted amateur artist, recorded daily life as seen from her house. Her watercolour of Newcastle shows Christ Church in 1818, as well as the washing on the line and the gardens of her neighbours. |
The works included in Distant views demonstrate that some artists had a concern with landscape beyond their immediate surroundings, for example the Crear sisters' paintings of Tasmanian mountain scenery in the 1850s. |
![]() May and Mina Moore Melbourne Repertory Theatre Club fancy dress ball 1914 |
Women especially have excelled in children's book illustration. Children's lives includes original drawings for books by Nora Heysen and Elizabeth Durack as well as examples of publications by artists and writers, such as Alison Lester and Oodgeroo Noonuccal. Artists' books features a genre which is popular with women artists and well represented in the National Library's collections. The examples range from a 1932 work by Christian Waller to the very modern works by Irena Sibley, Philippa Webb and Dianne Longley. Night sea crossing by Dianne Longley was created and printed using computer technology and is the most recent work in the exhibition, having been completed in October 1994. Women have always demonstrated a particular flair for highly-detailed intricate work, such as the scientific depiction of natural history subjects. Gardens, plants and birds includes drawings, prints and photographs by artists such as Sarah Stone, Ellis Rowan and Celia Rosser. Human interest is the subject of the last section, Self and others. A large number of contemporary photographs as well as painted portraits and drawings of writers, academics, business people and community leaders is included. A major role of the National Library is to collect portraits of eminent Australians, a strength which is clearly evident in this section. |
![]() Johannah Clyne Crear Ben Lomond, near Tullochgorum c. 1855 |
Marrianne Campbell Waratah, Telopia speciossissima [sic] 1877 |
The works selected from the collections of the National Library for Beyond The Picket Fence demonstrate the skill and versatility of women artists over the past two hundred years. They applied their talents to depict their wide-ranging interests-their homes, their families and the local environment, exotic scenery, scientific preoccupations, the psychological insights of portraiture, the interpretation of literature and the creation of artistic masterpieces. The artists represented in the exhibition include the highly gifted, the skilful amateur, the professionally employed, the lady of leisure; together their works provide a rich and fascinating pictorial record of Australian social and cultural history. |
![]() Anne Clarke (b.1947) Thea Astley, weaver of words 1993 |
Sylvia Carr
Exhibition curator
Burke, Janine, Australian women artists 1840-1940 (Collingwood: Greenhouse, 1980) Hall, Barbara and Jenni Mather, Australian women photographers 1840-1960 (Richmond: Greenhouse, 1986) Hoorn, Jeanette (ed.), Strange women-essays in art and gender (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1994) Kerr, Joan (ed.), The dictionary of Australian artists-painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992) Kerr, Joan (ed.), Heritage: the national women's art book, 500 works by 500 Australian women artists from colonial times to 1955 (Sydney: Art and Australia, 1995) McCulloch, Alan and Susan, The encyclopedia of Australian art (St Leonards: Allen & Unsin, 1994) |
| Search the National Library's Catalogue (The Telnet option must be installed) |
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Main![]()
Introduction![]()
Section 1. Over the Back Fence![]()
Section 2. Distant Views![]()
Section 3. Childrens Lives![]()
Section 4. Artists Books![]()
Section 5. Gardens, Plants and Bird![]()
Section 6. Self and Others
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Copyright