Title
The smiling sister (Miss Helen Lawson)
1915
Artist
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Details
- Other Title
- The smiling sister
- Date
- 1915
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 76.0 x 62.0 cm stretcher; 91.7 x 77.0 x 5.5 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.l. corner, brown oil "G.W. LAMBERT/ 1915.".
- Credit
- Purchased 1930
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 6109
- Copyright
- Artist information
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George Lambert
Works in the collection
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About
George Lambert had earned a reputation as a portrait painter in London in the prewar years. Many of his subjects were notable women, and in depicting them Lambert particularly enjoyed the pageantry of costume and colour, often inserting his sitters into compositions inspired by baroque or 19th-century masterpieces.
By comparison, his portrait of Helen Lawson - a volunteer British Red Cross Society nurse who served in London during the war - is relatively subdued. Her inward-clasped hands were an affectation Lambert had begun to explore with his sitters, but Lawson's self-conscious smile almost makes a mockery of this mannerism. Lambert's portrayal of the young nurse in her uniform is a recognition of the important home-front roles played by women during the war.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 4 exhibitions
Society of Artists Annual Exhibition (1921), Education Department Gallery [Loftus Street], Sydney, 10 Sep 1921–01 Oct 1921
George Lambert Memorial Exhibition (1930), Anthony Horderns' Fine Art Gallery, Sydney, 25 Sep 1930–15 Oct 1930
150 years of Australian art (1938), National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 27 Jan 1938–25 Apr 1938
Mad through the darkness: Australian artists and the Great War, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 25 Apr 2015–11 Oct 2015
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Bibliography
Referenced in 8 publications
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Julian Ashton, The Art of George W Lambert, Sydney, 1924, (illus.). plate no. 4
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Lionel Lindsay, 150 years of Australian art, Sydney, 1938.
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Lionel Lindsay, 150 years of Australian art, Sydney, 1938. cat.no. 738 [Gallery No. 7]
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Charles Marriott, Modern Art 1919 Series, London, 1919, (colour illus.). plate no. XLV
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Charles Marriott, Masterpieces of Modern Art, London, (colour illus.).
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Editor Unknown (Editor), The Sydney Morning Herald, 'George Lambert. Purchases of His Works', Sydney, 23 Sep 1930, 4.
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Editor Unknown (Editor), Colour magazine, Westminster, Nov 1917, front cover (colour illus.). titled 'Miss Helen Lawson'
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Editor Unknown (Editor), The Sydney morning herald, 'Society of Artists: the Spring exhibition', pg. 6, Sydney, 09 Sep 1921, 6.
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