Self-portrait

Tempe Manning was one of a number of artists who had a wider influence on the directions of modern Sydney art during the interwar period than has thus far been recognised. She was one of the talented artists who studied under Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo at his atelier in Sydney from the mid 1910s. Along with her more celebrated peers, including Grace Cossington Smith, Roland Wakelin, Norah Simpson and Roy De Maistre, her work contributed to the first significant phase of modernist culture in this country.

Manning travelled to Europe and studied in Paris in 1912 prior to joining Dattilo-Rubbo's atelier on her return in 1914. While her training in Paris followed academic traditions, Manning's extant Sydney works demonstrate how she had moved away from academism to experimentation in colour painting by 1916. Manning returned to her birthplace, Bowral, by the early 1920s and remained there until her death in 1960, primarily undertaking portrait commissions while occasionally painting nearby rural landscapes. Her style evolved from the flickering paint work and small scale of her early modernist paintings, to the sophisticated modernist realism of this compelling self-portrait.

This remarkable painting was exhibited in the 1939 Archibald Prize exhibition. The artist's strong gaze and casual yet self assured pose indicate her confidence as both subject and author of the work. The finely painted hand and face contrast with the rougher brushstrokes of the clothing and background, depicted in a saturated blue palette, pulling the viewer's focus to these most important parts of the portrait.