Title

Portrait of Lucie Beynis

(1929)

Artist

Grace Crowley

Australia

28 May 1890 – 21 Apr 1979

Artist profile

Details

Other Title

Portrait

Place where the work was made

Paris → France

Date

(1929)

Media category

Painting

Materials used

oil on canvas on hardboard

Dimensions

79.7 x 64.5 cm stretcher; 92.4 x 77.2 x 3.4 cm frame

Signature & date

Signed l.r. corner, pencil? "GRACE CROWLEY [faint]". Not dated.

Credit

Purchased 1965

Location

Not on display

Accession number

OA14.1965

Copyright

© Reproduced with permission of Grace Crowley Estate
Reproduction requests

Artist information

Grace Crowley
Artist profile

Works in the collection

32

Share
About

Completed on the eve of her return to Sydney following four years of study in France, 'Portrait of Lucie Beynis' depicts a professional model whom Crowley painted over a period of four mornings whilst attending L'Academie Lhote in Paris.

Crowley recounted, 'we were united in one belief, the constructive approach to painting, and this insistence of the abstract elements in building up a design was the keynote of teaching with Lhote and Gleizes ... we were discouraged from making merely a faithful record of the nude [model] ... the abstract elements in line, shape and colour were introduced in order to induce the student to construct from it a design within a given space'.

Lhote's modified version of Cubism was one in which the human figure is retained, held within a field of dissecting geometric planes and shafts of colour running through the body. This approach dominated Crowley's semi-abstract paintings during the thirties, until her departure into pure abstraction in the 1940s.
Places

Where the work was made

Paris
Exhibition history
Shown in 10 exhibitions
- Project 4 - Grace Crowley (1975), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 10 May 1975–08 Jun 1975
- Project 21 - Womens images of women (1977), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 Oct 1977–13 Nov 1977
- Two centuries of Australian painting, a selection from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Orange Regional Gallery, Orange, 19 Apr 1986–15 Jun 1986
- Review: works by women from the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 08 Mar 1995–04 Jun 1995
- Parallel Visions: Twenty-two artists from the Australian collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 22 Feb 2002–May 2003
- Grace Crowley: being modern, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 23 Dec 2006–06 May 2007
  
  Grace Crowley: being modern, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 27 Jul 2007–28 Oct 2007
  
  Grace Crowley: being modern, Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, Windsor, 21 Dec 2007–17 Feb 2008
  
  Grace Crowley: being modern, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Mornington, 19 Mar 2008–18 May 2008
  
  Grace Crowley: being modern, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 14 Jun 2008–21 Sep 2008
  
  Grace Crowley: being modern, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 02 Oct 2008–23 Nov 2008
- Australian modern masterpieces from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Ballarat, 05 Oct 2011–27 Nov 2011
  
  Australian modern masterpieces from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle, 10 Dec 2011–04 Mar 2012
- Sydney Moderns, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 06 Jul 2013–07 Oct 2013
- The View from 1919, Tamworth Regional Gallery, Tamworth, 01 Jun 2019–28 Jul 2019
- 20th-Century galleries, ground level (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
Bibliography
Referenced in 20 publications
- Jude Adams, Barbara Hall and Jennifer Barber, Project 21: Women's images of women, Sydney, 1977. cat.no. 12; Collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales
- Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales picturebook, Sydney, 1972, 103 (colour illus.).
- Janine Burke, Australian women artists 1840-1940, Collingwood, 1980, 52, 111 (colour illus.). plate no. 33
- Deborah Edwards, Two centuries of Australian painting: a selection from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 'Introduction', pg. 8-14, Sydney, 1986, 30 (illus.). cat.no. 29
- Deborah Edwards, Australian art: in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 'Moderns', pg. 103-104, Sydney, 2000, 104, 125 (colour illus.), 300.
- Anna Gray, Face: Australian portraits 1880-1960, Canberra, 2010, 98.
- Lesley Harding, Cubism & Australian art, 'L'Esprit Nouveau 1913-1929', pg. 19-47, Melbourne, 2009, 40 (colour illus.).
- Lois Hunter, The Australian art companion - A selection of influential artists, 'Grace Crowley', pg. 98-99, Balgowlah Heights, (1990), 98, 99 (colour illus.).
- Bruce James, Art Gallery of New South Wales handbook, 'Australian Collection: Painting and Sculpture', pg. 102-181, Sydney, 1999, 140 (colour illus.).
- Terence Maloon, Sydney moderns: art for a new world, 'The pedagogy of modern art: the quest for modernity by Australian artists abroad', pg. 239-251, Sydney, 2013, 249 (colour illus.), 311.
- Ewen McDonald, AGNSW Collections, 'From Colonialism to late Modernism', pg. 7-106, Sydney, 1994, 45 (colour illus.).
- Roslyn Russell and Bridget Guthrie (Curators), The view from 1919: a century of the Tamworth Regional Gallery collection, 'Women and modernism', pg. 20-23, Tamworth, 2019, 21 (colour illus.).
- Jane Somerville, Look, 'Setting the record straight', pg. 15-16, Sydney, Mar 2007, 15 (colour illus.).
- Catherine Stuart and Paul Finucane, Odd roads to be walking: 156 women who shaped Australian art, Cork, 2019, 142 (colour illus.).
- Elena Taylor, Grace Crowley: being modern, Canberra, 2006, 21 (colour illus.), 23, 31-32, 59.
- Daniel Thomas AM (Curator), Project 4: Grace Crowley, Sydney, 1975. cat.no. 14
- Natalie Wilson, Parallel visions: works from the Australian collection, 'Grace Crowley / Ralph Balson / Frank Hinder / Margel Hinder', pg. 88-103, Sydney, 2002, 88. 89 (colour illus.), 142, 147.
- Author Unknown, The Australian Womens Diary 1995, 1994, 49, 50 (colour illus.). cat.no. 77. Entry by Janine Burke. Biography by Janine Burke, p. 337-338.
- Editor Unknown (Editor), Art Gallery of New South Wales Quarterly, Sydney, Apr 1965, (illus.).
- Grace Crowley's contribution to Australian modernism and geometric abstraction, 'Paris and André Lhote', pg. 33-35, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2010, 54, 56 (illus.). figure 2.2