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Details
- Date
- 1953
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on hardboard
- Dimensions
- 61.0 x 87.3 cm board; 66.4 x 92.5 x 3.2 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.l. corner, black oil "GRACE CROWLEY -/53".
- Credit
- Bequest of the artist 1980
- Location
- 20th-century galleries (ground floor)
- Accession number
- 126.1980
- Copyright
- © Reproduced with permission of Grace Crowley Estate
- Artist information
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Grace Crowley
Works in the collection
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About
Grace Crowley was a pioneer of abstraction in Australia. After studying in Paris in the late 1920s under the cubist artists André Lhote and Albert Gleizes, she returned to Australia and by 1932 had co-founded one of Sydney’s first modern art schools. Established with fellow artist Rah Fizelle, the school became the principal centre for modernist painting in Sydney until its closure in 1937.
Through her work as both artist and teacher, Crowley influenced a key group of modernists in Sydney and became significant in advancing the city’s contemporary art movements. Her own work was a modified, academic cubism based on planar geometry and dynamic symmetry.
Crowley’s intensely coloured, geometric compositions pulsate with an innate energy, encapsulating her belief in the correspondences between the rhythms of her abstraction and the systems of the universe.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 8 exhibitions
Contemporary Australian Painting - Pacific Loan Exhibition (1956), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 13 Nov 1956–02 Dec 1956
Project 4 - Grace Crowley (1975), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 10 May 1975–08 Jun 1975
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
Spirit and place: art in Australia 1861-1996, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, 21 Nov 1996–31 Mar 1997
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
Know My Name: Australian women artists, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 14 Sep 2020–04 Aug 2021
20th-Century galleries Rehang (Ground Level), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
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Bibliography
Referenced in 6 publications
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Jill Skyes, Look, 'Grace Crowley: a relationship hidden in the archives', pg. 26-27, Sydney, Sep 2010, 26, 27. General reference, article relates to Dianne Ottley's 'Grace Crowley's Contribution to Australian Modernism and Geometric Abstraction'.
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Jane Somerville, Look, 'Setting the record straight', pg. 15-17, Sydney, Mar 2007, 17 (colour illus.).
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Elena Taylor, Grace Crowley: being modern, Canberra, 2006, 4 (colour illus.), 43, 62.
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Daniel Thomas AM (Curator), Project 4: Grace Crowley, Sydney, 1975. cat.no. 35
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Natalie Wilson, Parallel visions: works from the Australian collection, 'Grace Crowley / Ralph Balson / Frank Hinder / Margel Hinder', pg. 88-103, Sydney, 2002, 2 (colour illus., detail), 90, 91 (colour illus.), 142, 147.
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Grace Crowley's contribution to Australian modernism and geometric abstraction, 'Partnership in abstraction', pg. 105-130, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2010, 127, 128 (illus.). figure 5.6
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