Still life with irises

Bessie Davidson began her studentship in Adelaide but it was in France that her career flourished. She trained as a pupil of Margaret Preston (then MacPherson) in Adelaide in around 1899. The pair subsequently lived, travelled and worked together for nearly a decade. Davidson and Preston first travelled to Europe in 1904–06 to build on their academic painting practice. Initially studying in Munich, they travelled to Paris in November 1904. They arrived at a time of extraordinary artistic foment, and after the initial shock of the culture of the new, Davidson sought to align her painting to the work of modern European artists.

After a few years back in Adelaide, Davidson returned to Europe in 1910 and remained in France until her death in 1965. Working in Paris, she achieved notable critical success and was an active member of various organisations including the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and later La Société Femmes Artistes Modernes and the Société Nationale Indépendentes. In 1931, her contribution to French culture was honoured when she was appointed to the Légion d'honneur.

'Still life with Irises' c1920 reveals Davidson’s artistic powers as a modern colour painter and tells of the indelible impact of French post-impressionist painting on her work. While holding to forms of realism, Davidson has here conceived her art in terms of the expressive and constructive capacities of colour. Her dazzling palette of purple and greens is orchestrated in a densely structured compositional space of vividly worked surface textures. Davidson’s mosaic-like application of paint with a palette knife furthers the vitality of colour, instilling a sense of pulsating movement to the still life forms.