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Details
- Place where the work was made
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Melbourne
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Victoria
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Australia
- Date
- circa 1955-circa 1956
- Media category
- Watercolour
- Materials used
- pencil, gouache on paper
- Dimensions
- 36.3 x 22.6 cm sheet sight; 57.6 x 43.2 x 3.0 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed l.r. corner., pencil "H.MAUDSLEY". Not dated.
- Credit
- Edward Hamilton Stinson Fund 2019
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 46.2019
- Copyright
- © Helen Maudsley
- Artist information
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Helen Maudsley
Works in the collection
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About
Helen Maudsley is best known for her complex paintings and drawings that are reflections on human relationships and the surrounding world. They are deeply autobiographical pictorial puzzles of intricate personal symbols and motifs constructed into geometric labyrinthine-like compositions.
There are distinct phases in Maudsley’s artistic career. Until 1967 she worked predominantly in gouache, watercolour and ink due to space and time constraints caused by a lack of personal studio in her home whilst raising four young daughters. In 1967 her husband, the artist John Brack moved into a purpose-built studio and Helen inherited his old studio in their house. It was around this time that Maudsley returned to working in oil paint, which she had not used since her student days. Maudsley has continued to make her detailed geometric paintings in oil since then, building them up first with drawings in pencil.
Maudsley’s early works are quite figurative and visually different to her mature geometric oil paintings. This early abstracted nude/skeleton is typical of Maudsley’s early surrealist inspired style.
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Places
Where the work was made
Melbourne
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Exhibition history
Shown in 3 exhibitions
Helen Maudsley, Gallery of Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 1957–1957
Blue Chip XXI: The Collectors Exhibition 2019, Niagara Galleries, Richmond, 05 Mar 2019–06 Apr 2019
20th-Century galleries, ground level (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
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Bibliography
Referenced in 1 publication
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Niagara Galleries, Blue Chip XXI The collectors' exhibition: featuring works from the private collection of Janne Faulkner AM and Bill Faulkner, Richmond, p.42 (colour illus.).
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