The other Cosssingtons, her own birthplace in Neutral Bay, Sydney, her mother’s rectory home in England. Daniel Ben-Sefer - 21st yearly Blog Entry! The National Gallery of Victoria acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Melbourne, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, NGV School and Community Support Programs, International Audience Engagement Network (IAE), How is the artist’s excitement about the construction of the bridge revealed in her painting. Did King Richard III Want To Marry His Own Niece, Elizabeth of York? 1. The painting depicts the Sydney Harbour Bridge during its construction. Grace Cossington Smith, Quaker Girl, 1915, Lewisham. . NGV touchscreen research, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2002–2003. Cossington Smith famously said that ‘My chief interest I think has always been colour, but not flat crude colour, it must be colour within colour, it has to shine: light must be in it.’ ( Grace Cossington Smith , interview with Hazel de Berg, 16 August 1965, National Library of Australia Archives). B. Smith, Two Centuries of Australian Art, Fishermans Bend, 2003. ‘I was taken by the lighting, dark out, light inside; I’m sorry I didn’t do a painting. Dresses on hangers waiting to be warmed by sunlight when the mirror-door opens (as in a marvellous coloured-pencil sketchbook drawing in the Gallery collection). Grace Cossington Smith (1892-1984) was born at Neutral Bay in Sydney. 20 April 1892 Also known as Grace Smith Artist (Painter), Artist (Draughtsman), Artist (Cartoonist / Illustrator) Painter, born in Neutral Bay, Sydney. Grace Cossington Smith. Grace Cossington Smith (1892-1984), artist, was born on 20 April 1892 at Cossington, Neutral Bay, Sydney, second of five children of Ernest Smith, London-born crown solicitor, and his wife Grace, née Fisher, daughter of the rector and squire of Cossington, Leicestershire. Cossington Smith celebrates the Sydney Harbour Bridge as a powerful symbol of technology and modernity. In Interior 1958 the rich tones and draperies show Cossington Smith’s appreciation of early Italian painting, which she saw in Europe. Nevertheless, several scholars have observed abstract tendencies in Cossington Smith’s mature works, citing her renewed focus upon painterly surface and 'colour as form'.16 Ultimately, however, Cossington Smith never abandoned figuration entirely: the subjects of her paintings are always readily discernible. If any relatives of Grace see this do get in touch!Thanks for the great post. In the absence of conventional perspective, Cossington Smith has adjusted her distribution of colour to convey a softening and sharpening of focus. Putting it down on Paper: Restoring a Vintage Desktop Blotter, Fouquier-Tinville: Purveyor to the Guillotine, The Wye Valley – what to see, where to eat and stay on your picturesque Wye Tour, The Unbreakable Spirits of Black Gospel During Funerals, When an Englishman Met a Napoleonic Captain in Restoration France, Getting Ready for Its Close-Up: Former Temple Freda in Bryan, Texas, to be Restored, Outstanding New Books for Garden Inspiration, Houseplants for All How to Fill Any Home with Happy Plants by Danae Horst Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Watts Gallery and Artists’ Village Highlights. It is the artist’s bedroom, formerly her parents’, in the house that had been her home for 50 years. Like the ecstatic, abstract draperies that fill old master religious paintings, the rumpled bed cover and cloths are devices that connect the spectator to a surge of visual and emotional energy. Text © National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, Explore museums and play with Art Transfer, Pocket Galleries, Art Selfie, and more. At first glance, the vibrant Post-Impressionist flavour of Cossington Smith’s paintings of the 1950s and 60s would appear to be somewhat removed from concurrent developments in modern art. If a sentence is taken from this blog and used elsewhere, the reference needs to be appropriately cited. Emphasis added by the author. In Interior 1958 the rich tones and draperies show Cossington Smith’s appreciation of early Italian painting, which she saw in Europe. I'm researching Grace Cossington Smith as amazingly I just discovered she sketched the room I'm typing this from!