by Paula Wilson
In 1970 art collector Rosalind Hollinrake approached a shed in rural Victoria, Australia. She was searching for paintings by forgotten Melbourne artist Clarice Beckett. Rosalind discovered a treasure trove of about 2000 pieces. Unfortunately when she inspected her find nearly two thirds of the paintings had been destroyed by weather and rodents.
Clarice Beckett was born at Casterton in Victoria on 21 March 1887. Her father was a banker and her mother the daughter of the designer of Como house. Clarice was their second child. She had an older brother who died when Clarice was twelve, and a younger sister Hilda.
Clarice was born with a faulty heart valve but this did not affect her health and when old enough she attended the local primary school before boarding at Queen’s College in Ballarat. She was later joined in Ballarat by her mother and sister when she came down with measles and was at risk of being hospitalised. It was at this time that Clarice began to develop her artistic qualities by taking up dancing and art classes, mainly charcoal drawing.
In 1903 her father was transferred to Melbourne and the family joined him there. They lived in South Yarra and Clarice completed her final year of school at Merton Hall.
In 1905 Clarice made her debut and it was expected she would meet and marry an eligible young man. But Clarice had no intentions of following tradition. Although the family moved to Bendigo Clarice’s preference was Melbourne with its bookshops and art world. She would regularly travel between the two destinations until, in 1914, she enrolled in the National Gallery School and resided in St Kilda.
She studied drawing under renowned artist Frederick McCubbin, until he retired in 1917, and in her first year received a prize for that medium. It was recommended that she further her studies with Max Meldrum and he became a major influence upon her.
Most of Clarice’s paintings were done outdoors. She used everyday street scenes that other artists of the day were ignoring; a wet Melbourne street with the vague hint of a tram, or street lights. A beach road with a line of telegraph poles. Clarice’s paintings are done in greyish tones and devoid of hard lines. They have a magical feel to them as if there is something to be found within their mistiness. Even the colourful bathing boxes of Brighton are toned down.
Clarice was the first artist to paint St Kilda’s Lunar Park. It had been open for seven years when she chose it as her subject matter in 1919. Later many famous artists, including Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and Arthur Boyd would immortalise it in their own distinctive styles.
That same year her family moved to the bayside suburb of Beaumaris where Clarice joined them. Many of her paintings depict this area and she was regularly seen with her handmade cart full of equipment. Amazingly, even though she painted over 2000 pieces she never had her own studio.
Hilda and Clarice had always been close but in 1923 Hilda married and went to live on a farm in the Mallee. They were to see very little of each other from then on.
1923 was also the year of Clarice’s first solo exhibition. Held at the Athenaeum Gallery in Melbourne she would exhibit there every year until 1933. Her work drew mixed responses from the leading critics some full of praise while others were extremely harsh.
In 1934 Clarice’s time was severely restricted when her mother had a stroke. She had been caring for her parents for a number of years, but even more time was now lost as she nursed her mother who died three weeks later. Clarice continued to care for her father while going out early mornings and evenings to continue her large portfolio of work.
In the winter of Melbourne’s centenary year, 1935, Clarice contracted pneumonia after getting caught in a storm while painting it. She did not recover and died on 7 July aged 48.
Her sister and father organised one final exhibition and then her paintings were buried away in the open sided shed on Hilda’s property. Left there to rot until Rosalind Hollinrake came along.
Rosalind collected up what she could, located others and launched Clarice’s first exhibition in over thirty-five years. No longer forgotten her works have since been regularly exhibited, and appear in the National Galleries of Australia, Victoria, and South Australia. She is now regarded as one of Australia’s finest artists.
© Paula Wilson 2010
This entry was posted by pwilson on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Yesterday's Women.
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