Clarice Beckett
Encyclopedia
Clarice Majoribanks Beckett (21 March 1887 – 7 July 1935) was an Australia
n painter born in Casterton, Victoria
. Her works are featured in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia
, National Gallery of Victoria
and the Art Gallery of South Australia
.
.
She was a boarder at Queen's College, Ballarat until 1903, before spending a year at Melbourne Church of England Girls' Grammar School. She showed artistic ability, and after leaving school took private lessons in charcoal drawing at Ballarat. In 1914 she went to Melbourne’s National Gallery School, completing three years of study under Frederick McCubbin
before continuing her studies under Max Meldrum
, whose controversial theories became a pivotal factor in her own art practice.
In 1919 her parents moved from Bendigo to the bayside suburb of Beaumaris and, with their health failing, Beckett assumed household responsibilities that virtually dictated the structure of the rest of her life, severely limiting her artistic endeavour. Beckett could only go out during the dawn and dusk to paint as most of her day was spent caring for them.
bayside suburb of Beaumaris
, where she lived for most of her life, caring for her ailing parents during the day and spending time around dawn and dusk painting. She was one of the first of her group to use a painting trolley, or mobile easel to make it easier to paint outdoors in different locations.
Max Meldrum once stated, "There would never be a great woman artist and there never had been. Woman had not the capacity to be alone." It is believed this categorizes the overall opinion at the time; Beckett was continually put down by the critics and sold little in her lifetime.
It may not have been recognized at the time, but It is believed that Beckett had the capacity to be alone. We can see from her history that although she was kept at home for most of the day to care for her sickening parents, she still had time for her, to go out and paint whatever she wanted to.
Beckett continued to paint mists, sunsets and fogs. Whatever she felt about her political handling by the critics she made no comment but with quiet determination and spirit she persisted in painting nature as she saw it.
She produced a style of painting with a simplicity and originality that set her apart from any other artist working in Australia at that time. She took subject matter from what she found around her environment, often selecting seemingly unattractive subjects which most painters would not have bothered with. Melbourne gallery owner Rosalind Hollinrake wrote, "She could translate a strip of wet, tar-sealed suburban road bordered by telegraph poles into a breathing, atmospheric and beautiful reality, stated as honestly as paint could allow."
Beckett was accused of lack of colour, possibly because people missed the brightness of the expected primary reds, yellows and blues. Yet throughout her entire period of painting, her sunsets, sunrises, and many landscapes show her to have an incredible colour sense. Her greys offer such variety of tone that the absence of the other colour is not felt.
is characterized by a particular "misty" or atmospheric quality created by the Meldrum painting method of building "tone on tone". Tonalism developed from Meldrum’s "Scientific theory of Impressions"; claiming that social decadence had given artists an exaggerated interest in colour and, to their detriment, were paying less attention to tone and proportion. Art, he said, should be a pure science based on optical analysis; its sole purpose being to place on the canvas the first ordered tonal impressions that the eye received. All adornments and narrative and literary references should be rejected.
Tonalism opposed Post-Impressionism
and Modernism
, and is now regarded as a precursor to Minimalism
and Conceptualism
. The whole movement had been under fierce controversy and they were without doubt the most unpopular group of artists, in the eyes of most other artists, in the history of Australian art. Influential Melbourne artist and teacher George Bell
described Australian Tonalism as a "cult which muffles everything in a pall of opaque density". The derogatory term "Meldrumites" was born, along with "Meldrum mud slinging" which related to the limited palette his students were encouraged to use in their early years.
aged 48. She was buried in the Cheltenham
Memorial Park (Wangara Road) not far from another noted female artist, Mary Vale.
By a chance encounter in the 1960’s Rosalind Hollinrake discovered some mysterious but compelling canvases signed C.Beckett. Embarking upon a search for the identity behind this unfamiliar name, her quest eventually led her to an open-sided barn in the Victorian countryside – and the horrible sight of 1200 rotting Clarice Beckett paintings, the majority of which had been destroyed by almost 40 years of exposure to the elements.
In these cityscapes, if you examine closely you can see how thinly the paint has been applied, how quickly the image has been formed to capture the moment of an emerging modern world of motor cars, electric lights, and telephone poles. Examining how each delicately placed brushstroke works together; we are granted a glimpse of Beckett’s private world, formed at a time when she was free to be alone with her thoughts and her paint.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n painter born in Casterton, Victoria
Casterton, Victoria
Casterton is a town in Victoria, Australia, located on the Glenelg Highway, 42 kilometres east of the South Australian border, in the Shire of Glenelg. The Glenelg River passes through the town...
. Her works are featured in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
, National Gallery of Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
and the Art Gallery of South Australia
Art Gallery of South Australia
The Art Gallery of South Australia , located on the cultural boulevard of North Terrace in Adelaide, is the premier visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of over 35,000 works of art, making it, after the National Gallery of Victoria, the largest state...
.
Early life
Beckett was born in Casterton, Victoria, the daughter of Joseph Clifden Beckett, a bank manager, and his wife Elizabeth Kate, née Brown. Her grandfather was John Brown, a Scottish master builder who had designed and built Como House and its gardens in South Yarra, VictoriaSouth Yarra, Victoria
South Yarra is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 4 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area are the Cities of Stonnington and Melbourne...
.
She was a boarder at Queen's College, Ballarat until 1903, before spending a year at Melbourne Church of England Girls' Grammar School. She showed artistic ability, and after leaving school took private lessons in charcoal drawing at Ballarat. In 1914 she went to Melbourne’s National Gallery School, completing three years of study under Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin was an Australian painter who was prominent in the Heidelberg School, one of the more important periods in Australia's visual arts history....
before continuing her studies under Max Meldrum
Max Meldrum
Duncan Max Meldrum was a Scottish born Australian painter. He is known as the founder of Australian Tonalism, a representational style of painting, as well as his portrait work, for which he won the Archibald Prize in 1939 and 1940.-Early Life and Training:Meldrum was born in Edinburgh, Scotland,...
, whose controversial theories became a pivotal factor in her own art practice.
In 1919 her parents moved from Bendigo to the bayside suburb of Beaumaris and, with their health failing, Beckett assumed household responsibilities that virtually dictated the structure of the rest of her life, severely limiting her artistic endeavour. Beckett could only go out during the dawn and dusk to paint as most of her day was spent caring for them.
Work
Beckett is recognised as one of Australia's most important modernist artists. Despite a talent for portraiture and a keen public appreciation for her still lifes, Beckett preferred the solo, outdoor process of painting landscapes. She relentlessly painted sea and beachscapes, rural and suburban scenes, often enveloped in the atmospheric effects of early mornings or evening. Her subjects were often drawn from the MelbourneMelbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
bayside suburb of Beaumaris
Beaumaris, Victoria
Beaumaris is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 20 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Bayside. At the 2006 Census, Beaumaris had a population of 12,441....
, where she lived for most of her life, caring for her ailing parents during the day and spending time around dawn and dusk painting. She was one of the first of her group to use a painting trolley, or mobile easel to make it easier to paint outdoors in different locations.
Max Meldrum once stated, "There would never be a great woman artist and there never had been. Woman had not the capacity to be alone." It is believed this categorizes the overall opinion at the time; Beckett was continually put down by the critics and sold little in her lifetime.
It may not have been recognized at the time, but It is believed that Beckett had the capacity to be alone. We can see from her history that although she was kept at home for most of the day to care for her sickening parents, she still had time for her, to go out and paint whatever she wanted to.
Formal qualities
A critic from The Age, 2 September 1924, wrote—One would imagine from the little scenes that Miss Beckett has gathered, in the name of Australian art, that Australia was in a continual state of fog – all kinds of fogs – pink, blue, green and grey with an occasional mist that surely was never on land or sea. Miss Beckett is probably feeling her way through the fogs and no doubt she will […] at least rise above the dreariness which characterizes her paintings at present.
Beckett continued to paint mists, sunsets and fogs. Whatever she felt about her political handling by the critics she made no comment but with quiet determination and spirit she persisted in painting nature as she saw it.
She produced a style of painting with a simplicity and originality that set her apart from any other artist working in Australia at that time. She took subject matter from what she found around her environment, often selecting seemingly unattractive subjects which most painters would not have bothered with. Melbourne gallery owner Rosalind Hollinrake wrote, "She could translate a strip of wet, tar-sealed suburban road bordered by telegraph poles into a breathing, atmospheric and beautiful reality, stated as honestly as paint could allow."
Beckett was accused of lack of colour, possibly because people missed the brightness of the expected primary reds, yellows and blues. Yet throughout her entire period of painting, her sunsets, sunrises, and many landscapes show her to have an incredible colour sense. Her greys offer such variety of tone that the absence of the other colour is not felt.
Australian Tonalism
Australian TonalismAustralian Tonalism
Australian Tonalism was an art movement that emerged in Melbourne during the interwar period. Its main exponent was Max Meldrum, whose theory of building "tone on tone" and objective optical analysis led to the development of a unique style of painting characterized by a "misty" or atmospheric...
is characterized by a particular "misty" or atmospheric quality created by the Meldrum painting method of building "tone on tone". Tonalism developed from Meldrum’s "Scientific theory of Impressions"; claiming that social decadence had given artists an exaggerated interest in colour and, to their detriment, were paying less attention to tone and proportion. Art, he said, should be a pure science based on optical analysis; its sole purpose being to place on the canvas the first ordered tonal impressions that the eye received. All adornments and narrative and literary references should be rejected.
Tonalism opposed Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
and Modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
, and is now regarded as a precursor to Minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
and Conceptualism
Conceptualism
Conceptualism is a philosophical theory that explains universality of particulars as conceptualized frameworks situated within the thinking mind. Intermediate between Nominalism and Realism, the conceptualist view approaches the metaphysical concept of universals from a perspective that denies...
. The whole movement had been under fierce controversy and they were without doubt the most unpopular group of artists, in the eyes of most other artists, in the history of Australian art. Influential Melbourne artist and teacher George Bell
George Bell (painter)
George Frederick Henry Bell was an Australian painter.He was born in Kew, Victoria, the son of George Bell, a public servant, and educated at Kew High School. He studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1895-1903...
described Australian Tonalism as a "cult which muffles everything in a pall of opaque density". The derogatory term "Meldrumites" was born, along with "Meldrum mud slinging" which related to the limited palette his students were encouraged to use in their early years.
Death
While painting the wild sea off Beaumaris during a big storm in 1935, Beckett developed pneumonia and died four days later in a hospital at SandringhamSandringham
Sandringham can refer to:Places*Sandringham, Johannesburg, a suburb of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa*Sandringham, Norfolk, a village in Norfolk, England*Sandringham House in the aforementioned village, owned by the British Royal Family...
aged 48. She was buried in the Cheltenham
Cheltenham
Cheltenham , also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a large spa town and borough in Gloucestershire, on the edge of the Cotswolds in the South-West region of England. It is the home of the flagship race of British steeplechase horse racing, the Gold Cup, the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held...
Memorial Park (Wangara Road) not far from another noted female artist, Mary Vale.
Recovered works
Her work, which had never been acquired for a public collection, was placed in storage, or remained hidden in private collections, and both the artist and the significance of her talent became largely lost to memory.By a chance encounter in the 1960’s Rosalind Hollinrake discovered some mysterious but compelling canvases signed C.Beckett. Embarking upon a search for the identity behind this unfamiliar name, her quest eventually led her to an open-sided barn in the Victorian countryside – and the horrible sight of 1200 rotting Clarice Beckett paintings, the majority of which had been destroyed by almost 40 years of exposure to the elements.
In these cityscapes, if you examine closely you can see how thinly the paint has been applied, how quickly the image has been formed to capture the moment of an emerging modern world of motor cars, electric lights, and telephone poles. Examining how each delicately placed brushstroke works together; we are granted a glimpse of Beckett’s private world, formed at a time when she was free to be alone with her thoughts and her paint.