Elisabeth Cummings

Last updated

Elisabeth Cummings (born 1934, Brisbane) is an Australian artist known for her large abstract paintings and printmaking. She has won numerous awards including Fleurieu Art Prize, The Portia Geach Portrait Prize, The Mosman Art Prize, and The Tattersalls Art Prize. Her work is owned in permanent collections across Australia including Artbank, The Queensland Art Gallery, The Gold Coast City Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She is notable for receiving recognition later in her career, considered by the Australian Art Collector as one of the 50 most collectible Australian Artists.

Contents

Early life

Elisabeth Cummings was born on 3 June 1934 in Brisbane, Queensland. During the Second World War Cumming’s family evacuated Brisbane and lived in the country before returning to live in Alderley. The family home in Alderley was surrounded by bushlands. [1] The Cummings family owned a holiday home at Currumbin on the Gold Coast where Cummings, as a child, would paint watercolour landscapes. Currumbin and the Australian bush are now regular subjects in her landscape paintings. [1] Cummings and her brother, Malcolm, would draw still lifes constructed by their mother, who was a primary school teacher, until her father said "let the kids draw what they want.” Cummings’ father, Robert Cummings, was an architect, a Professor of Architecture at the University of Queensland, [1] an art collector and trustee of the Queensland Art Gallery. Cummings would regularly attend paint workshops run by Australian Artist Vida Lahey at the Queensland Art Gallery. [1]

Education

During her youth, the Cummings home was visited frequently by artists including Donald Friend, and Len and Kathleen Shillam. [2] Cummings initially wanted to pursue architectural training but decided to enroll in art school after meeting and painting with Margaret Cilento. [2] She studied at the National Art School, then known as East Sydney Technical College, from 1953 to 1957 [3] where she was educated by artists Douglas Dundas, Wallace Thornton, Dorothy Thornhill, Godfrey Miller and Ralph Balson. [1] [4] At art school, Cummings was exposed to the work of fellow young Australian artists which she found to be formative to her practice. The artists Cummings cites as influential during this period include Grace Cossington Smith, Margaret Preston, Fred Williams, Russell Drysdale, Sydney Nolan, John Olsen and Jimmy Rose. [4] [1]

In 1958, Cummings received the NSW Traveling Art Scholarship and in 1960 the Dyason Bequest, both of which facilitated her travel through Europe for the next decade. [5] [6] In 1961 she studied at Kokoschka’s School of Vision run by Oskar Kokoschka in Salzburg, Austria [1] before travelling to Florence, Italy. She spent the next 10 years living and studying between Italy and Paris. In Florence she shared a villa with other artists, where she met her husband, fellow painting student Jamie Barker. [1] Cumming’s work was informed by European and Australian predecessors such as Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Édouard Vuillard and Margaret Olley. [4] In 1968, she returned to Australia and settled in Sydney. [7] In 1969 she started teaching at East Sydney Technical College on a part-time basis. [7]

Work

Elisabeth Cummings is a multi-disciplinary artist and celebrated colourist painter, working within painting, printmaking, drawing and ceramics. Inspired by the Australian bush, and a sense of place and memory, which are themes in Cumming’s semi-abstract landscapes, interiors and still life paintings. [8] Cumming’s starts her paintings by drawing multiple quick sketches of the scene which form the basis for her final full-sized work. [1] John McDonald describes her painting style as "[t]hick, heavily worked, painterly surfaces with complex marks and intense colour". [8] Notable paintings from Cummings body of work include interiors, Journey Through The Studio painted in 2004 and Inside The Yellow Room, 2005. Her landscape paintings include Arkaroola landscape, 2005, which was rejected from the Wynne Prize, [9] Edge of the Simpson Desert , 2011 and Wynne Prize finalist Monaro Shadow and Light, 2015.

Early work

Elisabeth Cummings worked part-time as an art teacher from 1969 to 2001 at multiple art colleges including the City Art Institute, Sydney (1975 to 1987) and the National Art School of Sydney. [10] She continued painting independently during this time, winning awards such as the 1974 Grafton Prize and the 1977 Landscape and Still Life Prizes, RAS. [10] Elisabeth Cummings has lived and worked at her Wedderburn studio residence since 1976.

Later work

Elisabeth Cummings has been called ‘The Invisible Woman of Australian Art’ [11] as she worked quietly and independently in her studio for 43 years with limited recognition. [7] Cummings was unaffected by the lack of coverage of her work, stating "I like anonymity." [11] She held her first Retrospective Exhibition "Elisabeth Cummings 65-96" at age 62 in Campbelltown Art Gallery, New South Wales. [10] In 2012 Cummings exhibited her second Retrospective ‘Luminous: Survey Exhibition Landscapes of Elizabeth Cummings’ at the SH [12] Ervin, Observatory Hill, Sydney. [12] Now, Elisabeth Cumming’s works are a part of many major and regional Australian public collections including the National Gallery of Australia; the Art Gallery of New South Wales; The Queensland Art Gallery and Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney. [5] In 2011 Elisabeth Cummings, at age 77, was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in recognition for her services to the visual arts in Australia. [10] In 2018 Cummings was the subject of Noel Thurgate’s portrait Elisabeth Cummings in her studio at Wedderburn, 1974 and 2018, which was a finalist for the 2018 Archibald Portraiture Prize. [13]

Cummings is a frequent traveller and has participated in international and national artist residencies and exhibitions. In 2014, at age 81, participated in an artist residency and exhibition at The Nock Art Foundation in Hong Kong. In the same year Cummings, in a group of nine Australian artists, held a group exhibition at the Waiheke Arts Centre during their residency in Waiheke, New Zealand. Cummings was involved in the travelling exhibition YOUR FRIEND THE ENEMY along with fifteen Australian and New Zealand Artists. The artists were invited to Gallipoli, Turkey to paint the shores of Anzac Cove. [5]

Printmaking

In 2001 Cummings expanded into printmaking, specifically etching. [14] She became involved in printmaking through a workshop with Michael Kempson at Cicada Press, a studio associated with UNSW Art & Design in Sydney. Cummings participated in a program whereby artists print with the assistance of students. Other notable participants include Reg Mombassa and Euan Macleod. [15] Cummings has since visited Cicada Press weekly to work with Kempson. [16] Her print work explores similar concerns to her painting, primarily landscape and interiors. [14] Cummings also created monoprints through Whaling Road Studios. [17] The Cruthers Collection of Women's Art at the University of Western Australia hold three lithographs, Studio, 1986, Dappled bush, 1995 and Windy bush, 1995, and a silkscreen print Billabong , 1999 by Cummings. [18] In 2017 Cummings donated a comprehensive archival collection of 85 of her prints and etchings to the New England Regional Art Museum. [19]

Ceramics

Cummings has also explored ceramics and sculpture in the form of small-scale interior sets with figures crafted in clay. [20] These were created together with Lino Alvarez. [7] Cummings has also made small scale figurative sculptures out of bronze. In 2012 she collaborated with Louise Boscacci to make translucent porcelain plates and platters on which Cummings painted. [17] The flat shape of the plates was chosen to reflect the salt encrusted clay pans of northern Queensland. The project "Cicada Waterfall" was named for the cicadas that can be heard in the bush at Cummings Wedderburn home. These pieces were exhibited in 2014 at King Street Gallery in Sydney as part of Cummings exhibition Elisabeth Cummings: A Still Life. [21]

Wedderburn

In 1970, Cummings began camping in a tent on bushland land owned by Barbara and Nick Romalis at Wedderburn outside Sydney. [1] Ten acres of land was gifted to Cummings by the Romalis to be used for the building of an art studio. [1] Cummings was joined by artists John Peart, Roy Jackson, Joan Brassil, Suzanne Archer and David Fairbairn. [3] The group then purchased another 15 acres. [22] The move to Wedderburn coincided with a move towards gestural abstraction in her paintings, with Cummings privileging the painting process over the subject matter. [23] Both Cummings and Peart have been involved in campaigns to protect the environment of Wedderburn from development. [5] [1] In 1994 Cummings a small studio was destroyed by bushfires, along with significant amounts of work. [6] Fellow long time resident John Peart died as the result of smoke inhalation as the result of the fire. [24] Following the fire, Cummings built a larger studio attached to her mud brick house on the land. [11] [25] Her 2001 painting After the Fire, Wedderburn depicts the aftermath of the fires. [25]

Collections

Solo exhibitions

Awards and art residencies

Selected exhibition catalogues

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Olley</span> Australian artist (1923–2011)

Margaret Hannah Olley was an Australian painter. She held over ninety solo exhibitions during her lifetime.

Wedderburn is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Wedderburn is located 57 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Campbelltown and is part of the Macarthur region.

Geoffrey Robert Proud, although having had no formal training, held his first solo exhibition at the age of sixteen, and has had his work exhibited in all states with over 80 solo exhibitions and in excess of 100 group exhibitions to his credit. Though he is best known for his painting, he also gained significant attention for etchings, lithographs and sculptural work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Udo Sellbach</span>

Udo Sellbach (1927–2006) was a German-Australian visual artist and educator whose work focused primarily around his printmaking practice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Ollis</span> Australian artist and painter (born 1951)

Bernard Ollis OAM is a British-Australian artist, painter and advocate for arts education. He lives and works in Sydney and Paris.

Alice Lang is an Australian contemporary artist. She works and lives in Los Angeles, CA. Lang has mounted many solo exhibitions of her work, and participated extensively in group exhibitions. She has held residencies in Canada, New York, and Los Angeles.

Lucy Culliton is an Australian artist, based in Hartley. She is known for her paintings of landscapes and still life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linde Ivimey</span> Australian sculptor (born 1965)

Linde Ivimey is an Australian sculptor.

The Wedderburn artistic community is an informal group of Australian contemporary artists based around Wedderburn, New South Wales, on Sydney sandstone bushland about 60 kilometres south of Sydney, close to the Georges River. Artists based around Wedderburn include Elisabeth Cummings, Roy Jackson, John Peart, David Hawkes, Suzanne Archer, David Fairbairn, Michael Bright and others. Artists associated with the group have won many major Australian art prizes, including the Wynne Prize, the Sir John Sulman Prize, the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, the Dobell Prize for Drawing, and the Fleurieu Art Prize.

John Peart was an Australian contemporary artist. Peart won the Wynne Prize in 1997, the Sulman Prize in 2000, and was twice a finalist for the Archibald Portrait Prize.

Roy Jackson (1944–2013) was an Australian contemporary artist, one of a group of artists based at Widden Weddin, Wedderburn. His work is part of the permanent collections of Artbank, the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the National Gallery of Victoria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judy Watson</span> Australian artist

Judy Watson is an Australian Waanyi multi-media artist who works in print-making, painting, video and installation. Her work often examines Indigenous Australian histories, and she has received a number of high profile commissions for public spaces.

Jennifer Watson is an Australian artist known for her paintings that combine text and images.

Normana Wight is an Australian artist, best known as a painter and printmaker.

Ann Thomson is an Australian painter and sculptor. She is best known for her large-scale public commissions Ebb Tide (1987) for the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre and Australia Felix (1992) for the Seville World Expo. In 1998 she won the [Art Gallery of New South Wales' Wynne Prize. Her work is held in national and international collections, including: the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid and Villa Haiss Museum, Germany.

Shirley Anne Macnamara is an Australian Indigenous artist from the Indjilanji/Alyewarre language group of North West Queensland best known for her woven spinifex sculptures.

Rita Joan Brassil (1919–2005) was an Australian artist who worked with many elements – light, sound, stones and gravel, printed poems, and electronics – to create installation art works that relate to nature. She began exhibiting her work in 1976, after she retired from teaching art in high schools. She participated in many solo and group exhibitions across Australia as well as in Taiwan and Italy. Brassil was one of the first artists to receive the Australia Council for the Arts' Visual Arts/Craft Board Emeritus Award in 1988. On 26 January 2000 Joan was awarded an AM for service to the visual arts in Australia and overseas as a sculptor.

Narputta Nangala Jugadai (1933–2010) was an Aboriginal Australian artist born at Karrkurutinytja, who later lived at Haasts Bluff (Ikuntji) in the Northern Territory. Her language group was Pintupi/Pitjantjatjara, and her Dreaming was "Snake", "Jangala, Two Men" and "Two Women". She was a senior artist in her community at Ikuntji and prominent among the Ikuntji Women's Centre painters. She was the wife of the painter, Timmy Tjungurrayi Jugadai, and mother of Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri and Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri.

Savanhdary Vongpoothorn is a Laotian-born Australian visual artist. She immigrated with her parents as a seven-year old, and through studies and travel has integrated Laotian, Vietnamese and Australian influences in her art. Her art reflects cross-cultural influences in contemporary Australia as she fuses her personal experiences, dual cultures, and painterly abstraction. She has exhibited widely in Australia and Singapore, and her works are held in major state and regional galleries across Australia. She was a finalist in the Sir John Sulman Prize 2016 and the Moet & Chandon art prize in 1998. She lives and works in Canberra.

Shay Docking (1928–1998) was an Australian artist who specialised in landscape drawing.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "Elisabeth Cummings". Artist Profile. 23 February 2017. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  2. 1 2 "A Searching Brush" (PDF). National Trust Magazine. 2017.
  3. 1 2 "LUMINOUS: THE LANDSCAPES OF ELISABETH CUMMINGS" (PDF). National Trust S.H. Ervin Gallery.
  4. 1 2 3 Barnes, John (17 March 2018). "Elisabeth Cummings: Doing it her way". Newcastle Herald. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Elisabeth Cummings" (PDF). King Street Gallery. 2015.
  6. 1 2 "Artist Elisabeth Cummings at the pinnacle of her career". Australian Financial Review. 20 November 2015. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Elisabeth Cummings: Being Timeless". Art Collector Magazine. 21 October 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  8. 1 2 Reeves, Kerry-Anne. "Tattersal's Club Landscape Art Prize" (PDF). Museums & Galleries Queensland.
  9. ↑ "Elisabeth Cummings". John McDonald. 21 January 2012. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Elisabeth Cummings CV" (PDF). King Street Gallary.
  11. 1 2 3 McDonald, Philippa (31 January 2016). "Australian painter Elisabeth Cummings experiences renewed success". ABC News. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  12. 1 2 "Elisabeth Cummings Journeys" (PDF). King Street Gallery. 2018.
  13. ↑ "Archibald Prize 2018 Noel Thurgate". Art Gallery NSW.
  14. 1 2 "Elisabeth Cummings". Artist Profile. 6 November 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  15. ↑ "SEATandBAG Four Australian printmakers cross the Tasman" (PDF). Bowen Galleries.
  16. ↑ "Scars: Elisabeth Cummings Etchings | Wangaratta Art Gallery" . Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  17. 1 2 Higgins, Jo (2014). "Elisabeth Cummings" (PDF). Art Collector Magazine. No. 69. p. 78.
  18. 1 2 "Cruthers Collection of Women's Art List of Works, as of September 2018" (PDF). Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, The University of Western Australia. September 2018.
  19. ↑ "Major donation by Elisabeth Cummings".
  20. ↑ "Elisabeth Cummings – Ceramics & Sculpture". King Street Gallery. 27 January 2015. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  21. ↑ Boscacci, Louise (November 2014). "Cicada Waterfall". The Journal of Australian Ceramics. 53 (3): 23–25. ISSN   1449-275X – via Informit.
  22. ↑ "Peter Pinson Interviews Elisabeth Cummings". Cultural Conversations. February 2013.
  23. ↑ McDonald, John (5 June 2017). "Elisabeth Cummings: Interior Landscapes, a classic 'late bloomer'". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  24. ↑ "John Peart: Artist was at one with every landscape he painted". The Sydney Morning Herald. 15 November 2013. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
  25. 1 2 "Elisabeth Cummings". Design & Art Australia Online. 1999.
  26. ↑ "Elisabeth Cummings Publications". King Street Gallery.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.