Lesley Dumbrell

Last updated

Lesley Dumbrell, born on 14 October 1941 in Melbourne, is an Australian artist known for her precise abstract geometric paintings, [1] [2] [3] and was a pioneer of the Australian Women's Art Movement of the 1970s. [4] She became known as 'one of the leading artists in Melbourne to adopt the international styles of colour field and hard-edged abstraction'. [2]

Contents

Education

Between 1958 and 1962 Dumbrell studied painting, printmaking and sculpture at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology [5] and graduated with a Diploma of Art (Painting). Between 1966 and 1968 she was a teacher at RMIT in the Art Department. In 1977 she was Artist in Residence at Monash University and from 1980-1985 was Part-time Lecturer (Painting) at the Victorian College of the Arts Melbourne. [4]

Artistic practice

One of the Melbourne Art Trams with a design by Dumbrell in 2020 Route 1 art tram passing through Albert Park December 2020.jpg
One of the Melbourne Art Trams with a design by Dumbrell in 2020

Dumbrell has contributed to the Australian and international arts scene [6] and is known for her geometric abstraction paintings.

She was influenced by Piet Mondrian, and Wassily Kandinsky's [5] 1910 treatise, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, [7] which she read during her studies. [3] In 1966 she became interested in colour field painting, abstract art, optical art and the work of Bridget Riley, and at this time Dumbrell began to use Liquitex acrylic paint. [5] She works in a very precise way, begins with preliminary drawings on paper planning the work very carefully before commencing the painting itself. Her triptych February (1976) took about 6 months to complete. [8]

Dumbrell uses colour and line to create optical effects which often allude to the natural elements of wind, fire, rain and earth, conveying the illusion of movement [4] [5] for example the tonal effect in Ripple (1972) and the movement of winds in Foehn (1975) and Zephyr (1975), which she says were to do "with the movement part of wind, but also the intangibleness of it." [5]

About the optical element of art Dumbrell said " It's always been there but it's never really been emphasised and then suddenly a group of artists were emphasising not just another style but a fundamental element in painting and bringing to the fore and making it the strongest part of the work. That seemed to me to be a really innovative development." [5]

The screenprint Azzuium (1987) forms part of her 'shape painting' series which marked a radical shift in her practice between 1983-1990.

In 1986 her watercolours were exhibited in the Colour and Transparency show at the National Gallery of Victoria [9] In 1990 she moved to Thailand which added a visual complexity to her work and she now shares her time between Thailand and Victoria. [10]

In 1986 Dumbrell was a featured guest artist for the Melbourne Art Tram series [11] [12] [13] and in 2019 was invited to recreate her 1986 art work on a Melbourne tram. [14]

Contributions to the profession

With Erica McGilchrist, Kiffy Carter and Meredith Rogers, Dumbrell co-founded the Women's Art Register [10] in Australia, a 'collection of national significance', [15] which aims 'to document and preserve the artistic contributions of Australian women and to support and promote them'. [16]

Collections

Her works are held in major collections in Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Queensland Art Gallery, National Australia Bank and Artbank. [4]

Exhibitions

In 1969 the Bonython Gallery in Sydney hosted Dumbrell's first solo exhibition, alongside her husband Lenton Parr, Bryan Westwood, and Don Driver. Critic Donald Brook described her 'ambiguous abstract figures': "Their subdued tonality coaxes the eye with a persuasive gentleness that is surprisingly agreeable after so much occular [sic] assault by painting of this kind." [11]

Lesley Dumbrell exhibits widely in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and also in Thailand. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Kame Kngwarreye</span> Aboriginal Australian artist (1910–1996)

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Aboriginal Australian artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. She is one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of Australian art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clara Southern</span> Australian artist (1860–1940)

Clara Southern was an Australian artist associated with the Heidelberg School, also known as Australian Impressionism. She was active between the years 1883 and her death in 1940. Physically, Southern was tall with reddish fair hair, and was nicknamed 'Panther' because of her lithe beauty.

Janet Dawson MBE is an Australian artist who was a pioneer of abstract painting in Australia in the 1960s, having been introduced to abstraction during studies in England while she lived in Europe 1957–1960 She was also an accomplished lithographic printer of her own works as well as those of other renowned Australian artists, a theatre-set and furniture designer. She studied in England and Italy on scholarships before returning to Australia in 1960. She won the Art Gallery of New South Wales Archibald Prize in 1973 with the portrait of her husband, Michael Boddy Reading. She has exhibited across Australia and overseas, and her work is held in major Australian and English collections. In 1977 she was awarded an MBE for services to art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clarice Beckett</span> Australian artist (1887–1935)

Clarice Marjoribanks Beckett was an Australian artist and a key member of the Australian tonalist movement. Known for her subtle, misty landscapes of Melbourne and its suburbs, Beckett developed a personal style that contributed to the development of modernism in Australia. Disregarded by the art establishment during her lifetime, and largely forgotten in the decades after her death, she is now considered one of Australia's greatest artists.

Francis Roderick Kemp AO, OBE,, known as Roger, was one of Australia's foremost practitioners of transcendental abstraction. Kemp developed a system of symbols and motifs which were deployed to develop a method of manifesting creativity at a fundamental level, striving in particular to explain humanities place in a universal order.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Benjamin Graham</span> Australian artist (1925–1987)

Peter Benjamin Graham, was an Australian visual artist, printer, and art theorist.

Janine Burke is an Australian author, art historian, biographer, novelist and photographer. She also curates exhibitions of historical and contemporary art. She is Honorary Senior Fellow, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne. She was born in Melbourne in 1952.

Christine Abrahams Gallery, first named Axiom, was a Melbourne gallery showing contemporary Australian art between 1980 and 2008.

Wintjiya Napaltjarri, and also known as Wintjia Napaltjarri No. 1, is a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. She is the sister of artist Tjunkiya Napaltjarri; both were wives of Toba Tjakamarra, with whom Wintjiya had five children.

Aida Tomescu is an Australian contemporary artist who is known for her abstract paintings, collages, drawings and prints. Tomescu is a winner of the Dobell Prize for Drawing, the Wynne Prize for Landscape and the Sir John Sulman Prize, by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

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

Louise Weaver is a contemporary Australian artist working in an array of media including sculptural installations, paintings, drawings, printmaking, collage, textiles, movement and sound. She is best known for her installation and sculptures of animals. Weaver's works have been exhibited in Australia and New Zealand and are featured in major collections both nationally and internationally.

Melinda Harper is an Australian abstract artist. She works with a variety of media including drawing, collage, photography, screen printing, painted objects and embroideries. Her work is characterised by the use of colours, stripes and geometrical designs.

Elizabeth Gower is an Australian abstract artist who lives and works in Melbourne. She is best known for her work in paper and mixed-media monochrome and coloured collages, drawn from her sustained practice of collecting urban detritus.

Sanné Mestrom is an Australian experimental and conceptual artist who works mainly in the mediums of installation and sculpture. Mestrom has a research-based practice and incorporates notions of "play" into social aspects of urban design. Since 2011, Mestrom has remade and reinterpreted motifs from the twentieth century modernist art canon. She has earned many grants and has been commissioned to execute public art, sculptures in situ. She has studied in Korea and Mexico, and is a senior lecturer at Sydney College of Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hoda Afshar</span> Iranian photographer (born 1983)

Hoda Afshar is an Iranian documentary photographer who is based in Melbourne. She is known for her 2018 prize-winning portrait of Kurdish-Iranian refugee Behrouz Boochani, who suffered a long imprisonment in the Manus Island detention centre run by the Australian government. Her work has been featured in many exhibitions and is held in many permanent collections across Australia.

Diena Georgetti is an Australian contemporary artist born in Alice Springs, Australia and currently based in Melbourne, Australia. Her works have been displayed in galleries across Australia, including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane and the Art Gallery of South Australia. She was selected for inclusion in the National Gallery of Australia's Know My Name exhibition 2021-22.

Sandra Leveson, also known as Sandra Leveson-Meares, is an Australian painter, printmaker, and teacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Dredge</span> Australian artist (1928–2001)

Margaret Anne Dredge was an Australian painter and printmaker, active from the mid-1950s until 1997, and teacher of art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Brash</span> 20th century Australian woman printmaker

Barbara Nancy Brash was a twentieth-century post-war Australian artist known for her painting and innovative printmaking. In an extensive career she contributed to the Melbourne Modernist art scene, beside other significant women artists including: Mary Macqueen, Dorothy Braund, Anne Marie Graham, Constance Stokes, Anne Montgomery (artist) and Nancy Grant.

References

  1. "Lesley Dumbrell". Design & Art Australia Online. 24 May 2017. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  2. 1 2 "Lesley Dumbrell". Monash University Museum of Art. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  3. 1 2 Nicholls, Lara (1 September 2016). "Lesley Dumbrell Winds of change". Artonview. 87: 58–59.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Lesley Dumbrell" . Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "James Gleeson Interview with Lesley Dumbrell 16 October 1979" . Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  6. "Lesley Dumbrell". Annandale Galleries. Sydney, Australia. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  7. Kandinsky, W (1910). "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" . Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  8. "James Gleeson interview with Lesley Dumbrell 16 October 1979" . Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  9. 1 2 "Lesley Dumbrell" . Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  10. 1 2 "Lesley Dumbrell Painter of Light by Rachel Kent" . Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  11. 1 2 "Spotted: Painted trams in Melbourne". ABC Radio. 14 October 2019. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  12. "Melbourne Art Trams – Yarra Trams". yarratrams.com.au. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  13. "Meet the Artists". Melbourne International Arts Festival. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  14. "Lesley Dumbrell" . Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  15. "Women's Art Register". Culture Victoria. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  16. "Q&A with Women's Art Register". NAVA. Retrieved 8 March 2020.