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Details
- Date
- 1917
- Media categories
- Pastel , Drawing
- Materials used
- pastel on paper
- Dimensions
- 72.1 x 49.0 cm sight; 81.4 x 58.7 x 4.3 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.r. "Cumbrae Stewart/ 17".
- Credit
- Purchased 1918
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 6313
- Copyright
- © Estate of Janet Cumbrae Stewart
- Artist information
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Janet Cumbrae Stewart
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
Art history overflows with depictions of nude women, usually made by men. But in the pastel drawings of Janet Cumbrae Stewart, the subject is given a distinctive treatment. Rather than mere models onto which light is cast, light appears to emanate from the flesh of her collaborators. Cumbrae Stewart captured the naked vitality of the bodies she knew best – the bodies of other women, including her lovers and closest friends. ‘The model disrobing’ is an image of thinly veiled eroticism, but one suffused with tenderness through gentle modulations of tone.
Cumbrae Stewart was one of her generation’s most successful artists and her work was widely collected. During 17 years living in Europe, she met English aristocrat and bohemian Argemone Ffarrington Bellairs, known as ‘Bill’, and formed a lifelong partnership. At the outbreak of the Second World War, they moved to Australia and settled in Melbourne.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 6 exhibitions
Loan Exhibition - Collection of Paintings and Drawings by Australian Artists executed during the last 25 to 35 Years (1918), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 01 Apr 1918–30 Apr 1918
Review: works by women from the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 08 Mar 1995–04 Jun 1995
Janet Cumbrae Stewart: The Perfect Touch, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Mornington, 27 May 2003–13 Jul 2003
The naked and the nude, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Ballarat, 13 Sep 2008–07 Dec 2008
Intrepid Women: Australian women artists in Paris 1950, S.H. Ervin Gallery, The Rocks, 01 Dec 2017–25 Mar 2018
Know My Name: Australian women artists, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 14 Sep 2020–04 Aug 2021
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Bibliography
Referenced in 3 publications
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Susan McCulloch, The Weekend Australian, 'Heavenly bodies', pg. R21 (Arts)., Sydney, 07 Jun 2003-08 Jun 2003, R21 (illus.). Review of the exhibition 'Janet Cumbrae Stewart' held at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in 2003.
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Dr Juliette Peers, Janet Cumbrae Stewart, 'May I re-introduce Miss Cumbrae Stewart?', pg. 9-25, Mornington, 2003, 18, 19 (colour illus.), 26.
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Catherine Stuart and Paul Finucane, Odd roads to be walking: 156 women who shaped Australian art, Cork, 2019, 123 (colour illus.).
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