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Details
- Place where the work was made
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Australia
- Date
- 1939
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 76.0 x 60.5 cm
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.l., "Tempe Manning. Dec. '39'".
- Credit
- Purchased with funds provided by the Art Gallery Society of New South Wales 2021
- Location
- South Building, ground level, 20th-century galleries
- Accession number
- 65.2021
- Copyright
- © Estate of Tempe Manning
- Archibald Prize
- - 1939
- Artist information
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Tempe Manning
Works in the collection
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About
Tempe Manning was one of a number of artists who had a wider influence on the directions of modern Sydney art during the interwar period than has thus far been recognised. She was one of the talented artists who studied under Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo at his atelier in Sydney from the mid 1910s. Along with her more celebrated peers, including Grace Cossington Smith, Roland Wakelin, Norah Simpson and Roy De Maistre, her work contributed to the first significant phase of modernist culture in this country.
Manning travelled to Europe and studied in Paris in 1912 prior to joining Dattilo-Rubbo's atelier on her return in 1914. While her training in Paris followed academic traditions, Manning's extant Sydney works demonstrate how she had moved away from academism to experimentation in colour painting by 1916. Manning returned to her birthplace, Bowral, by the early 1920s and remained there until her death in 1960, primarily undertaking portrait commissions while occasionally painting nearby rural landscapes. Her style evolved from the flickering paint work and small scale of her early modernist paintings, to the sophisticated modernist realism of this compelling self-portrait.
This remarkable painting was exhibited in the 1939 Archibald Prize exhibition. The artist's strong gaze and casual yet self assured pose indicate her confidence as both subject and author of the work. The finely painted hand and face contrast with the rougher brushstrokes of the clothing and background, depicted in a saturated blue palette, pulling the viewer's focus to these most important parts of the portrait.
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Places
Where the work was made
Australia
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Exhibition history
Shown in 2 exhibitions
Archibald, Wynne and Sulman (1939), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Jan 1940–20 Mar 1940
Archie 100: A century of the Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 05 Jun 2021–26 Sep 2021
Archie 100: A century of the Archibald Prize, Geelong Gallery, Geelong, 06 Nov 2021–20 Feb 2022
Archie 100: A century of the Archibald Prize, Cairns Art Gallery, Cairns, 18 Mar 2022–12 Jun 2022
Archie 100: A century of the Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 09 Jul 2022–03 Oct 2022
Archie 100: A century of the Archibald Prize, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Launceston, 22 Oct 2022–08 Jan 2023
Archie 100: A century of the Archibald Prize, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Bathurst, 26 Jan 2023–26 Mar 2023
Archie 100: A century of the Archibald Prize, Museum and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin, 15 Apr 2023–25 Jun 2023
Archie 100: A century of the Archibald Prize, Home of the Arts, Surfers Paradise, 15 Jul 2023–02 Oct 2023
Archie 100: A century of the Archibald Prize, National Portrait Gallery [Parliamentary Zone], Canberra, 21 Oct 2023–28 Jan 2024