Title
Composition study: seated female nude
(circa 1928)
Artist
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Details
- Place where the work was made
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Paris
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France
- Date
- (circa 1928)
- Media category
- Drawing
- Materials used
- pencil on thin ivory wove paper
- Dimensions
- 42.0 x 32.4 cm sheet
- Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Bequest of the artist 1980
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 171.1980
- Copyright
- © Reproduced with permission of Grace Crowley Estate
- Artist information
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Grace Crowley
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
'We were united in the one belief, the constructive approach to painting, and this insistence of the abstract elements in building a design was the keynote of teaching with both Lhote and Gleizes ... Although the model was used in the class, the student was discouraged from making merely a faithful record of a nude, a draped figure or a portrait. The abstract elements in line, shape and colour were introduced in order to induce the student to construct from it a design within a given space.'
Grace Crowley, 1966
This drawing was made during the artist's time in Paris, where she studied under André Lhote a leading teacher of the Cubist movement. Her strongly delineated contours and volumetric modelling of the body accords with Lhote's emphasis on the simplification of forms into basic geometry. The drawing also reveals Crowley's strong grasp of anatomy, acquired through earlier academic training at Julian Ashton's Sydney Art School.
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Places
Where the work was made
Paris
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Exhibition history
Shown in 7 exhibitions
Project 4 - Grace Crowley (1975), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 10 May 1975–08 Jun 1975
The portrait and the nude: Australian drawings from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 18 Aug 1990–28 Oct 1990
Australian drawings from the Gallery's collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 13 Dec 1997–15 Mar 1998
Bodyline, Hazelhurst Arts Centre, , 03 Feb 2001–08 Apr 2001
Grace Crowley: being modern, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 23 Dec 2006–06 May 2007
Grace Crowley: being modern, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 27 Jul 2007–28 Oct 2007
Grace Crowley: being modern, Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, Windsor, 21 Dec 2007–17 Feb 2008
Grace Crowley: being modern, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Mornington, 19 Mar 2008–18 May 2008
Grace Crowley: being modern, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 14 Jun 2008–21 Sep 2008
Grace Crowley: being modern, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 02 Oct 2008–23 Nov 2008
Intrepid Women: Australian women artists in Paris 1950, S.H. Ervin Gallery, The Rocks, 01 Dec 2017–25 Mar 2018
The View from 1919, Tamworth Regional Gallery, Tamworth, 01 Jun 2019–28 Jul 2019
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Bibliography
Referenced in 5 publications
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Nicolas Draffin, Three years on: a selection of acquisitions 1978-1981, 'Prints and Drawings - Australia, European and American', pg. 47-66, Sydney, 1981, 62 (illus.). cat.no. 30
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Hendrik Kolenberg, Australian drawings from the Gallery's collection, Sydney, 1997, 42 (illus.). cat.no. 30
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Hendrik Kolenberg, The portrait and the nude: Australian drawings from the collection, Sydney, 1990. cat.no. 19
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Elena Taylor, Grace Crowley: being modern, Canberra, 2006, 17 (colour illus.), 59. NOTE: date of work (circa 1928)
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Daniel Thomas AM (Curator), Project 4: Grace Crowley, Sydney, 1975. cat.no. 17
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