Hungarian shawl

From 1921, after a period of living between France and England, the Bendigo-trained expatriate artist Agnes Goodsir made Paris her home. She lived and worked from her studio at rue de l’Odéon. Here, the intimate spaces of her surrounds; familiar props, furniture as well as the figure of her partner Rachel Dunn (known as Cherry) became the leitmotifs of her paintings.

Goodsir painted subjects of the domestic interior like a series of still life compositions, continually rearranging views of her everyday, and often using them as a means to explore the expressive potential of colour combinations. Dunn repeatedly features as Goodsir’s model, imaged in states of repose and gowned in flamboyant dress creating a sense of a domestic theatre that hovers between artifice and reality.

While a portrait of Dunn, 'Hungarian shawl' is more a study of expressive colour. An unusually sparse and decluttered interior, Goodsir compresses compositional space and reduces detail to focus on the patterns on silky fabric design against a near monochromatic background. Imbued with the diffused interior light, the small sketch-like work evokes a luminous feel for colour.

While living in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s, Goodsir maintained connection with Australia, exhibiting works, including 'Hungarian shawl', in solo exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne. While she returned briefly to Australia in 1927, she died in Paris in 1939.