A very worth-seeing current exhibition at Canberra’s National Gallery presents the works of Ethel Carrick (1872-1952) and Anne Dangar (1885-1951), the former a gifted painter and colourist, and the latter, a painter and potter. Focusing on Dangar’s pottery and Carrick’s paintings, this retrospective exemplifies the diverse strands of artistic practice in the first half of the 20th century. Born in Kempsey, NSW, Dangar left Australia in 1926 bound for France, travelling to the south of France in 1930 and joining an artists’ community of Moly-Sabata, on the banks of the Rhone River. Dangar was to become a central figure of the area. UK-born Carrick’s main connection with Australia came through her marriage to a Melbourne painter, Emanuel Phillips Fox, though she was very much a painter in her own right, and her vibrant paintings were among the first post-impressionist works to be exhibited here. While she received significant acclaim in her lifetime, her artistic contribution has often been associated with that of her husband (though she continued painting for decades after his death). When Dangar died in 1951, villagers followed her horse-drawn hearse to the local cemetery overlooking the Rhone where she lived for more than two decades. Yet in Australia her death was hardly acknowledged. As Linda Morris wrote recently [“The Faraway Queen” (Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald)], very few people here acknowledged her death, save for a few mournful letters exchanged between friends, notably Dangar’s one-time lover, painter Grace Crowley. This exhibition is part of the NGA’s Know My Name initiative which celebrates the work of all women artists to increase public awareness of their contribution to Australia’s cultural life. The exhibition is free, and runs until 27 April 2025.
