Grace Crowley ‘Abstract painting’ 1947

Video and text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 2010.

Grace Crowley (1890 – 1979) Australian Artist and Modernist Painter

‘Grace Crowley, also known as ‘Smudge’, is believed to have been in a relationship with Anne Dangar between about 1915 and 1929. Anne Dangar studied and then taught at Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School, at the same time as Grace Crowley. The two went to France together in 1926 where they studied painting for several years, including at the influential cubist school Académie Lhote. [Anne] Dangar returned to Australia in 1928, Crowley in 1930. [Anne] Dangar travelled back to France in 1930 and settled at Albert Gleize’s Art Colony, Moly-Sabata, in southern France where she immersed herself in pottery, for which she became most famous. She remained there for the rest of her life. (…)
Grace appears to have had short-lived artistic and/or personal relationships in Sydney with Dorrit Black and Rah Fizelle, eventually settling into a lasting relationship with Ralph Balson. All of Grace’s relationships were with artists, and the professional aspect was clearly important. (…)’ – Out Here: Gay and Lesbian Perspectives VI, Chapter 9: Australian Lesbian Artists of the Early Twentieth Century by Peter Di Sciascio.

Related Links

Grace Crowley: being modern, 23 December 2006 – 6 May 2007 at National Gallery of Australia.
Anne Dangar at moly-sabata: tradition and innovation by the National Gallery of Australia