Ethel Carrick and Anne Dangar bring together the work of two ground-breaking women artists who deserve to be better known. Working in parallel in the first decades of the twentieth century, both pushed against convention, made France their base and forged unique artistic paths. The outlooks of both artists were shaped by developments in French art, and they shared their experiences and new ideas with their Australian networks.
Hello, my name is Katy Hessel. I am an art historian from London. You may know me from my Instagram and podcast - The Great Women Artists, or my book - The Story of Art Without Men. I have made it my mission in life to tackle the gender imbalance in our museums by celebrating the work of women artists worldwide.
Ethel Carrick was born in Uxbridge, United Kingdom in 1872 and was a gifted painter and colourist who was among the first artists to introduce Australia to a post-impressionist approach. An intrepid traveller, Carrick had a fascinating life, and this retrospective brings new insights into her remarkable artistic legacy, nationally and internationally.
Anne Dangar was born in Kempsey, New South Wales in 1885 and is one of Australia’s most significant yet underacknowledged modern artists. Living in the rural town of Sablons, France, she worked and exhibited alongside European cubists as their artistic peer, all the while exerting an impact on Australian abstraction.
While Carrick worked primarily as a painter and Dangar as a potter, by presenting their work together, we can glean a greater sense of the diverse strands of artistic practice in the first half of the twentieth century. Both exhibitions are part of the National Gallery’s ongoing Know My Name initiative, which fosters awareness and understanding of the contributions of women artists in the broader stories of Australian and international art.
I hope you enjoy exhibitions Ethel Carrick and Anne Dangar.
