In 1905 Ethel Carrick moved with her husband Emanuel Phillips Fox from London to Paris, to live in a complex of studio apartments in Montparnasse near the Luxembourg Gardens. It was in these historic gardens that Carrick created some of her earliest post-impressionist works like Sunday in the gardens, signifying her distinctive artistic vision. It was still relatively uncommon for women to set up outside and paint independently in the public domain. Her lively depictions of incidental aspects of everyday life convey her connection with some of the more avant-garde work being created at the time. This sense of adventure is apparent in her deft handling of paint, unconventional compositions and bold colour choices.
Carrick’s talents as a colourist and painter of crowds were remarked upon when works like Sunday in the gardens were shown in her first Australian exhibition at Bernards Gallery in Melbourne in 1908. On the day of the exhibition preview, a report appeared in The Herald: ‘The canvases … palpitate with bright colour-schemes, but the supreme skill of the artist is found in her subtle handling of out-door groups of people in frequented parts of a populous city.’
In her Australian exhibitions in both 1908 and 1913, Carrick showed works she had brought with her from Paris, and she also undertook new paintings in a post-impressionist manner in Australia. Nothing quite like these works had been seen in this country and they took the art world by storm. Yet after her passing, Carrick’s key role in introducing post-impressionism to local audiences, sharing what she had learned in France, was absent from mainstream accounts of Australian art history. The recovery of the stories of women artists that came to the fore in the 1970s, is continued, deepened and revitalised today in this Ethel Carrick retrospective, as part of the Gallery’s ongoing Know My Name initiative.
