During Ethel Carrick’s first visit to Australia in 1908 she expressed her passion for the bays and beaches of Sydney Harbour saying: ‘Here I am going to paint, and paint, and paint all the beautiful things you have. I hope to do some [paintings] of your wonderful surf-bathing and the crowds...’ Two years later, in 1913, she painted one of the great works of her artistic career, Christmas Day on Manly Beach, also known as Manly beach – summer is here. Carrick’s love of depicting crowds going about their daily lives is brought to life in this luminous painting of people of all ages flocking to the beach on a hot summer day in the holiday season. While some years earlier daytime bathing had been banned and beach attire strictly regulated, Carrick’s painting conveys a world in a state of transition with women clad variously in long dresses, loose kimono-like robes, as well as very contemporary Canadian bathing costumes comprising dark tunics and trunks.
Often referred to as a rebellious spirit by family and friends, Carrick was drawn to the idea of the modern ‘surfer girl’ as an expression of women’s liberation. This occurred at a time when her confidence in her own modern ideas had been given a boost after her successful exhibition at the Athenaeum Gallery in Melbourne in the year this work was painted. The preliminary painterly sketches for the finished work had been undertaken in the company of her friend the artist Thea Proctor. The two women on the left of the composition wearing colourful kimonos may depict Carrick and Proctor enjoying the liberated atmosphere of burgeoning beach culture.
