Artist Spotlight: Grace Cossington Smith

 It has been a while since we have done an artist spotlight here on It's a Classical Life, and as I was admiring the work of Grace Cossington Smith on several different occasions lately, I thought she would fit in perfectly here. Her biography and the quotes here come from the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ANU) and the photos are courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia. 

Grace Smith was born in Sydney in 1892 into a large Anglican family, with ties to royalty (her uncle was private chaplain to Queen Victoria at Osborne, Isle of Wight) and a love for art. She studied art in Sydney as a young woman, and when she was twenty she travelled to England for two years with her sister. Here she continued to sketch and study art, and even travelled to Germany where she was inspired by the paintings of Watteau. You can see how his use of colour has inspired Cossington's own paintings.  

Smith returned to Sydney in 1915 and once more resumed her art classes.   The image below, The Sock Knitter, was her first piece exhibited. Cossington continued to paint and create beautiful works, travelling back to Europe in 1949-50. She was encouraged by her mother to take the name 'Cossington', the name of their family home, as an appropriate name for a professional artist. Slowly, her beloved parents and sisters died, leaving her alone in the family home. She was a well-respected Australian artist by the 1960s and in 1973 she was appointed an O.B.E. She died in 1984 in a nursing home, but her beautiful paintings continue to inspire and move people today. 

Her art seems to express the spirit of Sydney, its big-city energy and also its lyrical bushland and its flowers and its light. It also expresses timeless, universal feelings about familiar lived-in houses and about the individual presence that resides in all things in the world. 

From the quote above, perhaps you can see why I thought she would fit in so well here! Her beautiful depictions of home and homelife can be seen in these images. Her choice of colours are wonderfully vibrant yet somehow muted at the same time. I find them so warm and appealing. As well as Watteau, she was also heavily influenced by Van Gogh and his use of colour. 

          It is art made by a devout Anglican Christian, in a family that was very English in its high ideals of public service and independence of mind. It was still a time when women artists could stay at home without guilt, and paint more for love than for money.

Here is my list of ways in which we can be inspired by Grace Cossington Smith and her beautiful paintings. I hope that some of these speak to your heart and bring some joy to your day. 

 1. Quiet moments of gentle domesticity, quite appropriate to women of that time, can help remind us to find those moments in our own day to sit, work with our hands, read, reflect in peace and quiet. 

2. Enjoy sweet sets of tea cups and pots. Pretty colours that make your heart sing will make the whole process so much more lovely.

3. Look at sleeping pets and feel your troubles melt away. I look at this gorgeous painting of "Krinkley Knonks Sleeping" (1927-8) and immediately feel peace. There is something about watching the peace of animals that seems to wash away my cares. Even better, is stroking them whilst they sleep. 

4. Open doors and windows and let the day in. By bringing fresh air and fresh sunlight into a room, you are immediately improving its appeal. You might not feel comfortable doing this in winter, but for short amounts of time doors and windows can be flung open and musty, tired air can be refreshed. I remember Mrs March giving this same advice to the girls in Little Women when she had to go away - open the windows for half an hour everyday, even in winter, to let the fresh air in. 

5. Enjoy the arts. By visiting museums, galleries, theatres and musical productions, we are opening our minds to the arts and allowing the beauty and creativity of others to wash over us and inspire us. Cossington was so moved by the public exhibits that she visited that she recreated them in her works. 

I hope that you have enjoyed this week's Artist Spotlight. Perhaps you learned something new or simply appreciated the work of a hard-working artist who found delight in the simple things that surrounded her.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you all have a very peaceful day.