Clarice Majoribanks Beckett (1887 – 1935) was an Australian tonalist painter whose works are featured in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Clarice was a boarder at Queen's College, Ballarat until 1903, before spending a year at Melbourne Church of England Girls' Grammar School. She showed artistic ability, and after leaving school took private lessons in charcoal drawing at Ballarat.
In 1919 her parents moved from Bendigo to the Melbourne bayside suburb of Beaumaris and, with their health failing, Beckett assumed household responsibilities that virtually dictated the structure of the rest of her life, severely limiting her artistic endeavor. Beckett could only go out during the dawn and dusk to paint as most of her day was spent caring for them.
Beckett is recognized as one of Australia's most important modernist artists. Despite a talent for portraiture and a keen public appreciation for her still lifes, the subject matter favored by her teacher Meldrum, Beckett preferred the solo, outdoor process of painting landscapes.
In her mid-thirties, Beckett elucidated her artistic aims in the catalog accompanying the sixth annual exhibition of the Twenty Melbourne Painters in 1924
One would imagine from the little scenes that Miss Beckett has gathered, in the name of Australian art, that Australia was in a continual state of fog – all kinds of fogs – pink, blue, green and grey with an occasional mist that surely was never on land or sea.
A critic in 1925 took her to task over "a tendency to fuzziness and a certain weakness of drawing," but complimented her on "the best display she has made to date," especially "a view through the trees approaching the city in the twilight of a winter evening," which she as "nailed well."
However, like her female contemporaries, Beckett faced considerable prejudice from conservative male artists. Meldrum, commenting as late as 1939 on Nora Heyson's receiving the Archibald Prize, expressed his opinion on women's capacity to be great artists; "Men and women are differently constituted. Women are more closely attached to the physical things of life, and to expect them to do some things equally as well as men are sheer lunacy. A great artist has to tread a lonely road. He becomes great only by exerting himself to the limit of his strength the whole time. I believe that such a life is unnatural and impossible for women."
During her lifetime no Beckett work was purchased for a public collection, though now almost every major Australian gallery holds examples in their collection. By 2001 her paintings had achieved six figures at auction.
Australian Tonalism is characterized by a particular "misty" or atmospheric quality created by the Meldrum painting method of building "tone on tone". Tonalism opposed Post-Impressionism and Modernism and is now regarded as a precursor to Minimalism and Conceptualism. The whole movement had been under fierce controversy and they were, without doubt, the most unpopular group of artists, in the eyes of most other artists, in the history of Australian art.
A major memorial exhibition was organized by Beckett's sister and her father in 1936. In 1971 Beckett's sister alerted Hollinrake to a tragedy; more than 2,000 of her works had been left abandoned to the elements and vermin in an open-sided hay shed near Benalla. Most were unsalvageable, but thirty well-preserved but neglected works were discovered at the Montsalvat artist colony, sent there when the Beaumaris home was cleared. Over 1999 and 2000, the retrospective exhibition Politically incorrect: Clarice Beckett constituted from some of the remaining paintings.
© 2019. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Clarice Beckett or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
Clarice was a boarder at Queen's College, Ballarat until 1903, before spending a year at Melbourne Church of England Girls' Grammar School. She showed artistic ability, and after leaving school took private lessons in charcoal drawing at Ballarat.
In 1919 her parents moved from Bendigo to the Melbourne bayside suburb of Beaumaris and, with their health failing, Beckett assumed household responsibilities that virtually dictated the structure of the rest of her life, severely limiting her artistic endeavor. Beckett could only go out during the dawn and dusk to paint as most of her day was spent caring for them.
Beckett is recognized as one of Australia's most important modernist artists. Despite a talent for portraiture and a keen public appreciation for her still lifes, the subject matter favored by her teacher Meldrum, Beckett preferred the solo, outdoor process of painting landscapes.
In her mid-thirties, Beckett elucidated her artistic aims in the catalog accompanying the sixth annual exhibition of the Twenty Melbourne Painters in 1924
One would imagine from the little scenes that Miss Beckett has gathered, in the name of Australian art, that Australia was in a continual state of fog – all kinds of fogs – pink, blue, green and grey with an occasional mist that surely was never on land or sea.
A critic in 1925 took her to task over "a tendency to fuzziness and a certain weakness of drawing," but complimented her on "the best display she has made to date," especially "a view through the trees approaching the city in the twilight of a winter evening," which she as "nailed well."
However, like her female contemporaries, Beckett faced considerable prejudice from conservative male artists. Meldrum, commenting as late as 1939 on Nora Heyson's receiving the Archibald Prize, expressed his opinion on women's capacity to be great artists; "Men and women are differently constituted. Women are more closely attached to the physical things of life, and to expect them to do some things equally as well as men are sheer lunacy. A great artist has to tread a lonely road. He becomes great only by exerting himself to the limit of his strength the whole time. I believe that such a life is unnatural and impossible for women."
During her lifetime no Beckett work was purchased for a public collection, though now almost every major Australian gallery holds examples in their collection. By 2001 her paintings had achieved six figures at auction.
Australian Tonalism is characterized by a particular "misty" or atmospheric quality created by the Meldrum painting method of building "tone on tone". Tonalism opposed Post-Impressionism and Modernism and is now regarded as a precursor to Minimalism and Conceptualism. The whole movement had been under fierce controversy and they were, without doubt, the most unpopular group of artists, in the eyes of most other artists, in the history of Australian art.
A major memorial exhibition was organized by Beckett's sister and her father in 1936. In 1971 Beckett's sister alerted Hollinrake to a tragedy; more than 2,000 of her works had been left abandoned to the elements and vermin in an open-sided hay shed near Benalla. Most were unsalvageable, but thirty well-preserved but neglected works were discovered at the Montsalvat artist colony, sent there when the Beaumaris home was cleared. Over 1999 and 2000, the retrospective exhibition Politically incorrect: Clarice Beckett constituted from some of the remaining paintings.
© 2019. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Clarice Beckett or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
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| 1919-35, No title |
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| 1920, Ricketts Point, Beaumaris |
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| 1922, Wet Evening |
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| 1924, Ranunculi with Coral Beads |
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| 1925, Autumn Morning (Early Morning Beaumaris) |
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| 1925, Beaumaris seascape |
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| 1925, Bowl of Marigolds |
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| 1925, Evening landscape |
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| 1925, Evening light, Beaumaris |
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| 1925, Evening Return |
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| 1925, The stream |
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| 1925, View of the Bay |
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| 1926, Beaumaris Foreshore |
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| 1927, Chestnut Avenue, Ballarat Gardens |
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| 1927, Beach Road after the rain |
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| 1928, Evening Calm |
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| 1928, Grey Morning |
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| 1928, Still Evening |
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| 1929, After Sunset |
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| 1929, Marigolds |
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| 1929, Morning Ride |
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| 1929-32, Peonies |
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| 1930, A Summer's Day |
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| 1930, Bay Road |
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| 1930, Early Morning (The Fishermen) |
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| 1930, Evening, St Kilda Road |
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| 1930, On the Sandbar |
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| 1930, Rainy Morning |
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| 1930, The Bus Stop |
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| 1930, The Yarra Sunset |
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| 1931, Across the Yarra |
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| 1931, Collins Street, evening |
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| 1932, Red Roofs |
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| 1932, The Road to the Sea, Beaumaris |
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| 1932, Ti-Tree at Evening (Beaumaris) |
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| 1933, Summer Day, Beaumaris |
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| 1933, Yachts in the bay |
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| The Red Bus |
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