Friday, November 07, 2014

New England artists - Anne Dangar (Kempsey) and Grace Crowley (Cobbadah and Barraba)

I am always trying to trace artists or writers with New England connections. Reading, I came across a reference to painter and potter Anne Dangar (and here). I wondered whether or not she was part of the Dangar pastoral family. Checking, she was not, but she did have a New England connection. Here I quote from the Australian Dictionary biography entry on her:Anne Dangar Moroccan tea set

  Anne Garvin Dangar (1885-1951), painter and potter, was born on 1 December 1885 at Kempsey, New South Wales, fifth child of native-born parents Otho Orde Dangar, auctioneer and member (1889-93) of the Legislative Assembly, and his wife Elizabeth, née Garvin. Called Nancy by her family, she attended East Kempsey Public School and in 1906 took art lessons in Sydney under Horace Moore-Jones. She joined Julian Ashton's Sydney Art School before 1916 and taught there from 1920; meantime, she worked at Angus & Robertson Ltd by day. An adventurous reader, she discovered Cézanne and exchanged modernist ideas with her colleagues Dorrit Black,'Rah' Fizelle and Grace Crowley. Dangar shared a cottage at Vaucluse with Crowley who became her dearest friend—yet they were never to meet after 1930.

Grace Crowley (link in quote), it appears, was another artist with New England connections, in her case Cobbadah and Barraba. Dangar stayed on in France, Crowley returned to Australia. Both form part of that remarkable group of Australian women artists who came to prominence in the first decades of the twentieth century.

Both left New England young, neither returned. But if Australia can claim Dangar, surely New England can claim both? 

2 comments:

Keith said...

Good post, thanks Jim.
Regards, Keith.
woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.com.au

Jim Belshaw said...

Hi Keith and thanks. Jim