- 13
CLARICE BECKETT Australian, 1887-1935
Description
- Clarice Beckett
- EVENING LIGHTS
- Bears certificate of authenticity on reverse, signed by Hilda Mangan, sister of the artist
- Oil on board
- 24.7 by 34.7 cm
- Painted c. 1926
Provenance
Private collection, Melbourne; acquired by the present owner's mother from Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, in 1999
Catalogue Note
Over the years Clarice Beckett painted many glimpses of Port Phillip Bay – at sunrise, in bright sunshine and, as here, in soft evening light. ‘From the beginning Beckett was irresistibly drawn to the sea, painting the beaches around Port Phillip Bay, although the Mornington Peninsula also featured in her work. Beaumaris Beach, Ricketts Point, Watkins Bay, Half Moon Bay, Black Rock, Sandringham and Brighton were those most mined for inspiration, being areas accessible by foot’. 1 In Evening Lights the beachscape is an animated pattern of almost abstracted colour. A line of hazy circles of light on the horizon signals the coming of twilight and the end of a summer’s day beside the sea.
Beckett lived with her family in the bayside suburb of Beaumaris from 1919 and remained there for the rest of her life. Moving beyond the direct influence of Max Meldrum, she gradually adopted a lighter, freer and more impressionist style of her own. As well as exhibiting with the Society of Twenty Melbourne Painters and the Melbourne Society of Women Painters, she held twelve solo exhibitions in ten years.
1. Hollinrake, R., Clarice Beckett, Politically Incorrect, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, 1999, p. 26.