CLARICE BECKETT

Rosalind Humphries Gallery, Melbourne
Private Collection, Victoria; purchased by the present owner's mother, circa 1974

Politically Incorrect: Clarice Beckett, 5 February - 28 March 1999, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne, cat. 48, touring until closing venue at Burnie Regional Art Gallery, 22 May 2000

Intermittent verticle scratch, from the top of the sign to lower right hand corner, has possibly been re-touched. Possible re-touching to right of lower branch of green tree. Reasonable condition relative to her works. UV inspection confirms the above.
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Ungainly as such objects of modernity may be - the canvas hooded motorcar and timber electricity pole - in Clarice Beckett's paintings they take on an unaccustomed appearance of elegance, and play a vital compositional role.

The lyrical appearance of the everyday in this and others of her paintings has a lot to do with the soft focus of her imagery; for that which might otherwise be a little prosaic and ordinary, is softened and nurtured into poetic form. She transforms this commonplace into something special, seen anew and admired in its new found beauty. Then there is the magic of her compositional inventiveness. She allows the risk of the light pole cutting the canvas in two to give a wonderful underlying balance and proportion, recalling the perfection of the golden mean.

Its commanding verticality repeated in the upright posts, is then called into balance by the horizontality of other timbers, and especially the dominance of the cypress tree and its branches. Again the green bulk of the tree is offset by the dark-bodied motor vehicle. She is no mean classicist, the quiet rhythms and balances in this painting finding their counterparts in other related Beaumaris works such as Autumn Morning, 1925 (private collection).¹ The same sophisticated approach is applied to the colour scheme, deep greens and bright blues brilliantly given greater definition by the touches of red clothing on the figures. The sharp contrast makes each colour all the brighter and richer.

These strong pictorial accents of form and colour are the distinguishing features of the best of Beckett's work. The Melbourne seaside suburb of Beaumaris attracted many artists, including Frederick McCubbin and his contemporaries near the turn of the century. Few captured it with quite the same striking individuality as Beckett in this painting, transforming landscape into a wonderfully engaging work of art.

1. See colour pl. 12 in the catalogue to the exhibition Politically Incorrect.