ADELAIDE PERRY

Initially trained at the National Gallery School under Bernard Hall and Frederick McCubbin, Adelaide Perry won the National Gallery Travelling Scholarship in 1918, studying at the Royal Academy, London from 1922 to 1925. On her return to Australia she established herself as an artist and as a teacher, both at the Julian Ashton School and her own Adelaide Perry School of Art.

Although she exhibited with the Sydney Contemporary Group and at the progressive Grosvenor and Macquarie Galleries, and made modern accented relief prints from the late 1920s, she retained a firm commitment to traditional techniques, close observation and naturalistic transcription, which made her a fine portraitist. She exhibited in the Archibald Prize in 1926, 1928 and 1937. She once said that 'I'd like it to go on record that I think the only real painting is from the subject - anything else could be false 'noting that 'I did my painting, the actual portrait, directly from the sitter' ¹

The present work typifies the artist's double aesthetic. There is a strong flavour of modernism in the expressive hands, the geometric device of the circular fan, the bright colour of the red shawl or blanket over the back of the chair, even in the post-impressionist landscape seen through the window, while the immediate realism of the face gives the portrait a striking, timeless intensity.

1. Dutton, G., (ed.), Artists' Portraits, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1992, pp. 55, 56