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Lot Essay
Together with Roy de Maistre and Roland Wakelin, Grace Cossington Smith was one of a triumvirate that pioneered Modernism in Australian art. Blue Glass was one of six paintings by Cossington Smith that were exhibited in the important A Group of Seven exhibition held at The Macquarie Galleries in 1930. The other contributors to this innovative exhibition were Roland Wakelin, Roy de Maistre, Grace Crowley, Dorrit Black, Enid Cambridge and sculptor Frank Weitzel.
While Blue Glass is a stunning example of early Australian Modernism, in a more specific context it also belongs to a female artistic tradition that includes Margaret Preston's Implement Blue (Art Gallery of New South Wales) and Olive Cotton's 1935 photograph Teacup Ballet. In terms of Cossington Smith's oeuvre, it directly relates to Things on an Iron Tray on the Floor circa 1927 -1928 (Art Gallery of New South Wales) and Teacups: The Harlequin Set circa 1931 - 1932. While all of these works represent domestic items, their true subject matter is the interplay between form, colour and light.
Blue Glass combines the characteristic stippled brushwork of Cossington Smith with both angularity and rhythmic curves. The soft palette is flooded with light, achieving a translucency that echoes the nature of the items depicted, while the strong yellow at left hints at the primacy that this colour would have in the artist's later work. In his monograph on Cossington Smith, James refers to "... the delightful and blissfully loose Blue Glass. It's off-centred compositional bias and whimsicality of spirit may not have appealed to more regimented tastes. It is perfect in its poiseful imperfections, no ellipse is true, no line straight, but it rings, as the glass must, with rightness." (B James, op.cit, pp.81 & 85)
The work has been signed twice and it is most likely that the curving signature in the upper right corner was the initial signature, with the lower signature and date being a later addition by the artist. 1928 - 1930, the period in which Blue Glass was painted, was undoubtedly one of the creative peaks of Cossington Smith's career, perhaps only equalled by the period during the 1950s in which she produced the Bedroom series. Between 1928 and 1930, Cossington Smith painted some of her most ambitious and large-scale works, including The Curve of the Bridge (Art Gallery of New South Wales), The Bridge In-Curve (National Gallery of Victoria), Four Panels for a Screen (National Gallery of Australia) and Landscape at Pentecost (Art Gallery of South Australia). While they are on a more intimate scale, still lifes from this period, such as Blue Glass reveal the same sense of creative daring and the Modernist sensibility that is the hallmark of Cossington Smith's art.
While Blue Glass is a stunning example of early Australian Modernism, in a more specific context it also belongs to a female artistic tradition that includes Margaret Preston's Implement Blue (Art Gallery of New South Wales) and Olive Cotton's 1935 photograph Teacup Ballet. In terms of Cossington Smith's oeuvre, it directly relates to Things on an Iron Tray on the Floor circa 1927 -1928 (Art Gallery of New South Wales) and Teacups: The Harlequin Set circa 1931 - 1932. While all of these works represent domestic items, their true subject matter is the interplay between form, colour and light.
Blue Glass combines the characteristic stippled brushwork of Cossington Smith with both angularity and rhythmic curves. The soft palette is flooded with light, achieving a translucency that echoes the nature of the items depicted, while the strong yellow at left hints at the primacy that this colour would have in the artist's later work. In his monograph on Cossington Smith, James refers to "... the delightful and blissfully loose Blue Glass. It's off-centred compositional bias and whimsicality of spirit may not have appealed to more regimented tastes. It is perfect in its poiseful imperfections, no ellipse is true, no line straight, but it rings, as the glass must, with rightness." (B James, op.cit, pp.81 & 85)
The work has been signed twice and it is most likely that the curving signature in the upper right corner was the initial signature, with the lower signature and date being a later addition by the artist. 1928 - 1930, the period in which Blue Glass was painted, was undoubtedly one of the creative peaks of Cossington Smith's career, perhaps only equalled by the period during the 1950s in which she produced the Bedroom series. Between 1928 and 1930, Cossington Smith painted some of her most ambitious and large-scale works, including The Curve of the Bridge (Art Gallery of New South Wales), The Bridge In-Curve (National Gallery of Victoria), Four Panels for a Screen (National Gallery of Australia) and Landscape at Pentecost (Art Gallery of South Australia). While they are on a more intimate scale, still lifes from this period, such as Blue Glass reveal the same sense of creative daring and the Modernist sensibility that is the hallmark of Cossington Smith's art.