DETAIL: Grace COSSINGTON SMITH,  'Interior in yellow', 1964, oil on composition board, National Gallery of Australia
 
 
Grace COSSINGTON SMITH | Gum blossom and drapery

 
COSSINGTON SMITH, Grace
Australia 1892 – Australia 1984
UK, Europe 1912-14; UK, Italy 1949-51
Gum blossom and drapery 1952
oil on board
40.0 (h) x 53.0 (w) cm
Mosman Art Gallery Collection, Mosman Council
VIEW: Article |

In 1952 Cossington Smith was awarded the Mosman Art Prize by Margaret Preston for Gum blossom and drapery, painted the same year. What Preston appreciated most was the local content.  As she noted in her adjudicator’s comments: ‘This country must have an Art of its own, and whilst we have something on this occasion which may seem a little queer, it is, nevertheless, quite distinctive and typical of Australia. The pictures were judged with the viewpoint of Australian Art – not as something just pleasing to the eye, but something which reflected a sense of mental vision’. (Margaret Preston, adjudicator’s report, 1952, Mosman Art Gallery, New South Wales.)

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