by Grace Crowley was a pioneering local artist who helped bring modernist ideas to Australia.
Author’s note: this article is part of an ongoing series covering paintings in the permanent collection of the NGV. ‘Portrait’ by Grace Crowley can be found illuminating a room on Level 2, at the Ian Potter Gallery in Fed Square; the full list of articles is here.
Grace Crowley was born at Cobbadah in northern New South Wales, in May 1890. The area was rural and her parents were graziers; life on the farm would inform much of Crowley’s early life.
From a young age she showed a precocious talent for drawing. She would sketch the animals and scenery on the farm, she submitted one of these to ‘New Idea’ magazine which published the picture and awarded her a prize.
The farm was successful and Crowley’s upbringing comfortable. When she was younger she was home schooled by a live-in governess, later she attended boarding school in Sydney.
As a teenager, she had one day a week at a private art college, run by impressionist painter Julian Ashton.
Crowley’s parents were not encouraging of an artistic career, and after secondary school she returned to the farm. There her mother schooled her in domestic duties, with the expectation she would marry into a local family.
But the call of the art world was strong, and Crowley maintained her connection with Ashton.
She joined him on a painting trip to Glen Riddle in 1910, and a few years later accepted a job as a part time teacher at his school. Leaving home, she moved to Sydney permanently in 1918.
There she immersed herself fully in the city’s art scene: teaching, taking art classes, and meeting other artists.
One of these was Anne Dangar, another young painter who Crowley became close with. The pair would eventually move in together, sharing a flat in Vaucluse.
In this era, Europe was still the centre of the art world. In the latter half of the 19th century, a revolution had occurred in the visual arts there, with conventional ideas challenged and bold new styles pioneered.
Many young artists were drawn to Europe, to see these techniques first hand.
In 1926, Crowley and Dangar embarked on a trip of their own. Originally intending to study in England, they had a stopover in Paris that turned into an extended stay.
The pair shared an apartment and studio space, and studied initially at the Académie Colarossi without an instructor. Crowley then enrolled at André Lhote‘s academy, in Montparnasse.
Lhote was a Cubist, a radical style pioneered a generation before by Pablo Picasso and George Braques. Cubist art can appear impenetrable, but its underlying principal is simple: instead of representing objects from one perspective, multiple perspectives are combined into one image.
Cubism was not widely practiced outside of Europe, Crowley and Dangar were electrified by their exposure to it. After studying with Lhote and another Cubist, Albert Gleizes, Crowley attempted her own works in a similar style, which were exhibited in 1928-29.
She wrote excitedly of her discoveries to her friends in Australia. She also wrote several articles about her experiences, that were published here.
Crowley would spend four years in Europe, a period she called, ‘the happiest of my life’.
Her parents had come to reluctantly accept her art career, and gave her some financial support while she was abroad. But in 1930 her mother fell seriously ill, precipitating Crowley’s return to Australia.
Back on the farm, she found her old easel discarded on a rubbish pile. Her relationship with her parents would remain strained.
Crowley re-settled in Sydney, and split her time between there and the farm. Stylishly dressed, with worldly experience and sophisticated taste, she now found herself one of the foremost modern art experts in Australia.
In 1932, Crowley began teaching at Dorrit Black’s Modern Art Centre in Sydney. Later, she would join with painter Rah Fizelle to form their own academy on George Street, known as the Crowley-Fizelle School.
She taught painting, organised lectures and exhibitions, and had her first solo show, displaying her work from Paris. Australian art in this period was still largely traditional, Crowley’s work helped introduce Cubism and other modernist ideas.
From this point, her key artistic collaborator became Ralph Balson.
Originally from England, Balson moved to Australia in his early twenties. A self-taught artist, by day he worked as a plumber and house painter, at night he took art classes to further develop his skills.
Crowley was one of his teachers at the Sydney Art School, in the 1920s. The pair became better acquainted after Crowley’s return from Europe, and would eventually develop a close relationship that has fascinated art historians since.
‘How Balson, a working-class house painter, partnered with Crowley, an affluent, highly educated artist trained in Europe, to forge a new tradition of abstraction in Australia remains one of the great stories of Australian art history.’
– NGV, ‘Art Journal 59’
While the pair had different backgrounds and personalities, they bonded over their approach to art, supporting each other as they moved further away from tradition.
Crowley and Fizelle closed their school in 1937. Crowley then rented a rooftop terrace at 227 George Street; an idyllic spot with a shaded garden, perfect for painting.
She invited Balson to paint there, and the two used it as a shared studio space. Balsan also frequently stayed over, sleeping on the couch.
They became so entwined that Crowley signed Balsan’s paintings for him; sometimes they even shared canvasses, each painting on one side.
Rumours swirled that they were more than just artistic collaborators, although both were publicly coy on this subject. Experts are divided; many think they were simply friends and colleagues, others think they were at least casual lovers.
‘Crowley and Balson’s artistic relationship likely held some romantic quality. Yet no one seems to know how romantic. It is possible their relationship was as platonic as their paintings, a purely emotional affair.’
– Jarrod Zlatic, ‘Memo’ magazine
A curator of a joint show of theirs at the NGV, many years later, said, ‘the exact nature of their relationship remains an enigma.’
In 1939, both Crowley and Balson participated in a show titled ‘Exhibition 1’, at the David Jones Gallery in Sydney. This was the first exhibition of modernist art in Australia, showing abstract and semi-abstract work.
One of the pieces Crowley submitted was ‘Portrait’, which she painted specifically for the show.
Portrait presents an abstracted version of a human figure, possibly seated, looking off to one side. It is a subtly colourful picture, utilising oranges and pinks, with the torso and background blending together in geometric shapes.
The expression of the figure is inscrutable, and can be read a variety of ways.
To me its eyes appear reserved and shielded, its mouth a playful half-smile; the figure reveals nothing of itself, but does not object to your look. It is maybe a little step ahead of you, secure in its secret knowledge.
In classic Cubist style, the face appears both in profile, and straight on.
Crowley would later state that it was not a self-portrait, as many assumed. She was otherwise not forthcoming about its intent, or meaning.
It’s non-specific nature meant it could be seen as, a kind of every-portrait, representing the idea of figurative art.
But while not a literal self-portrait, it is also easy to think that Crowley put something of herself into the image. Her life at this time, and relationship with Balson, appeared to many unconventional and mysterious, defying straightforward interpretation.
Here is that, in tangible form.
It is also just a beautiful picture.
In 1941, Balson had a solo show at Anthony Hordern’s Fine Art Gallery in Sydney. This comprised purely abstract work: twenty-one paintings built from geometric shapes, many utilising metallic industrial paint alongside conventional oils.
Balson referred to these as his ‘constructive paintings’. While the show was not hugely successful at the time, it was later seen as a key moment in local art, and made Balson’s name.
Crowley would exhibit alongside Balson through the 1940s, but as his fame increased, she focussed more on supporting his career. She provided material assistance as needed, and studio space, and worked diligently on cataloguing his work and organising exhibitions.
Fiercely self-critical, her own artistic output had never been high volume. Now it largely ceased.
In 1949, Crowley returned to teaching at the East Sydney Technical College. But by this time, the abstract approach she favoured had fallen out of fashion, replaced by the more emotive style of expressionism.
After a few years teaching, Crowley effectively retired. In 1954 she bought a country property, ‘High Hill’, in Mittagong in rural New South Wales.
Balson was a regular visitor. He decorated the ceiling of the living-room with a large, constructivist design, and painted in the garden on weekends.
For a time he lived in the garden shed.
The pair travelled together occasionally, but Crowley became happiest at home. When Balson died in August 1964, she dedicated herself to preserving his artistic legacy.
In 1966, Crowley sold High Hill and moved to an apartment in Manly. Her old friend Rah Fizelle moved into the same building.
Into the 1970s, abstract art became increasingly appreciated, and Crowley’s work would be rediscovered. Her paintings appeared in a number of retrospective shows, her life and career were also celebrated by the rising feminist movement.
In 1975, The Art Gallery NSW held a major exhibition with works from Crowley, Balson, and Fizelle, alongside other modern Australian artists from that period. Twenty five paintings from Crowley were featured; asked how she felt viewing them together, she said, ‘Appalled… and thrilled’.
Grace Crowley died at her home, in April 1979. She bequeathed many of the paintings in her possession, to public galleries around Australia.
‘Portrait’ entered the NGV’s collection through this process in 1981.
In 2024, maintenance on the painting revealed a surprise. Between the painting itself and the backing board of the frame, was a second artwork.
This proved to be a previously unknown abstract by Balson, from 1941.
Investigation by the gallery would reveal that the two paintings were stored together during the war, and subsequently, presumably by accident, framed as one item. But it is hard not to feel, this was one small, final mystery, left by these two enigmatic figures.
