poetry THE MAN FOR THE JOB
Heather Johnson
John Pigot
Hilda Rix Nicholas: Her Life and Art
MUP $82.50hb, 112pp
0 522 84890 7
In this sentence Rix Nicholas belies the image of the downtrodden, insecure woman artist, favoured, even with evidence to the contrary, by many of those 'rediscovering' women artists. Rix Nicholas not only claims a man's role, but asserts herself as better than the men artists, as more able to depict the Australian landscape and Australian 'types' -- the domain of men artists in Australia in the 1920s and 30s -- than the men artists themselves. She also belies the picture of women artists in Australia in the 1920s -- that recorded in our art history as one unusual moment when women artists, such as Margaret Preston, Dorrit Black, Grace Cossington Smith, Thea Proctor and others dominated an avant-gardist practice of modernist decorative art.
Over the past few years John Pigot has published 'instalments' of Rix Nicholas's life and art, in various articles. His meticulous research and writing have provided a rigorous art historical account, enlivened by the artist's failure to fit into the gender roles prescribed for men and women artists in Australia in this period, both at the time of practice and subsequently in our art history. But let's leave gender aside for a moment. Here we have the story of an Australian artist who trained at the National Gallery School in Melbourne, engaged in further study in Europe, exhibited works to great critical praise in France. Was imbued with strong nationalistic feelings as a result of the traumatic experience of the First World War. Returned to Australia, and held two very much admired exhibitions, one of which was particularly influential on one of the country's up and coming young artists. Travelled into the outback to 'paint things typical of my country'. Held extremely successful exhibitions of these works in France and England. Returned to Australia a celebrity and acknowledged as one of Australia's most successful artists. Pursued their career but was gradually 'left behind' by more modern styles. A fairly typical, almost ho-hum, sort of story for a Streeton, or a Bunny -- or perhaps most well-known Australian men artists of the period. This, however, was not a man artist and this is not a gender-free story. It is instead the story of a determined, self assured and talented woman, one who saw her place in life as being equal to that of men.
In Hilda Rix Nicholas, we have a bi-partite account of an artist, albeit skilfully woven together by Pigot: first her life and work, and second her atypical place in Australian art. In terms of the life and work Pigot reveals fascinating glimpses of what generated and later motivated and influenced Rix Nicholas's ideas and practice. We are shown a talented family who enjoyed dressing up and performing (and thank you to Pigot for reproducing one of the most charming photographs I have ever seen, Rix Nicholas as a toddler dressed up in a fairy costume); a strong mother who decided to study at the National Gallery School even though married and with a small child (nice to have a matriarchal lineage for an artist); a precocious student -- 'Why do you bring this girl to me? She can draw better than I can already' (the last time I read something similar to this, it was said of Picasso). We read of Rix Nicholas at Etaples, absorbed in depicting the peasant women -- not as individuals but as 'types'; we see her revelling in the costumes and colours of Morocco, but with the typical western superior attitude towards the orient. We see her devastated by the death of her sister and husband in 1916 and painting that devastation into a work, Desolation, that captures a woman's grief almost as strongly as it was captured around the same time and earlier by the German artist, Kathe Kollwitz.
We see Rix Nicholas return to Australia in 1919 and the young Grace Cossington Smith, write an excited page-long letter concerning an exhibition of her work, 'I met (my Fate) the other day in the ART line! There has been a very stunning exhibition here.I went to see it three or four times and any other picture seems very dull after seeing these.' We are shown Rix Nicholas painting Australian types and scenes, the wonderful picture of her driving around the outback in a specially fitted out car called 'the paintbox', and (in a photograph) working with her canvas nailed to a gum tree.
But Pigot's account argues well that Rix Nicholas's art making was far from straightforward. Underlying the artist's determination to paint Australia -- the landscape and the strong, hardy Australian types who lived and worked there -- was the perceived ideology at the time that this was men's territory, literally and figuratively. It was not a place for women to inhabit, it was not a painting genre appropriate for women. Pigot compares Rix Nicholas with the equally ambitious Margaret Preston. Whereas Preston assessed that to be successful she would need to find a niche where she could excel without being a threat to men artists -- decorative, modernist prints, mostly of flowers -- Rix Nicholas declared, 'I wish above all things to associate my work with the portrayal of my own sunny land and her peoples.' While Preston was supported by the art establishment (she had more work reproduced in Art in Australia than any other artist) Rix Nicholas had to contend with criticisms designed to belittle and undermine her skill, with rejections such as having her perhaps best-known work, A Man (1921) refused by the Australian War Memorial, and her entry for a War Memorial Mural in the Melbourne Public Library passed over even though it was suspected that she won the competition.
Pigot points out, however, that Rix Nicholas was not trying to merely emulate 'men's art'. Her war memorial project, rather than depicting an unremittingly stoic and heroic side of war, included allusions to feeling and emotion, inspiring one soldier to write to a newspaper, 'Why don't they buy that splendid painting by Mrs. Rix Nicholas which shows what we suffered in that awful war?' In her paintings of the outback she depicted women riding, mustering sheep -- taking their part in settling and working 'men's territory'.
Your comments are invited: email them in a Letter to the Editor
Return to Australian Book Review /August 2000