Grace Cossington Smith - National Gallery of Australia

CITY LIFE
Grace Cossington Smith
The Lacquer Room 1935–36
oil on paperboard on plywood
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney © AGNSW
Photographed by Christopher Snee for AGNSW
Grace Cossington Smith has often been associated with the introduction of modernism to
Australian art. Characteristics of modernism include simplifi ed compositions, decorative fl atness,
clearly outlined shapes, emphasis on colour and rhythmic elements, and a reduction of forms to
their essentials.
Along with Roy De Maistre and Roland Wakelin Cossington Smith was a student of Anthony Dattilo
Rubbo, who introduced his students to the art of the Post-Impressionists Cézanne, Van Gogh and
Gauguin.
The paintings of Cossington Smith, with their singing colour, fan-shaped brushstrokes defi ning
simplifi ed forms and dynamic, often asymmetrically balanced compositions place her fi rmly in the
modernist tradition.
The Lacquer Room, painted in 1935–36, demonstrates many modernist
characteristics. It depicts an American-style Art Deco café from the late
1920s called the Soda Fountain, located in David Jones, Sydney. The
geometric forms in the painting are simplifi ed and fl attened, and the
repeated shapes create rhythmic patterns.
Visual analysis
The curves of the red chairs and their vertical slats dominate the
composition and are counter-pointed by the green rectangular tables
and the chalky geometry of the background. There is no directed light
source creating shadows and tone, instead the whole composition is
bathed in an even glow.
Study for The Lacquer Room
c. 1935 pencil on paper
sketchbook 14 National
Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1976
The fi gures, although painted in darker, more muted colours, seem almost as inanimate as the
furniture. They are captured as if looking at the artist making the preliminary drawing for this work,
a practice she used for all of her paintings from this period.
Discussion point
•List the characteristics of modernism that this painting exhibits.