Grace Cossington Smith - National Gallery of Australia

FLOWERS
Grace Cossington Smith
Poinsettias 1931
oil on pulpboard
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Ivor Francis Bequest Fund 1995
Grace Cossington Smith’s mother died in 1931 and this event shattered the close-knit Smith family.
Her mother’s declining health and mortality also led Cossington Smith to think about what it meant
to be alive on this earth. In historical ‘vanitas’ paintings the subject of fl owers is often associated
with the transience of life.
Poinsettias 1931 was painted in the year of Cossington Smith’s mother’s
death. The cyclical nature of life is suggested by the fragility of these
blooms, their curling, dying leaves and their downcast form. However,
the vivid colour and radiating composition is also an affi rmation of life.
Lily growing in a fi eld by the sea c. 1927 has a strange iconic quality.
Cropped from their leaves, the large blossoms fi ll the top half of the
canvas. Neither in a vase nor a garden, isolated against a distant
fence line, this image creates an edgy quality not normally associated
with fl ower paintings. Similarly unconventional, the closely focused
dusky red and white petals of Hippeastrums growing 1931 fi ll the frame.
Cossington Smith often painted fl owers. Her sense of structure,
combined with the delicate quality of Australian native fl ora resulted
in works that were lighter and less dramatic than those of her peer
Margaret Preston. As Cossington Smith said in an interview with Alan
Roberts in 1970, ‘to me the whole point of Australian fl owers is that they
are extremely light … they have an atmosphere of their own … very
beautiful and light’.
Lily growing in a fi eld by the sea
c. 1927 oil on pulpboard
Private collection Photographed
by Brenton McGeachie for NGA
Visual analysis
Cossington Smith, like Cézanne, was not interested in symmetry or
stability. Many of her compositions included angled forms that direct
the eye through the picture plane. Note the angle of the vase, the
table and the curved stem that ends in a small, curled brown leaf in
the top right. The three circular red blooms are intricately painted over
a careful preliminary drawing and the cloth behind them echoes the
movement of the spinning bracts.
Discussion point
•Why were fl owers an important subject for this artist? Discuss the
symbolic nature of fl ower paintings.
Hippeastrums growing 1931 oil
on pulpboard Private collection