Grace Cossington Smith - National Gallery of Australia

WAR
Grace Cossington Smith
The sock knitter 1915
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney © AGNSW
Photographed by Jenni Carter for AGNSW
Although World War I took place on the other side of the world, it had a huge infl uence upon
the Smith family. Both parents were born in England and many of their relatives remained there.
Cossington Smith’s brother, Gordon, joined the British Army in 1916 after one term studying at Oxford
and Cossington Smith worked regularly at the War Chest Flower Shop in Pitt Street, to help raise
funds for the soldiers. It was here that she often met Mary Cunningham, whom she later visited at
Lanyon, a property near Canberra. Cunningham was an impassioned defender of conscription
and Cossington Smith supported her position during two referenda on the subject.
The sock knitter in this work is Cossington Smith’s younger sister Madge, seated in the garden
studio of the family home at Turramurra. As well as being an intimate portrait of a family member it
represents the type of work many women undertook during World War I: knitting socks for Australian
soldiers fi ghting overseas.
Cossington Smith painted this portrait in 1915, while still a student at art school. It demonstrates her
interest in Post-Impressionism, which was largely new in Australian art at the time. The sock knitter
may have been inspired by reproductions of Cézanne’s paintings that were on display at Anthony
Dattilo Rubbo’s atelier, where Cossington Smith took art classes. There is also some similarity to works
by the British artists of the Camden Town Group, such as Harold Gilman and Charles Ginner, whose
works she may have seen when in Europe between 1912 and 1914.
Visual analysis
The central fi gure is placed vertically in the composition. An oblique patch of dark blue in the top
right connects the fi gure to the background and visually fl attens the composition. The two sections
of pale, patterned fabric on either side of the fi gure also help to fl atten the space. The focal point
of the painting is the face of Madge, looking down at her hands. Horizontal lines of background
fabric, diagonal lines of shoulders and lower arms, and even the diagonals of her collar direct the
viewer to this part of the painting.
Large areas of fl at colour, painted thickly, demonstrate that at this early stage of her career the
artist had not yet developed her own idiosyncratic paint handling style – the small, mosaic-like
brushstrokes that are central to her later work.
Discussion points
•Describe the artist’s feelings about conscription and the contribution of Australian women to
the war effort.
•Discuss how the artist has visually ‘fl attened’ the image.