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Original Sybil Craig Mid Century painting, Australian framed artwork
$950.00
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Original abstract watercolour painting on paper by the prominent Australian modernist artist Sybil Craig (1901–1989). The piece features a stylised floral or plant-like motif enclosed within an organic, circular border, characteristic of the artist’s spontaneous "instinctive" style. Craig was a pivotal figure in Australian modernism, recognised for her bold use of colour, passion for design, and her vitality. Delightful artwork, framed with gilt wood and custom mount behind glass.
33cm x 29cm frame
13cm x 11cm artwork
Sybil Mary Frances Craig (1901-1989), studied at the National Gallery of Victoria's school of painting with Bernard Hall, William McInnes and Charles Wheeler. Craig's first solo exhibition, at the Athenaeum Gallery in 1932, included subjects ranging from still lifes to portraits. Accomplished in oils, watercolours and pastels, Craig also applied her talent for design to line-drawings for book-plates and emblems.
She was a foundation member of the New Melbourne Art Club and, during the 1930s and 1940s, exhibited with the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, the Victorian Artists Society, and the Twenty Melbourne Painters. Between 1936 and 1951 she maintained a Collins Street studio; numerous seascapes reflected the time she spent at the family's beach house at Canadian Bay on the Mornington Peninsula.
In March 1945 Craig became an official war artist, commissioned by the Australian War Memorial (under pressure to appoint modernist artists) to record work at the Commonwealth Explosives Factory at Maribyrnong. Her admiration for women munitions workers is evident in the seventy-nine works held by the AWM.
Describing herself as an instinctive' artist, Craig was becoming more exploratory in her media and style. Her second solo exhibition was held at Georges Gallery in 1948. Thirty years later Jim Alexander, director of the Important Woman Artists Gallery, East Malvern, persuaded her to present a retrospective (1978) of her work. It inspired renewed critical appreciation and the purchase of several paintings by major public galleries.
In 1981 she was awarded the OAM. Her work is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, the NGV, the State Library of Victoria, and the Art Gallery of South Australia.
