First Australian Exhibition of Women's Work, 1907 : Second Class Diploma awarded to Miss A.M.E. Bale for Figure Study in Black & White; [signed] Alice S. Northcote, President; Alfred Deakin, Chairman, General Committee / Eirene Mort
- Bib ID:
- 7283627
- Format:
- Book
- Author:
- Australian Exhibition of Women's Work (1st : 1907 : Melbourne, Vic.)
- Printer:
- [Melbourne]: Sands & McDougall Ltd Litho.
- Description:
-
- Melbourne : Australian Exhibition of Women's Work, 1907
- 1 broadside : colour ; 38.3 x 46.8 cm
- Summary:
-
A colour lithograph certificate printed in shades of yellow and brown against a buff and light green background, depicting a group of female figures between two classical pillars and an a arch, with an arched text panel in the centre. The three women symbolise their roles in the home (the woman seated in the left foreground is sewing, with a child leaning against her shoulder), in the garden and in the agricultural industries (the woman standing behind her is holding a bunch of flowers and a small rake or multi-pronged hoe; before her is a cornucopia of fruit, including a pineapple, and a bunch of flowers, including a waratah), as well as in the arts and crafts (the woman on the right is dressed in a classical Greek costume and holding stone carving tools, before her are decorated urns, a lute, sheet music, books, a quill, rolled up certificates, and an artist's palette and brushes).
- Biography/History:
-
The First Australian Exhibition of Women's Work was held at the Exhibition Building, Melbourne, from 23 October to 30 November 1907. It was opened by by Lady Northcote (the wife of Australia's Governor General) and Pattie Deakin (wife of the Prime Minister), who also ran a model creche during the exhibition. The five week exhibition showcased the work of women musicians, artists and craftswomen with over 16,000 exhibits in all fields of artistic endeavour.
"Alice Marian Ellen Bale (1875-1955), artist, was born on 11 November 1875 at Richmond, Victoria, only child of William Mountier Bale (1851-1940), naturalist and inspector of customs, and his wife Marian, née Adams (d.1915). Alice Bale was enrolled at the Gallery School in 1895, where in the course of her studies she won 9 major prizes and in 1902 was a strong contender for the travelling scholarship; she attended for 2 more years but did not compete for prizes. She became noted for her paintings of flowers; Bernard Hall held her work in high regard and a print of her 'Scabiosa' (purchased 1922) was for years one of the few available coloured reproductions of pictures in the National Gallery of Victoria. Her landscapes and interiors were mostly painted at Castlemaine, where she had a house and studio, and at Kew; she never left Victoria. Miss Bale became a consistent and respected exhibitor with the Women's Art Club (later the Melbourne Society of Women Painters), and she edited the journal of the Victorian Artists' Society from 5 March 1918 until its last issue in February 1919. Two of her paintings were in the 1923 exhibition of Australian art in London. In 1933 her group portrait, 'Mr. and Mrs. Carl Hampel', was hung at the Royal Academy and her 'Portrait of a lady' was exhibited at the Salon of 1939 in Paris. She also exhibited with The Half Dozen Group of Artists in Brisbane in 1943-48 and in 1946 painted a commissioned portrait of Major General Vasey for the Australian War Memorial. Her portrait by William Rowell is in the Castlemaine Art Gallery where there are seven of her paintings; others are at Walpole Street and in public collections in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Ballarat and Mildura." -Mossgreen catalogue MG121, 18 October 2016, lot 437.
The designer of this diploma was Eirene Mort (1879-1977), who had established a reputation as an illustrator and designer in Sydney. She founded the Australian Guild of Handicraft in 1906 and was also a participant in the Women's Work Exhibition. (Ruby Lind won the national competition and her more conventional allegorical design was used for the First Class certificate.) Mort contributed 'some hundreds of designs' to every class of the Applied Arts and in the Illustration and Watercolour sections, designed the Waratah Carpet embroidered by an army of women for Lady Northcote, and designed the poster for the Sydney preliminary show, used on the cover of the special Women's Work edition of the Sydney Mail.-Based on Hordern House catalogue, and https://www.daao.org.au/bio/eirene-mort/biography/, viewed 2016.
- Notes:
-
- Caption title.
- Digital master of Broadside 1185 available National Library of Australia
- Source of Acquisition:
- Provenance: Hordern House, Acquisitions, March 1996, no. 4; Mossgreen Auctions, The John Lancaster Collection of Australia's Involvement in Trade Exhibitions, MG121, 18 October 2016, Lot 437.
- Subject:
- Other authors/contributors:
- Mort, Eirene, 1879-1977, artist
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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- Reason for copyright status:
- Until 2047 [Creator Date of Death + 70 Years]
Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Presumed date of death of creator (latest date):
- 1977
- Published status:
- Published
- Publication date:
- 1907
Copyright status may not be correct if data in the record is incomplete or inaccurate. Other access conditions may also apply. For more information please see: Copyright in library collections.
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