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• Auction House:
  Deutscher and Hackett
• Sale Name:
  Twenty Classics of Australian Art + Important Australian and International Fine Art
• Sale Date:
  11 Nov 2020 ~ 7pm (AEDT)
• Lot #:
  37
• Lot Description:
  Bessie Davidson
  (1879 – 1965)
  Intérieur, c.1938
  oil on board
  81.0 x 64.5 cm
  signed lower left: Bessie Davidson; signed and inscribed verso: Bessie Davidson / No. 2 / 3
• Provenance:
  Osborne Art Gallery, Adelaide; Warren & Bunty Bonython, Adelaide; Mossgreen, Adelaide, 4 May 2014, lot 177; Private collection, New South Wales
• Exhibited:
  "28e Groupe des Artistes de ce Temps" (28th Group of Artists of our Time), Petit Palais, Paris, March – June 1938, cat. 2; "Salon des Femmes Peintres "(Salon of Women Artists), Paris, October 1938, cat.3 (label attached verso); Possibly: "Bessie Davidson", Osborne Art Gallery, Adelaide, 31 May – 13 June 1967; "Bessie Davidson: An Australian Impressionist in Paris", Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 20 March – 26 July 2020
• References:
  Wilson, S. C., "From the Shadow into the light: South Australian Women Artists Since Colonisation," Delmont Pty Ltd, South Australia, 1988, pl.43, p. 31 (illus. as ‘Interior’); Curtin, P. (ed.), "Bessie Davidson: An Australian Impressionist in Paris", Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 2020, p.63 (as ‘Interieur 1930s’)
• Notes:
  Adelaide-born Bessie Davidson spent most of her creative life in Paris, absorbing the elegance and sophistication which we associate with the French capital and manifesting it in her art. It touches her landscapes, and especially the interiors and still life paintings in which she excels- "Intérieur" being a fine example. Her excellence in this genre was, no doubt, influenced by her earlier association with Margaret Preston (then Rose McPherson), in whose studio she studied from 1899 to 1904. Together, they travelled abroad, Davidson continuing her studies at the Munich Künstlerinner Verein, and in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Although Davidson returned to Adelaide in 1906 and taught for a number of years with Preston, her home became Paris where, from 1910 until her death, her studio was in Rue Boissonade, Montparnasse. In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, she joined the French Red Cross and worked voluntarily as a nurse. Afterwards, her involvement in French life and art led to her being the first Australian woman to be elected to the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. She was also a founder-member of the Salon des Tuileries, and vice president of the Société Nationale des Femmes Artistes Modernes. Her contribution to French art and to the nation resulted in the 1931 award of Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. She exhibited regularly in Paris and London, being included in the 1938 ‘L'Exposition du Groupe Feminin’ at the Petit Palais and, the following year, in the exhibition of French art that toured the U.S.A. Internationally, she is represented in the Musée d'Art Moderne, Musée d'Orsay, and Musée du Petit Palais, Paris, as well as in collections in The Netherlands, Edinburgh, and Fife. Like her friend and fellow-Australian artist resident in Paris, Rupert Bunny, she never gave up her Australian citizenship. The exhibition ‘Bessie Davidson: Une Australienne en France, 1880-1965’, was held at the Australian Embassy, Paris, May-July 1999 and recently the Bendigo Art Gallery curated the exhibition ‘Bessie Davidson: An Australian Impressionist in Paris’. DAVID THOMAS
• Estimate:
  A$50,000 - 70,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.