Lot 76

Christies, Melbourne, 4 October 1977, lot 102
Ruth Prowse Collection
Thence by descent
Private collection, Melbourne

Jean Bellette Retrospective
Bathurst Regional Gallery, Ballarat, 10 Dec 2004-16 Jan 2005
S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 12 Mar- 24 April 2004
University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, 6 May-12 June 2005
Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria, 12 July -28 August 2005
Drill Hall Gallery, ACT, 3 Nov -18 Dec 2005
(exhibition catalogue p. 54 illustrated)

Blue Chip XV, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 4-29 June 2013, cat. no. 19 (p. 26, illus.)

Grishin, S., A gift our city can savour: The Legacy of Ruth Prowse, Sydney Morning Herald, March 13 2012
(digital article available: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/a-gift-our-city-can-savour-20120312-1uubu.html )

"...it has taken a lifetime for Bellette's art to assert its voice as one of the more distinctive in the chorus of Australian modernism - and one that uniquely represents a dialogue with the early twentieth-century reappearance of European classicism."
(Amanda Beresford - from the Jean Bellette Retrospective exhibition catalogue)

She studied in London under Bernard Meninsky where she first encountered a more classical tradition. Her later studies in Paris under the Ecole de Paris provided an artistic freedom for her that had not yet extended beyond Europe - with a more modern reinterpretation of antiquity and even a surrealist sensibility at the forefront.