Lot 2

Sotheby's, Melbourne, 22 April 1991, lot 298 (unsold)
Private collection, Melbourne
Thence by descent

Grace Cossington Smith (1892-1984) was one of Australia's most significant modernist painters. Born in Sydney, she studied under Antonio Dattilo Rubbo, whose teaching introduced her to the ideas of European modernism and Post-Impressionism. Following a period of travel to Europe and classes at Winchester School of Art in England and at Stettin in Germany, she returned to Sydney in 1914, bringing with her an interest in the expressive possibilities of colour.

Cossington Smith developed a highly individual visual language based on colour, pattern, light and rhythmic brushwork. She transformed ordinary subjects such as landscapes, interiors and still lifes into vibrant arrangements of colour. Cossington Smith spent most of her working life at the family home, 'Cossington' in Turramurra, where her domestic surroundings became an important source of inspiration and led to her adopting the name as her artist identity.(1) The still life genre provided an opportunity to examine the visual relationships between objects, colour and light, while finding beauty in everyday life.

Flowers were particularly significant to the artist, and her still lifes demonstrate her fascination with colour and the changing qualities of light, while also suggesting a deeper awareness of the fragility and transience of life. Rather than treating flowers as merely decorative subjects, she transformed them into energetic compositions in which colour itself becomes expressive.

This can be seen in the artwork titled 'Still Life with Lilies'. At the centre of the composition is a vase filled with lilies and abundant foliage, surrounded by patterned fabric that merges into a richly coloured background. The flowers are immediately recognisable, yet their forms are broken into vigorous strokes of yellow, green, orange, and red. The work demonstrates her ability to make a still life arrangement feel dynamic and alive. Her characteristic short, rhythmic brushstrokes create movement across the entire surface. The leaves and flowers appear to expand beyond the boundaries of the vase, while the patterned cloth creates an additional field of colour beneath them. Rather than relying on traditional modelling and realistic shading, she allows adjacent colours to build the impression of form and light.

Cossington Smith's still lifes transform familiar domestic subjects into exuberant modernist compositions. The apparent simplicity of flowers arranged in a vase become an exploration of colour, rhythm and perception. Her love of the still life genre was not simply a preference for domestic subjects, but part of a sustained exploration into how painting could make the everyday appear new, luminous and alive.

Amanda Hayward (née North)
Senior Fine Art Specialist

(1) Hart, D. (ed.), Grace Cossington Smith, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2005.

© Courtesy of The Estate of Grace Cossington Smith, 2026