Clarice Beckett

Here in Sydney we have had little rain for months.  The wet weather that caused floods up north arrived here and we have had 3 days of precipitation filling our dams, rain tanks and moistening our gardens.

When I think about an artist who beautifully portrayed the weather I think of Clarice Beckett.  When I first saw her work, I thought it was contemporary, but no, she was painting in the 1920’s and 30’s.  Beckett was born in 1887 in Victoria (Australia) and she studied with  artists, Fredrick McCubbin and Max Meldrum.  Meldrum strongly influenced her use of tone and restrained colour.

Clarice Beckett never married.  She lived with her parents and fulfilled the family expectation that she would care for them.  Beckett painted several thousand paintings but had no studio and worked she could, that being when her parents did not need her.  She painted early in the morning or late in the evening presumably when her parents were asleep. She painted the landscape and water in her neighbourhood capturing the atmosphere of time and place.  She said she was a realist, painting what she saw.  If a car drove through when a painting was in progress, it then became part of the landscape.

Beckett exhibited regularly but sold few paintings in her life time.  She died, prematurely,  in 1935 of pneumonia.  This was related to being exhausted by her caring role and then being caught in a storm while out painting.  After her death her paintings were taken to her sister’s farm where they were stored in an open shed.  They were discovered in the 1970s but unfortunately a large percentage of  the work was in ruin. The weather that was part of her inspiration to create was what also destroyed it.

I love Clarice Beckett’s paintings.  How good was she to go out with her cart of paint and canvas when it was cold and wet and, likely, miserable.  She's an inspiration. 
 Below are some of my tries at  capturing the weather.  Here on the left is a view from my front balcony on a cloudy/stormy day. It is oil on canvas. The other one was painted from the doorway looking into my backyard when the rain was teeming down.  It's gouache on paper.