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Details
- Place where the work was made
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Paris
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France
- Date
- 1960
- Media category
- Materials used
- colour lithograph from three stones on ivory wove paper
- Edition
- 23/30
- Dimensions
- 59.5 x 44.0 cm image (irreg.); 72.6 x 53.3 cm sheet
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.r., pencil "J Dawson '60".
- Credit
- Purchased 1961
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- DA1.1961
- Copyright
- © Janet Dawson/Copyright Agency
- Artist information
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Janet Dawson
Works in the collection
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About
Janet Dawson was born in Sydney and moved with her family to Melbourne at the age of six. As a child she attended Saturday drawing classes run by J Septimus Power, and in 1952 enrolled at the National Gallery School, Melbourne to study under William Dargie and Alan Sumner. She also attended night classes in lithography at Swinburne Technical College with Robert Grieve. In 1956 she won the National Gallery of Victoria Travelling scholarship and left for London to study painting and lithography under Ceri Richards at the Slade School, 1957-58 and etching under Anthony Gross at the Central School. She won first prize for lithography at the Slade in 1959 and with the scholarship money travelled to Italy. In 1960 she worked as a proof printer in Paris at the Atelier Patris, where she also made her own lithographs. She returned to Melbourne in 1961 before moving to NSW five years later. While in Melbourne she established and ran an art school and lithographic workshop at Gallery A in 1963, where she printed for Russell Drysdale, Albert Tucker, Donald Friend, Charles Blackman and others, and portfolios for the National Gallery Society of Victoria, assisted by Robin Wallace-Crabbe. She also made her own stencil prints. She moved the Gallery A print workshop to Mary Place at Paddington, Sydney in 1966 where she printed work for Blackman and Drysdale; the studio was taken over by her assistant Robert Brown, until it closed in 1969. Janet Dawson now lives and works in rural Binalong near Canberra.
"Printing was a way of learning formal values ... (it) is excellent training for an artist - matching colour accurately, controlling tone, economy of line - analysing an image in various stages. To make a print one must build up an image in separate states and learn to analyse those states and what is required for the next state. So one pulls it apart and reassembles it, and things of no value have to be ditched along the way... the same with colour - so a good painting or print spirals from the bottom layer to the top layer." (Margaret Plant, 'Melbourne printmakers', Art Bulletin of Victoria 1973-74, pg. 30-31)
'Vers l'ombre' was included in the nationally touring 'Australian print survey' AGNSW 1963-64 (19). It was printed in Paris from three stones.
Hendrik Kolenberg and Anne Ryan, 'Australian prints from the Gallery's collection', AGNSW, 1998
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Places
Where the work was made
Paris
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Exhibition history
Shown in 5 exhibitions
Purchases and Acquisitions for 1961, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 04 Apr 1962–25 May 1962
Australian Print Survey, National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Oct 1963–Nov 1963
Australian Print Survey, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 10 Jun 1964–28 Jun 1964
Australian Print Survey, Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle, Jul 1964 -
Australian Print Survey, Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane, Aug 1964–Sep 1964
Australian Print Survey, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, Sep 1964–Oct 1964
Australian Print Survey, National Gallery of Victoria [Swanston Street], Melbourne, Nov 1964–Dec 1964
Project 39 - Women's Imprint (1982), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 01 Oct 1982–31 Oct 1982
Australian prints from the Gallery's collection (1998-1999), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 06 Nov 1998–07 Feb 1999
Janet Dawson survey, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Bathurst, 30 Nov 2006–28 Jan 2007
Janet Dawson survey, Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra, 22 Feb 2007–08 Apr 2007
Janet Dawson survey, S.H. Ervin Gallery, The Rocks, 30 Apr 2007–10 Jun 2007
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Bibliography
Referenced in 4 publications
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Christine France, Janet Dawson survey, Bathurst, 2006, 12 (colour illus.). cat.no. 4; plate no. 2 NOTE: this work was shown only at the first three venues of the tour
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Hendrik Kolenberg and Anne Ryan, Australian prints from the Gallery's collection, Sydney, 1998, 92, 93 (colour illus.). cat.no. 77
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Daniel Thomas AM, Australian print survey 1963/4, Sydney, 1964. cat. no. 19
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Anna Waldmann, Project 39 - Women's Imprint, Sydney, 1982, (illus.). no catalogue numbers; not paginated
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