Clarice Beckett b. 1887 Casterton, Vic.

Also known as Clarice Marjoribanks Beckett
  • Artist (Painter)
Passionate about the philosophy and practice of painting and inspired by the teachings of Max Meldrum, Beckett practiced her craft at every available moment. As the dutiful daughter of infirm parents these moments proved limited but Beckett nevertheless managed to exhibit regularly throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. It was only after her early death in 1935 that her work began to receive the acclaim it deserved.
Talk | Version history | Updated Oct. 19, 2011 | Created Jan. 1, 1995
Name
Clarice Beckett
Also known as Clarice Marjoribanks Beckett
Birth date
1887
Birth place
Casterton, Vic.
Death date
1935
Death place
Sandringham, Melbourne, Vic.
Gender
Female
Roles
  • Artist (Painter)
Residence
  • 1918- 1935 Beaumaris, Melbourne, Vic.
  • c.1914- Melbourne, Vic.
  • c.1883- c.1918 Casterton, Vic
Active Period
  • 1914- 1935
Languages
  • English
Training
  • c.1914 Melbourne's National Gallery School, Melbourne, Vic.
  • c.1903- c.1913 Melbourne Church of England Girls Grammar School, Melbourne, Vic.
  • c.1902- c.1903 Queens College, Ballarat, Vic.
Is Indigenous
No
Initial Record Data Source
  • Heritage with additions

painter, was born in Casterton (Vic.) and educated at Queens College, Ballarat, where she boarded until 1903, completing her schooling at Melbourne Church of England Girls Grammar School. Her first art tuition was in charcoal drawing with Eva Hopkins of Ballarat. In about 1914 she took drawing classes under Louis McCubbin at Melbourne’s National Gallery School, but then chose to study under the exciting and impressive Max Meldrum who had recently returned to Melbourne from Paris. During her year with him, Clarice totally embraced his theory of art as optical truth based on tonal relationships and for the rest of her life regarded herself as a realist and remained loyal to his teaching, if not his practice. Meldrum stated to several contemporaries that he found her work unique.

In 1918, Clarice’s father, Joseph, moved to the Melbourne bayside suburb of Beaumaris with his wife, elder daughter, Hilda, and Clarice; here she spent the rest of her life. With demanding, ill parents, she dutifully cared for the home; thus her painting time was limited. Her studio was the kitchen table; consequently most of her work was executed out of doors in the early mornings and evenings when she would wander the cliffs and shoreline with a home-made cart which held her easel and painting equipment.

She took her subject matter from what she found around her and could turn a strip of wet tar-sealed road with equally unpicturesque telegraph poles into a pictorial poem, evocative of some eternal yet always elusive truth. Her subjects encompassed delicately restrained sunsets and grey, misty days with a tram or T-model Ford, lights glowing in the fog. She was a master of the early motor car, yet these appeared in her paintings only because they came rattling into sight at the moment she was truthfully depicting what she saw. She worked swiftly and compulsively, never reworking a painting. She worked for the sheer joy of it and rarely signed her canvases.

Clarice usually exhibited with the Meldrum circle of painters. She had her first solo exhibition at the Athanaeum in 1923, and showed there annually until 1934. She also participated in Twenty Melbourne Painters and Women’s Art Club shows until the early 1930s. Her work usually received hostile reviews (especially from J.S. MacDonald and Blamire Young) and very few of her paintings sold in her lifetime. All who knew her, however, admired her ability to paint and had a deep affection and sympathy with her role in her home life. She had a passionate love of theatre, ballet, classical piano, poetry and prose. She treasured her collection of murder mysteries and macabre stories, along with Greek tragedies and novels by Tolstoy, Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood.

Clarice later took a few classes with Justus Jorgensen to develop her still-life painting techniques, joining his group of students at the annual San Remo summer camps. These appear to have been the happiest times of her life, where she could paint from early morning until dark. During her last years she began to use more colour in her work to reinforce form and developed a daring release of design and a modernity of style that holds its own with many later artists.

In 1934 her mother died of a stroke. Clarice, already exhausted from nursing both parents, became very frail. Still painting with fervour in all weathers on whatever fragments of board or material available, she became even more withdrawn. In 1935 she was admitted to a private hospital in Sandringham, where she died from the effects of double pneumonia. A memorial exhibition was held at the Athenaeum Gallery in Collins Street in May 1936. In 1971-72 two major exhibitions were mounted at the Rosalind Humphries Galleries, Melbourne, to wide acclaim.

Writers:
Hollinrake, Rosalind
Date written:
1995
Last updated:
1992
associate of
Max Meldrum
1875
Artist (Painter)
associate of
W. Blamire Young
1862
Artist (Painter), Artist (Cartoonist / Illustrator), Artist (Draughtsman)
associate of
Louis McCubbin
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
Eva Hopkins
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
child of
Joseph Beckett
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
sibling of
Hilda Beckett
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
J. S. MacDonald
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
Justus Jorgensen
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
Sara Levi
1870
Artist, Artist (Painter)
Collections
Women's Art Club
None
Exhibition (exhibited at)
Melbourne, Vic.
c.1925/1933?
Twenty Melbourne Painters
None
Exhibition (exhibited at)
Melbourne, Vic.
c.1925/1933?
(Major retrospective exhibition)
1971
Exhibition (exhibited at)
Rosalind Humphries Galleries, Melbourne, Vic.
And 1972
(Memorial exhibition)
May 1936
Exhibition (exhibited at)
Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne, Vic.
(solo exhibition)
1923
Exhibition (exhibited at)
Athanaeum Gallery, Melbourne, Vic.
Showed annually at the gallery until 1934
Citations:
  • McGuire, M. E., (1995), Life and your imagining, (Place: All Things Opposite, Prahan, Vic.)
  • Hollinrake, Rosalind, (1979), Clarice Beckett: The Artist and Her Circle, (Place: Melbourne, Vic.)
  • Hansen, David (ed.), (1988), The Face of Australia, (Place: ABA catalogue, Sydney, NSW)
  • Burke, Janine, (1980), Australian Women Artists 1840-1940, (Place: Collingwood, Vic.)