Welcome to Sheila
Sheila Foundation is a national philanthropic foundation with the aim of overturning decades of gender bias by writing Australian women artists back into our art history and ensuring equality for today’s women artists.
About Sheila
A foundation for women in visual art.
Sheila's Projects
Sheila’s three core programs have been designed to create maximum impact.
Cruthers Collection
The inspiration for Sheila Foundation is Lady Sheila Cruthers. Lady Sheila was the driving force behind the largest stand-alone collection of Australian women’s art – the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art.
Support Sheila
Your support will enable us to begin to overturn decades of gender bias by writing Australian women artists back into our art history and ensuring equality for today’s women artists.
News and Resources
Colleague Spotlight: Rodney James
Rodney James is a curator, art consultant and writer specialising in 19th and 20th century art writing and research, collection management, exhibitions, visual art projects and mus
Artist Spotlight: Deborah Prior
Deborah Prior is an Adelaide-based artist who uses knitting, stitching and embroidery to transforms recycled textiles into art works, soft sculptures and installations that explore
Meet the Into the Light 2023 Researchers!
Sheila is proud to announce the launch of Into the Light 2023, the fifth annual tranche of this project to locate and acquire artworks by little known Australian women artists work
Into The Light 2023 Call Out
Into The Light tranche 5, 2023 expressions of interest are now open! We are on the look out for early stage and under-employed art historians, curators, researchers to join us in b
The Countess Report 2022
The Countess Report is a comprehensive report on gender representation in the Australian arts sector. It is compiled every four years and has become the most influential data set d
Book Review: Women Count in The Artworld
Louise Mayhew reviews a new book by Melinda Rackham and Elvis Richardson that tells the story of CoUNTess, how it morphed into The Countess Report and how it continues to challenge
Artist Spotlight: Gladys Laycock (1882-1959)
Why is a women’s art foundation acquiring a portrait of a Scotsman in a kilt? Because it was painted by little known Sydney artist Gladys Laycock. From 1908, Gladys ma
Colleague Spotlight: Lainie Edwards
As part of our ambition to share our passion for the work of Australian women artists, Sheila would like to introduce current projects by colleagues – curators, art historians, r
Sheila Fellowship Exhibition Opens in Darwin
Recipient of Sheila’s 2023 Michela and Adrian Fini Fellowship, Alana Hunt, recently opened her solo exhibition Surveilling a Crime Scene at the Northern Centre for Contemporary A
![COLLEAGUE SPOTLIGHT: Rodney James
Rodney is a curator, art consultant and writer specialising in 19th and 20th century art writing and research, collection management, exhibitions, visual art projects and museum policy and strategy.
His most recent publications include Una Deerbon: Australian potter 1882–1972 (2019), the first monograph on the art and life of this pioneering mid-century artist, and Letters to a Critic: Alan McCulloch’s World of Art (Melbourne University Press, 2023).
Rodney James has recently been honing his research on 20th century Australian women artists, including Roma Thompson, Mary Cecil Allen and Mary Cockburn Mercer.
Through his research on Mary Cockburn Mercer, Rodney has compiled a list of over 100 artworks and many more photographs. MCM’s innovative French Salon and Cubist inspired paintings produced between 1911 and 1929, dreamy Tahitian landscapes from the 1930s, and elaborate allegories, portraits of friends and art colleagues and of course her racy (female) figure studies from the 1940s, paint a complex story of a neglected but multi-layered artist.
Find out more about Rodney’s research on Mary Cockburn Mercer via Sheila’s blog linked in bio.
Images:
1. Mary Cockburn Mercer as a young woman
2. Mary Cockburn Mercer, Kathleen Schlitt: a Romantic Portrait [1942 or earlier], oil on canvas on board, 82 x 53.5 cm, Private collection, Melbourne.
3. Rodney James portrait. Photography by Mark Ashkanasy.](https://sheila.org.au/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)