Artist Spotlight: Virginia Ward
Virginia Ward focuses upon her face in her multifaceted sculptural work as seen above. Repurposing off cuts of wood used in the making of ukuleles, mandolins and guitars by luthier
Artist Spotlight: Rhonda Sharpe
Born in 1977, Rhonda Sharpe is an Luritja artist who works for the art centre Yarrenyty Arltere in Alice Springs. The centre has a focus on soft sculpture made with recycled blanke
Exhibition Review: Zahalkaworld – An Artist’s Archive
History Afresh, Zahalka Style ZAHALKAWORLD – an artist’s archive Museum of Australian Photography, Melbourne, 10 June – 10 September 2023 By Andonis Piperoglou. Anne ZAHALKA,
Exhibition Review: Clarice Beckett: The Present Moment
Celebrating the known, honouring the intangible Clarice Beckett: The Present MomentArt Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 27 February – 16 May 2021 By Juliette Peers Altho
The Absence of the Anthropocentric Ego
Found and Gathered: Rosalie Gascoigne and Lorraine Connelly-Northey The idea of anthropocentrism is at the forefront of the Australian art world, becoming something of the buzzword
Book Review: Celebrating women who defied the odds
Writer Nina Levy from See Saw Magazine has written a thoughtful review on ‘Odd Roads to be walking: 156 Women Who Shaped Australian Art’. Providing a well-rounded critique
Artist Spotlight: Gemma Ben-Ary
A recent acquisition by Perth-based artist Gemma Ben-Ary is included in the current exhibition From the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Per
Celebrating Carol Rudyard
In this section we profile West Australian artist Carol Rudyard who recently passed away. One of her important works, Untitled 1970, is held by the Cruthers Collecti
Affirmative Actions: The Activist Essay and the Cruthers Collection
By Julia Anderson, Sidonie Hall-Jordan, Sunday Jemmott, Michael Louttit, Samantha Wallis and Louise R Mayhew In 2019, students at the Queensland College of Art (QCA), Griffith Un
What have women ever done anyway?
A cautionary tale of selective memory and the West Australian women painters, Elizabeth Ford and Dorothy Newland, in focus. Written by Lynda Newland. West Australian women who pain
Book review: Interesting artists for interesting times
By Juliette Peers Art historian Juliette Peers reviews two books on women artists, the recently published Odd Roads to be Walking: 156 Women who Shaped Australian Art and Throug
Exhibition Review: Embedded
‘THE POSITION OF ART IN THE WOMEN’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT IS THE POSITION OF WOMAN IN THE ART’S MOVEMENT’ (1) Embedded review by Madeline Sarich Curator Sandra Murray present
Artist Spotlight: Aline Cusack (1867-1949)
Aline Cusack, born in 1867 in New Zealand and brought up in Newcastle and Sydney, was a prominent professional Sydney-based artist who worked from the 1890s to the 1930s. Her siste
Artist Spotlight: Erica McGilchrist (1926–2014)
Erica McGilchrist was an artist as well as a dancer, designer, curator, teacher, activist, feminist and humanist. She was born in Mount Gambier, South Australia to Stevenson George
Exhibition Review: Days of Their Lives
Now is life very solid, or very shifting?– Virginia Woolf, Diary III.[1] Days of Their Lives Exhibition Review by Aimee Dodds. Days of Their Lives presents a sample of contempo
Into the Light: Elaine Coghlan (1897-1989)
Into the Light: Recovering Australia’s lost women artists 1870-1960 is Sheila’s national research project to collect data about women artists in Australia. One such artist was
Artist Spotlight: Elvis Richardson
The Countess Report was founded by Elvis Richardson as a blog in 2008. In collaboration with Amy Prcevich and Miranda Samuels, Elvis has grown The Countess Report into a regular, c
Artist Spotlight: Sera Waters
Sheila’s Champions Donor Circle provides funds for the purchase of new works by younger and mid-career artists to be added to the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art at UWA. One
Meet the Board: Catherine McMahon
Why did you join the Sheila Board? I joined the Sheila Foundation Board in April 2018. I was a recent graduate of the AICD Company Directors’ Course and was keen to get involved
Untold Stories: Janet Dawson, Over the Rainbow
Janet Dawson (b. 1935) trained as a printmaker and worked in the lithography workshop at Gallery A in Sydney in the 1960s. She was one of only three women out of 40 artists invited
Exhibition Review: New Woman, Museum of Brisbane
New Woman gathers 111 works by more than 80 artists to celebrate Brisbane women artists from the past 100 years. It joins a suite of shows dedicated to re/covering and re/telling
Nora Heyson: book and exhibition review
A new biography, Nora Heysen: A Portrait by Anne-Louise Willoughby, and the recent exhibition Hans and Nora Heysen: Two generations of Australian art at the National Gallery of
Artist Spotlight: Danielle Freakley
Danielle Freakley is a Seychellois-Australian artist, a first selection finalist of the Arte Laguna Prize (Venice Arsenale), exhibited at Tate (Liverpool Biennial), Performa –
Jenny Watson: legitimising the Female Experience
Sheila Cruthers was drawn to self-portraits painted by women artists, and much of her early collecting included purchasing or commissioning a self-portrait of the artist, which wou
Artist Spotlight: Rima Zabaneh
Artist Rima Zabaneh writes the inspiration behind her work Street Directory. “In late 1990, I emigrated to Perth from Jordan with my partner and three children, in the hope of b
Two exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Ballarat
Eliza Burton reviews two exhibitions by women running concurrently at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, the first an ambitious survey of Australian modernism from the Gallery’s own co
From Perth to Paris: Recovering one of the true innovators of early twentieth century Australian art
FROM PERTH TO PARIS: Recovering one of the true innovators of early twentieth century Australian artBOOK REVIEW: Kathleen O’Connor of Paris, by Amanda Curtin, Fremantle Press, F
#seen
What’s it like for a young woman artist trying to make her way in the artworld of today? Bella Chidlow is a recent art school graduate interning with the SHEILA Foundation. Here
Vanguardist or vampire? Rethinking Cynthia Reed Nolan’s contribution to Australian Culture
Cynthia Nolan: A BiographyM. E. McGuireMelbourne Books, October 2016Hardcover $34.95Available from http://www.melbournebooks.com.au/ The last few years have witnessed a new tranch
Love never dies: the private collector’s passion and its impact on the public gallery
With the Cruthers Art Foundation transitioning from a private to a public entity, it is timely to continue the discussion around private collections entering the public realm start
Fierce Women in Perth
My mother Sheila Cruthers had a soft spot for young women artists and rarely missed an exhibition showcasing a new artist. If she responded to the artist and her work, a purchase
Book Review: Helen Grey-Smith
As part of the broad mission of promoting women’s art, the focus of the Foundation’s blog entries will sometimes shift away from material directly based on the Cruthers Collect
Juliette Peers interviews Gemma Weston
Gemma Weston has been Curator of the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art at the University of Western Australia since April 2013, and also maintains a independent practice, curati
Lovely faces but dangerous ideas
What is the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art? Whilst known to art curators, academics and art professionals since the later 1980s, the Cruthers Collection was first presented i
Do not adjust your set
By Juliette Peers You are reading the first posting for the Cruthers Art Foundation blog. In the months and years ahead, we hope to inform, entertain, educate, shock, irritate, del