Erica McGilchrist, Specialist with hobby 1962 (detail), oil and collage on paper on hardboard, 92 x 129 cm. Into the Light Collection, Sheila Foundation.
Into the Light: Recovering Australia's Lost Women Artists: 1870-1960
Into the Light: Recovering Australia’s lost women artists 1870–1960 is a national research project aimed at identifying generations of professional women artists who have been written out of the historical narratives of Australian. There are two parts to the project:
Research
Into the Light is a significant national research project, led by Sheila Foundation.
One of the Foundation’s core purposes is to write Australian women back into our history. Sadly, the thousands of Australian women who were professional artists in the late 1800s and the first half of last century are nowhere to be found in the history books, their works are not seen, and their stories are untold.
Several years ago, guided by John Cruthers and Dr Juliette Peers, we conceived the Into the Light Project to help write Australian women back into our art history.
The aim is to research all the prof women artists in Australia from 1870 to 1960 state by state and put the information we find on a publicly available website.
We did a pilot for this a few years back based on artists in NSW between 1870 and 1914 and rediscovered 434 women artists who were working professionally.
We have now developed a model to complete the project nationally. We have raised seed funding to enable us to move to start the Project and we welcome new donors.
If you are able to contribute, please click here.
Donor Circle
Since our launch of Into the Light over 5 years ago, generous donors have joined our Into the Light Donor Circle to fund the acquisition of artworks unearthed through the research for Into the Light. We acquire between 7 and 12 artworks a year. After purchase, each artwork is given appropriate conservation treatment, framing and documentation. Art historians research and write about each artist. Catalogues of these essays are available to view below.
The works and the research will find a new home next year at a nationally significant institution, ensuring the works and the artists become part of our art history.
ARTIST STORY
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 sister Edith E. Cusack was also a successful artist and the pair were well known as the Cusack sisters. They had numerous exhibitions together of a wide range of paintings and also shared a studio at the Palings Building, where they ran an art school teaching plein air painting to mostly female students. The three paintings acquired for the Into the Light Collection are three of the eight known paintings by Aline Cusack.
Edith Cusack, Aline Cusack, 1896, oil on canvas, 30.5 x 23 cm, Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Explore Into the Light Acquisitions
Each year Sheila is proud to unearth, restore and research historical works by women artists. The artists were active professional artists in their day but their careers and works have been lost because women’s art was not highly valued at the time. The research into their lives and stories is fascinating and helps fill the gaps in our art history.
Support Into the Light
We hope you will consider joining the Into the Light Donor Circle to help us complete the national research behind this project, so no woman artist is lost from the record again. Annual membership is $2,000, with an initial three year commitment that can be extended. Members are invited to special Sheila events which give an insight into our art history and the research.
Explore our blog
Into the Light 2022: Revealing the Stories of Australia’s Women Artists
The fourth tranche of Into the Light: Recovering Australia’s lost women artists 1870-1960 continues our journey to uncover women whose artistic contributions have slipped from vi
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
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
Into the Light: Donor Circle Acquisitions: 2021
Into the Light: Recovering Australia’s lost women artists 1870- 1960 is Sheila’s national research project to collect data about women artists working professionally in Austral
Into the Light: Donor Circle Acquisitions: 2020
Into the Light: Recovering Australia’s lost women artists 1870- 1960 is Sheila’s national research project to collect data about women artists working professionally in Austral
Into the Light: Donor Circle Acquisitions 2019
Into the Light: Recovering Australia’s lost women artists 1870–1960 is Sheila Foundation’s national research project to collect data about women artists working professionall
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
In the Press: Fabric Quarterly
In May, three significant examples of colour field paintings by women artists – two of which were omitted from The Field – hung in the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery to mark the l
3 important works unveiled at Sheila launch
To celebrate its launch, the Sheila Foundation has secured three important colour field paintings made by Australian women artists in the late 1960s. The Field was the opening exhi
Into the Light – The Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art
The Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art is one of Australia’s most fascinating specialist art collections. Assembled since 1974 by collector and patron Lady Sheila Cruthers, the
In the Company of Women: 100 years of Australian women’s art from the Cruthers Collection
In the Company of Women was the first public exhibition of the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art and represented the Collection after 21 years of collecting. It was developed by