Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Gum trees, 1933 linocut on paper 14.5 x 20.0 cm (image) 16.5 x 22.0 cm (sheet) artist’s proof signed in image lower right with artist’s monogram PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Progressive Art, Modern Art Centre, Sydney, 1 March – 1 April 1932, cat. 6 (another example) Exhibition of Oils, Watercolours and Lino Cuts by Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 7 – 23 July 1938, cat. 43 (another example) The Drawing, Print and Watercolour Exhibition, Contemporary Art Society of Australia, Melbourne, opened 2 December 1952, cat. 44 (another example) Exhibition of Paintings by the late Dorrit Black, Hahndorf Academy Gallery, Adelaide, 1959, cat. 37 (another example., as ‘Trees (woodcut)’) The Dorrit Black Collection, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 17 April – 29 May 1999, cat. 29 (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Newcastle Region Art Gallery, New South Wales; The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 58 (another example) Dorrit Black (1891 – 1951), Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 24 April – 15 May 2011, cat. 24 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) LITERATURE Tatlock Miller, H (ed.)., Manuscripts: A Miscellany of Art and Letters, The Hassell Press, Adelaide, no. 6, August 1933, p. 45 (another example) Brown (ed) et. al., A Book of South Australian Women in the First Hundred Years, Rigby, Adelaide, 1936, p. 122 (another example) Phoenix, Adelaide University Students' Representative Council, Adelaide, 1939, p. 54 (another example) North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.20, pl. 25, pp. 65 (illus., another example), 132 Ambrus, C., Australian Women Artists: First Fleet to 1945: History, Hearsay and Her say, Irrepressible Press, Canberra, 1992, p. 82 (illus., another example) Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB23, pp. 158, 159 (illus., another example) Lock, T., Dorrit Black, Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, p. 202 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gum trees, 1933 – 35, oil on canvas, 42.0 x 59.8 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Chinaman's gardens, c.1933 linocut on paper 19.0 x 23.5 cm (image) 24.0 x 26.5 cm (sheet) artist’s proof signed in image lower right with artist’s monogram PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Exhibition of Prints, Modern Art Centre, Sydney, opened 3 August 1933, cat. 5 (another example) Print, Drawing and Watercolour, Contemporary Art Society of Australia, Adelaide, 1952, cat. 46 (another example., as ‘Chinamen’s Garden’) Dorrit Black (1891 – 1951), Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 24 April – 15 May 2011, cat. 22 (another example., as ‘Chinamen’s Garden’) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.27, p. 132 (another example, as ‘Hillside’) Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB22, p. 158 (illus., another example as ‘Chinamen’s Garden’) Lock, T., Dorrit Black, Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, p. 202 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaid
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Untitled [Still life with teapot], c.1940 – 51 watercolour on paper on card 37.5 x 39.0 cm (sight) signed lower right: Dorrit Black PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. W.147, p. 130
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Group of cottages, Corfe Castle, 1935 watercolour on paper 26.0 x 33.5 cm signed lower centre: Dorrit Black inscribed with title twice verso: Group of Cottages / Corfe Castle PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Air travel 4: Over the mountains, 1947 – 49 colour linocut on paper 18.5 x 21.5 cm (image) 21.5 x 25.5 cm (sheet) artist’s proof edition of 50 signed in image lower right with artist’s monogram PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 10 – 21 May 1949, cat. 47 (another example) Dorrit Black Memorial Exhibition, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 22 April – 2 May 1952, cat. 59 (another example) Print, Drawing and Watercolour, Contemporary Art Society of Australia, Adelaide, 1952, cat. 12 (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Newcastle Region Art Gallery, New South Wales; The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 65 (another example) Dorrit Black Collection, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 17 April – 29 May 1999, cat. 17 (another example) Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 July – 7 October 2013 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.45, pl. 49B, pp. 103 (illus., another example), 133 Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB47, p. 165 (illus., another example) Edwards, D., and Mimmocchi, D. (eds.), Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2013, pp. 222, 235 (illus., another example), 310 Lock, T., Dorrit Black, Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 166 (illus., another example) 207 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Air travel 1: Mud flats and island, 1947 – 49 colour linocut on paper 25.0 x 19.0 cm (image) 31.0 x 21.0 cm (sheet) artist’s proof edition of 50 signed in image upper right with artist’s monogram PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 10 – 21 May 1949, cat. 46 (another example) Dorrit Black Memorial Exhibition, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 22 April – 2 May 1952, cat. 61 (another example) Print, Drawing and Watercolour, Contemporary Art Society of Australia, Adelaide, 1952, cat. 12 (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Newcastle Region Art Gallery, New South Wales; The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 64 (another example) Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 July – 7 October 2013 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.44, pl. 49A, pp. 103 (illus., another example), 133 Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB46, pp. 164, 165 (illus., another example) Edwards, D., and Mimmocchi, D. (eds.), Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2013, pp. 222, 235 (illus., another example), 310 Lock, T., Dorrit Black, Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 164, 167 (illus., another example) 206 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Air travel 3: The pineapple plantation, 1947 – 49 colour linocut on paper 18.0 x 22.0 cm (image) 21.0 x 31.0 cm (sheet) artist’s proof edition of 50 signed in image upper right with artist’s monogram PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts Gallery, Adelaide, 10 – 21 May 1949, cat. 48 (another example) Dorrit Black Memorial Exhibition, Royal South Australian Society of Arts Gallery, Adelaide, 22 April – 2 May 1952, cat. 60 (another example) The Drawing, Print and Watercolour Exhibition, Contemporary Art Society of Australia, Melbourne, opened 2 December 1952, cat. 11 (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1975, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales; The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 66 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1979, cat. L.46, pl. 49C, pp. 105 (illus., another example, as ‘Air Travel – The Pineapple Plantation’), 106, 133 Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB48, pl. 34, pp. 43 (illus., another example), 165 (illus., another example) Lock, T., Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, pp. 134, 164 (illus., another example), 206 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Nocturne, Wynyard Square, 1932 linocut on paper 22.5 x 15.0 cm (image) 25.0 x 19.0 cm (sheet) artist’s proof edition of 50 signed in image lower right with artist’s monogram PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Exhibition of Oils, Watercolours and Lino Cuts by Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of the Arts, Adelaide, 7 – 23 July 1938, cat. 33 (another example, as ‘Wynyard Square’) Dorrit Black (Retrospective), Royal South Australian Society of the Arts, Adelaide, 25 October – 3 November 1945, cat. 51 (another example, as ‘Wyngard [sic.] Nocturne’) Print, Drawing and Watercolour, Contemporary Art Society of Australia, Adelaide, 1952, cat. 43 (another example, as ‘Reconstructions, Wynward Square’) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Newcastle Region Art Gallery, New South Wales; The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 55 (another example) Art Deco and works from the period, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 16 June – 14 July 1980 (another example) Masterpieces of Australian Printmaking, Joseph Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 30 April – 30 May 1987, cat. 10 (another example, illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 13) Harbour hymns, city songs: visions of Sydney from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 13 January – 11 March 1990, cat. 13 (another example) Dorrit Black Collection, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 17 April – 29 May 1999, cat. 8 (another example) Nocturne: images of night and darkness from colonial to contemporary, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria, 23 Apil – 16 June 2002 (another example) Colour, Rhythm, Design – wood & lino cuts of the 20s & 30s, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 12 March – 11 July 2010 (another example, illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 16) Professor Sadler, Japan and Australian modernism, University Art Gallery, University of Sydney, Sydney, 3 April – 24 July 2011 (another example) Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 July – 7 October 2013 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) Modern impressions; Australian prints from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2 September 2016 – January 2017 (another example) LITERATURE Tatlock Miller, H (ed.)., Manuscripts: A Miscellany of Art and Letters, The Hassell Press, Adelaide, no. 3, November 1932, p. 37 (illus., another example) North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.16, pl. 24, pp. 63 (illus. another example), 64, 131 Lebovic, J., Masterpieces of Australian printmaking, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 1987, cat. 10, pp. 12, 13 (illus., another example) Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB16, p. 156 (illus., another example) Kolenberg, H., and Ryan, A., Australian prints from the Gallery's collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1998, cat. 61, p. 72 (illus., another example) Thomas, S., 'A wider vision: Dorrit Black's Modern Art Centre', Art and Australia, Sydney, vol. 44, no. 1, September – November 2006, pp. 98 (illus., another example), 99 Tornatore – Loong, M. C & Ajioka, C., (eds.), Japan in Sydney: Professor Sadler & modernism, 1920 – 30s, University of Sydney Press, Sydney, 2011, cat. 20, pp. 32, 40 (illus., another example), 136 Edwards, D., and Mimmocchi, D. (eds.), Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2013, pp. 132, 189 (illus., another example), 310 Lock, T., Dorrit Black, Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, p. 202 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane and the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Study for 'Nocturne, Wynyard Square', 1932, pencil on paper, 22.5 x 15.1 cm, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Study for 'The sketch club', 1942 watercolour on paper 31.5 x 38.5 cm (image) 31.5 x 40.0 cm (sheet) PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. W.59, p. 127 RELATED WORK The Sketch Club, 1942, oil on cardboard, 55.6 x 58.5 cm, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Courtyard watercolour on paper on card 37.0 x 25.0 cm (image) 38.5 x 29.5 cm (sheet) signed lower left: Dorrit Black PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Through the window, c.1927 oil on canvas on board 35.0 x 30.0 cm signed lower right: Dorrit Black bears inscription on labels attached verso: Through the Window PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED The Younger Group of Australian Artists, Anthony Horderns’ Art Gallery, Sydney, 1 – 16 March 1927, cat. 95 Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales; The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 10 (label attached verso) Dorrit Black (1891 – 1951), Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 24 April – 15 May 2011, cat. 8 (label attached verso) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 LITERATURE ‘The Younger Group, Australian Artists’, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 3 March 1927, p. 12 North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. 0.21, pl. 53, pp. 16, 19 (illus.), 121 Lock, T., Dorrit Black, Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 26, 30 (illus.), 189 (illus.)
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Naval funeral, c.1945 colour linocut on paper 16.0 x 24.0 cm (image) 19.0 x 27.5 cm (sheet) artist’s proof edition of 50 signed with artist’s monogram in image upper right PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts Gallery, Adelaide, 10 – 21 May 1949, cat. 50 (another example) Dorrit Black Memorial Exhibition, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 22 April – 2 May 1952, cat. 58 (another example) The Drawing, Print and Watercolour Exhibition, Contemporary Art Society of Australia, Melbourne, opened 2 December 1952, cat. 33 (another example) Exhibition of Paintings by the late Dorrit Black, Hahndorf Academy Gallery, Adelaide, 1959, cat. 34 (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, then touring: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 68 (another example) Project 39 – Women's Imprint, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1 – 31 October 1982 A Century of Australian Woman Artists, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 4 June – 3 July 1993, cat. 107 (another example, illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 75) Dorrit Black Collection, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 17 April – 29 May 1999, cat. 16 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) Modern impressions: Australian prints from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2 September 2016 – January 2017 (another example) LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1979, cat. L.48, pl. 25, pp. 111 (illus., another example, dated c.1949), 133 Coppel, S., Linocuts of the machine age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor school, pp. 65–68, England, 1995, cat. DB45, p. 164 (illus., another example) Speck, C., Painting ghosts: Australian women artists in wartime, Melbourne, 2004, pp. 196, 197 (illus., another example) Butler, R., Printed images by Australian artists 1885 – 1955, Canberra, 2007, p. 242 (illus., another example) Lock, T., Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 206 (illus., another example) Grishin, S., Australian Art: A History, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2015, pp. 236 (illus., another example), 238 RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Study for linocut ‘Naval Funeral’, c.1945, watercolour and pencil on paper, 16.5 x 23.0 cm, Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, The University of Western Australia, Perth
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Orchestra pit, Theatre Royal, c.1935 colour linocut on paper 23.0 x 18.0 cm (image) 30.0 x 22.0 cm (sheet) artist’s proof signed with artist’s monogram in image lower right PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED The Drawing, Print and Watercolour Exhibition, Contemporary Art Society of Australia, Melbourne, opened 2 December 1952, cat. 24 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.50, p. 133 (another example) Coppel, S., Linocuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scolar Press, Aldershot, England, in association with the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB31, p. 160 (illus., another example) Lock, T., Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, p. 203 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide The Orchestra Pit, Theatre Royal, c.1935, watercolour, 22.0 x 17.0 cm, private collection Sketch For Linocut ‘Orchestra Pit, Theatre Royal, c.1935, pencil on paper, 9.2 x 7.4 cm, private collection
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) On the rocks, 1935 colour linocut on paper 19.5 x 31.5 cm (image) 23.0 x 35.5 cm (sheet) artist’s proof edition of 50 PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Private collection, Adelaide, a gift from the above EXHIBITED Sixth Exhibition of British Lino-Cuts, Ward Gallery, London, 1 – 25 May 1935, cat. 66 (another example) Contemporary Group Exhibition, Farmers Blaxland Galleries, Sydney, 13 – 24 August 1935, cat. 79 (another example) Exhibition of Oils, Watercolours and Lino Cuts by Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 7 – 23 July 1938, cat. 35 (another example) Exhibition of Modern Lino-Cuts, City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, 30 March – 19 April 1939, cat. 7 (another example) Dorrit Black (Retrospective), Royal South Australian Society of the Arts, Adelaide, 25 October – 3 November 1945, cat. 56 (another example) Claude Flight and his Followers: The Colour Linocut Movement between the Wars, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 18 April – 12 July 1992, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 October – 29 November 1992; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 16 December 1992 – 1 March 1993; Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, 19 March – 16 May 1993; and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, 3 June – 18 July 1993, cat. 25 (another example) Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 July – 7 October 2013 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 19 June – 8 September 2019 (another example) Dangerously Modern: Australian women artists in Europe 1890 – 1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 24 May – 7 September 2025 and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 11 October 2025 – 1 February 2026 (another example) LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.24, p. 132 (another example) Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB26, pp. 158, 159 (illus., another example) Edwards, D., and Mimmocchi, D. (eds.), Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2013, pp. 179 (illus., another example), 310 Lock, T., Dorrit Black, Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 79, 156, 159 (illus., another example), 160, 203 (illus., another example) Samuel et al., Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2019, pp. 72, 73 (illus., another example) Freak, E., (ed.) et. al., Dangerously Modern: Australian women artists in Europe 1890 – 1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2025, pp. 255 (illus., another example), 342 RELATED WORK On the rocks, England, 1935, watercolour on paper, 19.5 x 31.0 cm, private collection Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) The wool quilt makers, 1940 – 41 colour linocut on paper 23.0 x 31.0 cm (image) 27.0 x 37.5 cm (sheet) artist’s proof edition of 50 signed with artist’s monogram in image upper left PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Dorrit Black (Retrospective), Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 25 October – 3 November 1945, cat. 53 (another example) Contemporary Group, Farmers Blaxland Galleries, Sydney, 1946, cat. 4 (another example) Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 10 – 21 May 1949, cat. 55 (another example) The Drawing, Print and Watercolour Exhibition, Contemporary Art Society of Australia, Melbourne, opened 2 December 1952, cat. 15 (another example) Modern Australia Women: Paintings and Prints 1925 – 1945, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 24 November 2000 – 25 February 2001, then touring to: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney and Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 2011, cat. 45 (another example) Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 July – 7 October 2013 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) LITERATURE George, E., 'Woman’s Wide Range', The Mail, Adelaide, 27 October 1945, p. 7 (another example) George, E., 'Paintings displayed by Dorrit Black', The Mail, Adelaide, 14 May 1949, p. 6 (another example) North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.40, p. 133 (another example) Rolfe, M., Patchwork Quilts in Australia, Greenhouse Publications, 1987, p. 82 (illus., another example) Wilson, S. C., From Shadow into Light: South Australian Women Artists Since Colonisation, Delmont, South Australia, 1988, p. 97 (another example) Hoorn, J., Strange Women: Essays in Art and Gender, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1994, p. 50 (illus., another example) Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB42, p. 163 (illus., another example) Hylton, J., Modern Australian Women: Paintings & Prints 1925 – 1945, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2000, pp. 96 (illus., another example), 97, 121 Samuel, G. & Perry, N., The Cutting Edge of Modernity: Linocuts of the Grosvenor School, Lund Humphries, London, 2002, pp. 73, 75 (illus., another example) Speck, C., Painting Ghosts: Australian Women Artists in Wartime, Craftsman House, Melbourne, 2004, pp. 185, 186 (illus., another example) Butler, B., Printed Images by Australian Artists 1885 – 1955, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2007, p. 242 (illus., another example) Speck, C., Beyond the Battlefield: Women Artists of the Two World Wars, Reaktion Books, London, 2014, p. 156, pl. 100 (illus., another example) Edwards, D., and Mimmocchi, D. (eds.), Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2013, pp. 179 (illus., another example), 310 Lock, T., Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, p. 87 (illus.), 94 (illus.), 126, 206 (illus., another example) Samuel, G., Cutting Edge: Modern British Printmaking, Bloomsbury, United States, 2019, pp. 73, 75 (illus.) RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria The Wool Quilt Makers, c.1940 – 41, oil on cardboard, 45.5 x 55.0 cm, private collection, illus. in North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, pl. 39, p. 92 The wool quilt makers (Red Cross Wool Fleece Quilts Relief Committee), c.1940 – 41, watercolour, pastel and pencil on paper, 28.3 x 35.2 cm, Australian War Memorial, Canberra Study for "The wool quilt makers", c.1941, drawing in brush, black ink over drawing in pencil, 23.0 x 31.0 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) The lawn mower, c.1931 – 32 colour linocut on paper 19.5 x 13.0 (image) 25.0 x 15.5 cm (sheet) edition: 6/50 signed below image lower right: Dorrit Black inscribed with title and numbered below image lower left: The Lawn Mower PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Exhibition of Linocuts, Everyman’s Lending Library, Melbourne, 5 – 16 April 1932, cat. 2 (another example) Fourth Exhibition of British Lino–cuts, Ward Gallery, London, 17 May – 10 June 1933, cat. 44 (another example) British Lino–cuts (Mostly in Colour), Hastings Public Museum and Art Gallery, Sussex, 9 May – 9 June 1936, cat. 54 (another example) The Drawing, Print and Watercolour Exhibition, Contemporary Art Society of South Australia, Adelaide, opened 2 December 1952, cat. 2 (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Newcastle Region Art Gallery, New South Wales; The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 56 (another example) A Survey of Australian Relief Prints 1900 – 1950, Deutscher Galleries, Melbourne, 13 April – 5 May 1978, cat. 183 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 93, another example) Colour Linocuts from the Grosvenor School, The Ward Gallery, Sydney, 26 March – 19 April 1980, cat. 42 (another example) Australian Art, Colonial to Modern, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 9 – 25 April 1986, cat. 85 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, another example) Claude Flight and his Followers: The Colour Linocut Movement between the Wars, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 18 April – 12 July 1992, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 October – 29 November 1992; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 16 December 1992 – 1 March 1993; Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, 19 March – 16 May 1993; and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, 3 June – 18 July 1993, cat. 22 (another example) The Dorrit Black Collection, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 17 April – 29 May 1999, cat. 10A Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 19 June – 8 September 2019 (another example) LITERATURE Young, E., ’Contemporary Art Society Exhibition’, The Advertiser, Adelaide, 2 December 1952, p. 9 (another example) Biven, R., Some Forgotten… Some Remembered: Women Artists of South Australia, Sydenham Gallery, Adelaide, 1976, n.p. (illus., another example) North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, MacMillan and Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1979, cat. L.17, pl. 23, pp. 59, 60 (illus., another example), 131 Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB18, pp. 156, 157 (illus., another example) Lock, T., Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 130, 156, 157 (illus., another example), 202 (illus., another example) Samuel, G., et al., Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2019, pp. 73, 74 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Other examples of this print are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide The Lawn Mower, c.1932, linocut, printed in black, 6.9 x 10.0 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Study for linocut ’The lawn mower’, 1931 – 32, gouache, pencil, linocut on paper, 19.7 x 13.0 cm, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) The eruption, 1929 – 30 colour linocut on paper 27.0 x 20.5 cm (image) 28.0 x 23.0 cm (sheet) edition: 12/50 numbered in margin upper right PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Painting and Sculpture by A Group of Seven, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 26 March – 5 April 1930, cat. 8 (another example) British Linocuts (Second Exhibition of British Lino–Cuts), Redfern Gallery, London, 23 July – 23 August 1930, cat. 24 (another example) The Drawing, Print and Watercolour Exhibition, Contemporary Art Society of South Australia, Adelaide, opened 2 December 1952, cat. 34 (another example) Exhibition of Paintings by the late Dorrit Black, Hahndorf Academy Gallery, Adelaide, 1959, cat. 33 (as ‘Mt. Etna Erupting’, another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales; The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 52 (another example) Colour Linocuts from the Grosvenor School, The Ward Gallery, Sydney, 26 March – 19 April 1980, cat. 43 (another example) Claude Flight and his Followers: The Colour Linocut Movement between the Wars, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 18 April – 12 July 1992, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 October – 29 November 1992; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 16 December 1992 – 1 March 1993; Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, 19 March – 16 May 1993; and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, 3 June – 18 July 1993, cat. 19 (another example) Dorrit Black Collection, Joseph Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 17 April – 29 May 1999, cat. 5 (another example) Modern Australia Women: Paintings and Prints 1925 – 1945, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 24 November 2000 – 25 February 2001, then touring to: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney and Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria (another example) The Story of Australian Printmaking: 1801 – 2005, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 30 March – 3 June 2007 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 19 June – 8 September 2019 (another example) Dangerously Modern: Australian women artists in Europe 1890 – 1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 24 May – 7 September 2025, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 11 October 2025 – 1 February 2026 (another example) LITERATURE Claude Flight letter to Dorrit Black, 11 June 1930 North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.4, pl. 10, pp. 40 (illus., another example), 41, 131 Coppel, S., Linocuts of the machine age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scolar Press, Aldershot, in association with the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB6, pl. 32, pp. 43 (illus., another example), 152, 153 (illus., another example) Hylton, J., Modern Australian Women: Paintings & Prints 1925 – 1945, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2000, pp. 11 (illus., another example), 121 Lock, T., Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 152, 153 (illus., another example), 201 (illus., another example) Grishin, S., Australian Art: A History, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2015, pl. 23.6, p. 234 (illus., another example) O'Brien, P., 'Dorrit Black: The Eruption', in Coates, R., and Gory, S., eds., Eighty Years of SAM: The Collection, Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria, 2017, pp. 92, 93 (another example) Samuel, G., et al., Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2019, pp. 50, 71, 72, 120 (illus., another example) Freak, E., (ed.) et. al., Dangerously Modern: Australian women artists in Europe 1890 – 1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2025, pp. 252, 253 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide and the Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) The fruit stall, c.1931 colour linocut on paper 17.5 x 26.0 cm (image) 20.5 x 28.5 cm (sheet) edition: 10/50 signed below image lower right: Dorrit Black inscribed with title and numbered below image lower left: The Fruit Stall PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Private collection, Adelaide, a gift from the above EXHIBITED Spring Exhibition, Royal South Australian Society of the Arts, Adelaide, opened 10 September 1940, cat. 67 (another example, as ‘The vegetable stall’) The Drawing, Print and Watercolour Exhibition, Contemporary Art Society of South Australia, Adelaide, opened 2 December 1952, cat. 35 (another example) Dorrit Black (1891 – 1951), Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 24 April – 15 May 2011, cat. 46 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) LITERATURE Claude Flight letter to Dorrit Black, 26 October 1931 North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.29, p. 132 (another example) Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB12, pp. 154, 155 (illus., another example) Lock, T., Dorrit Black, Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, p. 201 (illus., another example)
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) The acrobats, c.1928 – 29 colour linocut on paper 25.0 x 18.0 cm (image) 28.0 x 22.5 cm (sheet) edition: 5/50 signed with initials lower right: D.B inscribed with title and numbered in margin upper centre: The Acrobats PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED First Exhibition of British Lino–cuts, Redfern Gallery, London, 4 – 27 July 1929, cat. 36 (another example) Paintings by Dorrit Black, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 1930, cat. 25 (another example) The Drawing, Print and Watercolour Exhibition, Contemporary Art Society of Australia, Melbourne, opened 2 December 1952, cat. 22 (another example) Acquisitions 1967, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 March – 1 April 1968 (another example) Hand and Eye – a survey of artists' materials and techniques, Art Gallery of New South Wales touring exhibition, various venues, 1970 (another example) Claude Flight and his Followers: The Colour Linocut Movement between the Wars, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 18 April – 12 July 1992, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington and Auckland Art Gallery Toi O Tamaki, Auckland, 1992 – 1993, cat. 18 (another example) A Century of Australian Woman Artists, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 4 June – 3 July 1993, cat. 106 (another example, illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 27) Modernism 1900 – 1950, prints and drawings from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 23 July – 25 September 1994 (another example) Review: works by women from the permanent collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 8 Match – 4 June 1995 (another example) The Dorrit Black Collection, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 17 April – 29 May 1999, cat. 2 (another example) Art Deco: from Sydney cinemas and pubs to skyscrapers, Museum of Sydney, Sydney, 12 June – 5 September 1999 (another example) Step Right Up, Albury Regional Gallery, Albury, 10 October 2008 – 4 January 2009 (another example) Australian Collection Focus: Colour Rhythm, Design – wood and linocuts of the 20s and 30s, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 12 March – 11 July 2010 (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 24 April – 15 May 2011, cat. 10 (another example) Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 July – 7 October 2013 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (label attached verso) Dangerously Modern: Australian women artists in Europe 1890 – 1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 24 May – 7 September 2025, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 11 October 2025 – 1 February 2026 (another example) LITERATURE The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 11 September 1930, p. 7 North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.2, pl. 8, pp. 22, 23 (illus., another example), 25, 131 Coppel, S., Linocuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scolar Press, Aldershot, England, in association with the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB2, pl. 30, pp. 42 (illus., another example), 152 (illus., another example) Sheridan, S., Along the Faultlines, Sydney, 1995, back cover (illus., another example) Butler, R., Printed images by Australian Artists 1885 – 1955, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2007, p. 205 (illus., another example) Edwards, D. & Campbell, C., Colour, rhythm, design: wood and lino cuts of the 20s and 30s, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2010, pp. 2, 23 (illus., another example) Edwards, D., and Mimmocchi, D. (eds.), Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2013, pp. 178 (illus., another example), 310 Lock, T., Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 143 (illus.), 151 (illus.), 152, 200 (illus.) Grishin, S., Australian Art: A History, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2015, p. 232 (another example) Freak, E., (ed.) et. al., Dangerously Modern: Australian women artists in Europe 1890 – 1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2025, p. 246 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Music, 1927 – 28 colour linocut 24.0 x 21.0 cm (image) 30.5 x 24.5 cm (sheet) edition: 11/50 signed with initials lower left: D.B numbered in margin upper left PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED First Exhibition of British Lino–cuts, Redfern Gallery, London, 4 – 27 July 1929, cat. 49 (another example) Painting and Sculpture by A Group of Seven, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 26 March – 5 April 1930, cat. 6 (another example) Work by Members of the Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria, Town Hall, Melbourne, 13 – 24 October 1931 (another example) Exhibition of Oils, Watercolours and Lino Cuts by Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 7 – 23 July 1938, cat. 31 (another example) The Drawing, Print and Watercolour Exhibition, Contemporary Art Society of Australia, Melbourne, opened 2 December 1952, cat. 14 (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Newcastle Region Art Gallery, New South Wales; The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 50 (another example) Claude Flight and his Followers: The Colour Linocut Movement between the Wars, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 18 April – 12 July 1992, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 October – 29 November 1992; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 16 December 1992 – 1 March 1993; Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, 19 March – 16 May 1993; and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, 3 June – 18 July 1993, cat. 17 (another example) Modernism 1900 – 1950: prints and drawings from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 23 July – 25 September 1994 (another example) Review: Works by Women from the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 8 March – 4 June 1995 (another example) Modern Australia Women: Paintings and Prints 1925 – 1945, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 24 November 2000 – 25 February 2001, then touring to: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney and Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria (another example) The Story of Australian Printmaking, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 30 March – 3 June 2007 (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 24 April – 15 May 2011, cat. 9 (another example) Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 July – 7 October 2013 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) Modern impressions; Australian prints from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2 September 2016 – January 2017 (another example) Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 19 June – 8 September 2019 (another example) Dangerously Modern: Australian women artists in Europe 1890 – 1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 24 May – 7 September 2025, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 11 October 2025 – 1 February 2026 (another example) LITERATURE Claude Flight letter to Dorrit Black, 6 July 1929 ‘Art & linoleum cut out pictures with umbrella ribs', The Sun, Sydney, 16 March 1930, p. 8 (illus., another example) North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.1, pl. 5, pp. 25, 27 (illus., another example), 131 Waldmann, A., Project 39 – Women's Imprint, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1982, n.p. Edwards et al., Review: Works by Women from the Permanent Collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1995, n.p. Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB1, pl. 31, pp. 42 (illus., another example), 66, 152 (illus., another example) Topliss, H., Modernism and Feminism, Australian Women Artists 1900 – 1940, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1996, p. 142 (illus., another example) Hylton, J., Modern Australian Women: Paintings & Prints 1925 – 1945, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2000, pp. 25 (illus., another example), 121 Butler, R., Printed Images by Australian Artists 1885 – 1955, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2007, p. 205 (illus., another example) Campbell, H., Colour, Rhythm, Design: Wood & Lino cuts of the 20s & 30s, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2010, pp. 2, 16 (illus., another example) Tornatore – Loong, M. C & Ajioka, C., (eds.), Japan in Sydney: Professor Sadler & modernism, 1920 –30s, University of Sydney Press, Sydney, 2011, cat. 19, p. 136 Edwards, D., and Mimmocchi, D. (eds.), Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2013, pp. 79, 178 (illus., another example), 310 Grishin, S., Australian Art: A History, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2015, pl. 23.4, p. 232 (illus., another example) Lock, T., Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 9 (illus., another example), 148, 149 (illus., another example), 154 (illus., another example), 199 (illus., another example) Samuel et al., Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2019, pp. 15, 16 (illus.), 39, 40, 49, 70, 74, 90 (illus.) and illus. back cover (another example) Freak, E., (ed.) et. al., Dangerously Modern: Australian women artists in Europe 1890 – 1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2025, pp. 246, 247 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Under the pergola, 1951 oil on composition board 79.0 x 58.5 cm signed with initials lower right: DB PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Dorrit Black Memorial Exhibition, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 22 April – 2 May 1952, cat. 23 on long term loan to the Art Gallery of South Australia, May 1976 (copy of original label attached verso) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. 0.115, pl. 53, pp. 113 (illus., dated 1951), 106, 125 Lock, T., Dorrit Black, Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 140, 141 (illus.), 195 (illus.) ESSAY In July 1939, Dorrit Black purchased a block of land in Romalo Avenue, Magill, a suburb on the eastern edge of Adelaide, and a few months later construction of her home studio began. The building was complete by the end of the year, and Black wrote to her friend, ‘I’m very thrilled with the little house and I haven’t felt at all nervous or lonely so far. The studio looks awfully nice. At least I think so, and other people appear to also. I wish you could see it.’1 The purpose-built studio had a large south-facing window that looked out to the foothills of the Mount Lofty Ranges, a landscape that ‘had formed the backdrop to her childhood home at the entrance to Stonyfell Road, which led to the mid-nineteenth-century Stonyfell vineyard established by her great-uncle Henry Clark.’2 The 1940s was a productive decade for Black and views of this familiar country featured in her paintings, as did subjects that were found even closer to home. She painted a series of still-lifes and interiors depicting aspects of her domestic environment, and Under the pergola, c.1950 describes an exterior view of her home. From the pile of logs stacked in readiness for a warming fire, to the row of plants in terracotta pots lining the path, it is intimate and personal in the way that it reveals aspects of the artist’s everyday life. There is an emphasis on light and shade in this picture – the spaces under the pergola are in shadow but sunlight creeps in, drawing us through the image towards the narrow opening between the raised water tank and building on the left. Tracey Lock interprets this painting as a poetic expression of ‘marking time and the contemplation of a spiritual dimension’, suggesting that in it, ‘The artist seems to be encouraging the viewer to contemplate the unknowable land beyond; it is a work of unexpected spiritual gravitas.’3 The fact that it is possibly the last work that Black made before her premature death in 1951 certainly gives this painting added poignancy. 1. Dorrit Black to Marjorie Caw, 10 December 1939, cited in Lock, T., Dorrit Black: unseen forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, p. 183 2. ibid., p. 112 3. ibid., p. 140 KIRSTY GRANT
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Depot workers, c.1940 – 42 oil on canvas on cardboard 46.0 x 61.0 cm signed lower right: Dorrit Black PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Autumn Exhibition, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 3 – 21 April 1951, cat. 6 (label attached verso) Dorrit Black (1891 – 1951), Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 24 April – 15 May 2011, cat. 51 (label attached verso, as ‘Depot Workers/The Cloth Cutters’) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (as ‘The Cloth Cutters’) LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. 0.78, p. 123 (as ‘The Cloth Cutters’) Lock, T., Dorrit Black, Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 124, 128 (illus., as ‘The Cloth Cutters’), 192 (illus.) ESSAY While Australia sent thousands of soldiers to fight in the First and Second World Wars, the men and women who stayed at home mobilised and worked in whatever ways they could to support them. Grace Cossington Smith’s painting, The sock knitter, 1915 (Art Gallery of New South Wales) has come to symbolise the combined efforts of the many women who knitted, quilted and sewed during the Great War, making functional items that were sent to the troops overseas. Dorrit Black’s colour linocut, The wool quilt makers, 1940 – 41, which depicts a group of volunteer women making quilts for the Red Cross, shows that this tradition continued during the Second World War. Black also documented other aspects of life during wartime in her prints – from the light-hearted image, At the cafeteria, c.1943, to the more sombre, Naval funeral, c.1945 – and in addition to depicting these activities on the home front, she actively contributed to the war effort as a local air-raid warden. There is a sense of order and calm productivity in Depot workers, c.1940 – 42, one of a small group of paintings depicting people at work that Black made during the Second World War. Three women and a lone man, whose grey hair identifies him as too old to enlist, work together, cutting and packing pieces of cloth. Ian North has highlighted the focus and strength embodied in the figures of shearers that Black depicted in another of these works, The wool shed, 1939, (private collection), and here too, her respect for her subjects and the dignity of their labour is clear.1 By this time, the cubist-inspired abstraction of Black’s earlier work had been replaced by a much more direct painterly approach reflecting her maturity and artistic confidence and what she later characterised as ‘a different kind of realism, based on all I have learned in the interval of constructive and rhythmical design.’2 1. North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Macmillan Australia & the Art Gallery of South Australia, South Melbourne, 1979, p. 91 2. Foreword by the artist, Dorrit Black exhibition catalogue, Royal South Australian Society of Arts Gallery, 1945, cited in Lock, T., Dorrit Black: unseen forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, p. 134 KIRSTY GRANT
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Dutch peasant, c.1931 – 32 oil on cardboard on composition board 75.5 x 63.0 cm signed lower right: Dorrit Black PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Adelaide Thence by descent Helen Finlayson (née Black), Adelaide, 1951 [the artist's sister] Margaret Michelmore (née Finlayson), Adelaide, a gift from the above Estate of the above, Adelaide EXHIBITED Dorrit Black, Modern Art Centre, Sydney, August 1932 Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 10 – 21 May 1949, cat. 2 Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales; The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 20 (label attached verso, as ‘Dutch Peasant Girl’) LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. 0.43, pl. 22, pp. 58 (illus.), 59, 122 Topliss, H., Modernism and Feminism, Australian Women Artists 1900 – 1940, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1996, p. 144 (illus.) ESSAY Although painted in Sydney, Dutch peasant, c.1931 – 32 harks back to Dorrit Black’s time in Europe during the late 1920s. As well as studying at the Grosvenor School in London and with André Lhote – both in Paris and at his summer school at Mirmande in the south of France – Black travelled widely during her two year European sojourn and the places she visited and the sights she saw offered much rich visual inspiration for her art. Black painted views of the mountainous landscape around Taormina, Sicily, for example, and the dramatic eruption of Mt Etna that she witnessed during her stay there in November 1928 was the subject of a striking later linocut (see lot 7). The present work reflects time spent in the Netherlands in the company of artist-friend Grace Crowley during the summer of 1929, a trip which also gave rise to a series of prints that depict the picturesque fishing village of Veere. Black must have been pleased with this painting as she included it in the solo exhibition of her work at the Modern Art Centre, Sydney, in August 1932. Painted in a strong colour palette of blue and grey, contrasted with rust and ochres, the image combines shallow pictorial space and the geometric simplification she learnt from Lhote, presenting a portrait that, as Ian North writes, ‘suggests not only [the subject’s] physicality but endurance and even a monumentality.’1 Black combines abstraction of her subject with a focus on details that caught her eye, including the scalloped edge of the figure’s white bonnet and the delicate floral embroidery on her smock. The brushwork is subtle, densely covering the cardboard support but with an emphasis on light and shade throughout which imparts a sense of movement and enlivens the composition. As a contemporary reviewer observed, ‘light has become the actor. Its cubic capacity penetrates the colour and produces charm through the struggle between colour and form.’2 1. North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Macmillan Australia & the Art Gallery of South Australia, South Melbourne, 1979, p. 58 2. ‘Art in Sydney’, Christian Science Monitor, 27 August 1932, p. 5, cited in Lock, T., Dorrit Black: unseen forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, p. 72 KIRSTY GRANT
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, SYDNEY DORRIT BLACK (1891-1951) Landscape c1935 oil on canvas 36.5 x 52.0 cm; 46.5 x 62.5 cm (framed) signed lower left: Dorrit Black. landscape painting verso
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) The church on the hill, c.1935 – 38 watercolour on paper 29.0 x 39.0 cm signed lower right: Dorrit Black inscribed with title on sheet verso: The Church on The Hill PROVENANCE Estate of the artist N.H.B Paton, Perth Ian North, Adelaide, acquired from the above in 1973 Private collection, New South Wales Private collection, New South Wales, acquired from the above in 2004 LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Macmillan and Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1979, cat. W.32, p. 127
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Dorset cottages, 1935 also known as Houses on the corner oil on canvas on cardboard 33.5 x 37.5 cm signed lower left: Dorrit Black inscribed on label verso: Dorrit Black / Dudley Court Hotel / 13 Inverness Terrace / London W2 / No 6. / Dorset Cottages PROVENANCE Estate of the artist Thence by descent Mary Leask, Salisbury, England (inscribed on label verso) Thence by descent Private collection, Perth EXHIBITED Paintings by Dorrit Black, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 18 – 28 March 1936, cat. 25 Exhibition of Oils, Watercolours and Lino Cuts by Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of the Arts, Adelaide, 7 – 23 July 1938, cat. 14 Dorrit Black Memorial Exhibition, Royal South Australian Society of the Arts, Adelaide, 1952, cat. 35 Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. 0.51, p. 122 (as 'Houses on a Corner, c.1935') Lock–Weir, T., Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 79, 83 (illus.), 191 (illus.) ESSAY Dorrit Black was a pioneer of Australian modernism. In London and Paris during the late 1920s she studied with key international figures, learning about contemporary developments in modern art at their source. At home – in both Adelaide and Sydney – she later shared her experiences, disseminating her knowledge and making a significant contribution to the evolution of the local iteration of modernism. A newspaper article published after her return in 1929 declared: ‘Miss Black… is a modern of moderns, and is all for the new school of painting’1 which, as she went on to explain, ‘does not aim at realism, [but] is founded on design, harmony, and rhythm in forms.’2 Black’s formal art education began at the Adelaide School of Design, and she undertook private watercolour painting lessons with Gwen Barringer before moving interstate to continue her studies at Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School. It is likely that Black was introduced to the techniques of linocut printmaking by Thea Proctor, but her deepest engagement with the medium began in late 1927 at the Grosvenor School in London where she attended classes with Claude Flight, a passionate advocate for the colour linocut which he regarded as the modern medium for the modern age. Studying with Flight for several months, Black absorbed his example of the use of bold colour, the reduction of subject matter to simplified shapes, and patterns based on a dynamic system of opposing rhythmic lines and forms. Critical recognition of her efforts in the medium came early, with The pot plant, 1933 being purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Encouraged by her friends and fellow-artists, Anne Dangar and Grace Crowley, Black left London for Paris at the end of 1927, her intention being ‘to acquire a definite understanding of the aims and methods of the modern movement and, in particular – of the Cubists.’3 Her primary teacher in this undertaking was André Lhote, whose academy in Montparnasse (and summer school at Mirmande in the south of France) attracted students from all around the world. Lhote’s approach to Cubism incorporated the theory of dynamic symmetry and compositional principles based on the golden mean. Subjects were simplified according to geometry and organised into flattened, planar arrangements. As Black wrote, ‘He judges the work from standards of rhythm, balance, proportion and line, and applies these standards to its three properties – form, tone and colour.’4 Her understanding progressed further in mid-1929 when she and Crowley attended a series of classes with Albert Gleizes whose teaching ‘offered… a bridge from cubism to pure abstraction: from the static to the dynamic.’5 Dorset cottages, 1935 was painted during an extensive overseas trip between March 1934 and September 1935 during which Black travelled with her mother in Continental Europe, England, Scotland, Wales, the United States and Canada. The places they visited sometimes feature in Black’s work, from Mirmande (with surrounding hills), 1934 (Art Gallery of New South Wales) to The mountain lake, 1935 (National Gallery of Victoria), a linocut depicting a view from Neuschwanstein Castle in the foothills of the Alps in the south of Germany. Black reconnected with friends during the trip and in the summer of 1934, she joined Claude Flight and his partner, Edith Lawrence, on a sketching holiday in Dorset. ‘I had one of the most enjoyable times of my life down there, such an awfully jolly & interesting lot of people. Claude got me painting rapid watercolour sketches most of the time, though I did do some of my usual careful constructed & deliberate oils.’6 They made day trips to Corfe Castle and to nearby swimming spots, including Chapman’s Pool which she depicted in a 1935 linocut, but staying in the village of Worth Matravers it was the limestone cottages that captured Black’s attention and which feature both here in Dorset cottages, 1935 and another related painting. The present work, thought to be the first she made of the subject, was painted in Salisbury following the visit to Dorset. Using a subdued palette of earthy colours, it describes the simple form of the cottages as they step up the hill, their angular architectural geometry contrasting with the stylised clouds and bushes, and the dramatic curve of the path which sweeps across the foreground, containing the view and introducing a sense of dynamic movement to the composition. 1. Leigh, E., ‘Disciple of modern art’, Register News Pictorial, 5 September 1929, cited in Lock-Weir, T., Dorrit Black: unseen forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, p. 57 2. ibid. 3. Black, D., ‘Account of travel and work 1927 – 29’, cited in North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia and The Macmillan Company of Australia, South Melbourne, 1979, p. 139 4. ibid. 5. Lock-Weir, op. cit., p. 56 6. Dorrit Black, postcard to her sister, 31 July 1934, cited in Lock-Weir, ibid., p. 79 KIRSTY GRANT
DORRIT BLACK 1891-1951 Sicilian Mountain (1928) oil on canvas signed ‘Dorrit Black' lower left 63 x 76 cm PROVENANCE Dorrit Black, Adelaide Hilary Kneupffer, Adelaide, by descent from the above Private Collection, Adelaide, by descent from the above EXHIBITED Premier Salon d'Art Français Indépendent, Palais des Expositions, Paris, 8 February – 10 March 1929, no. 66, 'Paysage, Taormina' Paintings by Dorrit Black, The Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 10-20 September 1930, no. 2, 25 gns South Australian Artists, Royal South Australian Society of Artists, Adelaide, 8 July 1937, no. 33 Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society for the Arts, Adelaide, 7-22 July 1938, no. 1, 30 gns Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society for the Arts, Adelaide, 25 October – 3 November 1945, no. 12 Dorrit Black Memorial Exhibition, Royal South Australian Society for the Arts, Adelaide, 22 April – 2 May 1952, no. 34 Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014, illustrated Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890-1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 24 May – 7 September 2025; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 11 October 2025 – 15 February 2026, illustrated LITERATURE Ian North, The Art of Dorrit Black, Macmillan, Melbourne & Sydney and Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1979, cat. no. O.26, plate 7, pp. 29 (illustrated), 35, 121 Tracey Lock-Weir, Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 46, 50 (illustrated), 189 (illustrated) Elle Freak, Tracey Lock and Wayne Tunnicliffe (eds), Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890-1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2025, pp. 214 (illustrated), 226
DORRIT BLACK (1891-1951) The Quartette 1936 colour linocut signed, titled and editioned on margin: Dorrit Black. / The Quartette. 4/50 15 x 24cm PROVENANCE Estate of Edith Lawrence, London Thence by descent Private collection, United Kingdom Tennants Auctioneers, United Kingdom Private collection, Sydney Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, Important Australian + International Fine Art, Melbourne, 27 November 2019, Lot 2 Works from the late Andrée Harkness Collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Lino-Cuts 1936 (Seventh Exhibition of British Lino-Cuts), Ward Gallery, London, 10 June – 8 July 1936, cat. 19 (another example) An Exhibition of Oils, Watercolours and Lino Cuts by Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 7 – 23 July 1938, cat. 40 (another example) Drawing, Print and Watercolour, Contemporary Arts Society, Adelaide, 1952, cat. 23 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 13 June – 7 September 2014 (another example, as 'The String Quartette') Modern Australian Women: Works from a Private Collection, The Ian Potter Centre: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, October 2018 - March 2019 LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1979, cat. L30, pl. 19, pp. 73 (illus., another example, as 'The String Quartette, 1936'), 132 Coppel, S., Linocuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scolar Press, Aldershot, England, in association with the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB30, p. 160 (illus., another example) Lock-Weir, T., Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 102 (illus.) 204 (illus., another example) Andrée Harkness, Modern Australian Women Artists: The Andrée Harkness Collection, Amaled Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2020, pp. 152, 159 (illus.) (a copy of this book accompanies this work)
DORRIT BLACK (1891 - 1951) DUTCH HOUSES, c.1929 colour linocut on paper 27.0 x 20.0 cm (image) 29.0 x 25.0 cm (sheet) proof aside from the edition of 50 bears inscription in margin: DUTCH HOUSES L10 PROVENANCE Private collection, Adelaide Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney The Estate of James O. Fairfax AC, New South Wales, acquired from the above in 1999 Deutscher and Hackett, Sydney, 30 August 2017, lot 37 Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED British Lino–cuts, Redfern Gallery, London, 23 July – 23 August 1930, cat. 78 (another example) Paintings by Dorrit Black, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 10 – 20 September 1930, cat. 30 (another example) British Lino–cuts, Shanghai Art Club, Shanghai, 2 – 4 May 1931, cat. 60 (another example) Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 25 October – 3 November 1945, cat. 60 (another example) 25th Anniversary Exhibition, Hahndorf Academy Gallery, Adelaide, 1981, cat. 17 (another example) Claude Flight and his Followers: The Colour Linocut Movement between the Wars, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 18 April – 12 July 1992, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 October – 29 November 1992; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 16 December 1992 – 1 March 1993; National Art Gallery, Wellington, 19 March – 16 May 1993; and Auckland City Art Gallery, New Zealand, 3 June – 18 July 1993, cat. 20 (another example) The Dorrit Black Collection, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 17 April – 29 May 1999, cat. 7 Graphica Britannica, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, New Zealand, 13 May 2005 – 8 October 2006 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) In Modern Times, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, New Zealand, 18 December 2015 – 11 September 2016 (another example) One O'Clock Jump: British Linocuts from the Jazz Age, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, New Zealand, 7 December 2024 – 11 May 2025 (another example) LITERATURE 'Art & linoleum cut out pictures with umbrella ribs', Sun, Sydney, 16 March 1930, p. 8 (illus., another example, incorrectly titled) Flight, C., The Art and Craft of Lino Cutting and Printing, B. T. Batsford Ltd, London, 1934, pl. XII, no. 10, p. 61 (illus.) North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, MacMillan and Art Gallery of South Australia, 1979, cat. L10, pl. 9, pp. 39 (illus., another example) 41, 131 Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB8, p. 154 (illus., another example) Lock–Weir, T., Dorrit Black. Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 52, 55 (illus., another example), 200 (illus., another example) RELATED WORKS Other examples of this print are held in the collections of the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, New Zealand, and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, New Zealand
DORRIT BLACK (1891 - 1951) THE LAWN MOWER, c.1931 – 32 colour linocut on paper 19.5 x 13.0 cm (image) 25.0 x 16.0 cm (sheet) edition: 1/50 signed, numbered and inscribed with title below image: The Lawn Mower 1/50 Dorrit Black. PROVENANCE Private collection Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in April 1986 EXHIBITED Exhibition of Linocuts, Everyman's Lending Library, Melbourne, 5 – 16 April 1932, cat. 2 (another example) Fourth Exhibition of British Lino–cuts, Ward Gallery, London, 17 May – 10 June 1933, cat. 44 (another example) British Lino–cuts (Mostly in Colour), Hastings Public Museum and Art Gallery, Sussex, 9 May – 9 June 1936, cat. 54 (another example) The Drawing, Print and Watercolour Exhibition, Contemporary Art Society of South Australia, Adelaide, opened 2 December 1952, cat. 2 (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Newcastle Region Art Gallery, New South Wales; The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 56 (another example) Colour Linocuts from the Grosvenor School, The Ward Gallery, Sydney, 26 March – 19 April 1980, cat. 42 (another example) Australian Art, Colonial to Modern, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 9 – 25 April 1986, cat. 85 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Claude Flight and his Followers: The Colour Linocut Movement between the Wars, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 18 April – 12 July 1992, then touring to: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 October – 29 November 1992; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 16 December 1992 – 1 March 1993; National Art Gallery, Wellington, 19 March – 16 May 1993; and Auckland City Art Gallery, New Zealand, 3 June – 18 July 1993, cat. 22 (another example) The Dorrit Black Collection, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 17 April – 29 May 1999, cat. 10A Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 19 June – 8 September 2019 (another example) LITERATURE Young, E., 'Contemporary Art Society Exhibition', The Advertiser, Adelaide, 2 December 1952, p. 9 North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, MacMillan and Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1979, cat. L17, pl. 23, pp. 59, 60 (illus., another example), 131 Coppel, S., Lino Cuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scholar Press, Leicester, United Kingdom, in association with National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. DB18, pp. 156, 157 (illus., another example) Lock–Weir, T., Dorrit Black. Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 156, 157 (illus., another example), 202 (illus., another example) Samuel, G., et al., Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2019, pp. 73, 74 (illus., another example) RELATED WORKS Other examples of this print are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide The Lawn Mower, c.1932, printed in black, 6.9 x 10.0 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Study for linocut 'The lawn mower', 1931 – 32, gouache, pencil, linocut on paper, 19.7 x 13.0 cm, in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Dorrit Black (1891-1951) Black Swans, 1937 signed within block: 'DB' [in monogram] signed, numbered, and inscribed with title below image edition: 22/50 linocut, printed in colour, from five blocks (red, pink, green, blue-grey and black) 23.5 x 32.0cm (9 1/4 x 12 5/8in).
Dorrit Black (1891-1951) Toucans, 1938 artist's monogram in block lower left: 'DB' titled and numbered and signed below block: 'Toucans 2/50 Dorrit Black' colour linocut on white oriental paper, printed in seven blocks in brown, black, grey, green, yellow, cobalt blue and red 23.0 x 23.0cm (9 1/16 x 9 1/16in).
Dorrit Black (1891-1951) Funeral, c.1929 titled, signed and numbered below image: 'Funeral 16/50 Dorrit Black'' colour linocut on thin wove paper, printed from four blocks in chrome yellow mixed with yellow ochre, vermillion mixed with crimson, viridian and black 19.0 x 21.0cm (7 1/2 x 8 1/4in).
Dorrit Black (1891-1951) Dutch Houses, 1929 colour linocut on thin cream oriental paper, printed in yellow ochre, red, green, greyish blue and cobalt blue 27.4 x 20.4cm (10 13/16 x 8 1/16in).
Dorrit Black (1891-1951) The Acrobats, 1927-28 initialled lower left: 'D.B.' colour linocut on thin cream oriental paper, printed from four blocks in yellow, red, viridian and black 25.0 x 17.5cm (9 13/16 x 6 7/8in).
DORRIT BLACK (1891-1951) Portrait of Rawi Bhavilai c.1950 oil on bitumen paper on board signed lower right: Dorrit Black artist's name and title inscribed verso 48.5 x 40cm (61.4 x 53cm framed) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney EXHIBITIONS: Faces in the Crowd: An Exhibition of Paintings from the Collection of Woolloomooloo Gallery, Sydney, Stanthorpe Art Gallery, Queensland, 2-28 November 1992, Tweed River Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales, 9 December 1992 - 3 January 1993, cat. no.12 Australian Women Artists of the Twentieth Century from the collection of Elinor and Fred Wrobel, Penrith Regional Art Gallery, Sydney, 8 March 1995 LITERATURE: RELATED WORK Portrait of Rawi Bhavilai, c.1949-51, oil on composition board, 41.7 x 37.9cm, illustrated in Lock-Weir, T, Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, p. 121 and p. 195
Dorrit Black (1891-1951) The Windswept Farm, 1937 linocut printed in cobalt blue, green, Indian red, pink and ochre 22.0 x 36.0cm (8 11/16 x 14 3/16in).
Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) Watercolor and gouache on paper, signed lower left, measures 11 x 15.5 inches and 18.5 x 23 inches w/frame. Dorrit Black was one of a handful of intrepid Australian women who ventured overseas in the 1930s to complete and broaden their artistic training in the United Kingdom and continental Europe. Black, along with her peers Anne Dangar, Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme studied at the pioneering schools of Albert Gleizes and André Lhote in Paris and at the Grosvenor School, where they studied experimental lino-cutting under Claude Flight. Although Black, Spowers and Syme all reached international acclaim with their achievements in this democratic and radical medium, they nevertheless returned to Australia and mostly continued their artistic practice in the traditional forms of oil on canvas and works on paper. Dorrit Black, an Adelaidean, returned to the southern state and achieved broader success than her peers as an exhibiting society painter, a teacher of landscape painting (with Jeffrey Smart being a notable, and impressionable pupil)
DORRIT BLACK (1891 - 1951) MUSIC, 1927 - 28 colour linocut on thin cream oriental laid paper printed from five blocks in black, yellow, ochre, brick red, grey-green and cobalt blue 24.0 x 21.5 cm (image) 31.0 x 24.5 cm (sheet) edition: 10/50 signed with initials lower left: D.B. inscribed with title and numbered in margin upper left: Music 10/50 PROVENANCE Private collection Deutsher Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Canada, acquired from the above in March 1978 Thence by descent Private collection, Canada EXHIBITED First Exhibition of British Lino-cuts, Redfern Gallery, London, 4 – 27 July 1929, cat. 49 (another example) Painting and Sculpture by A Group of Seven, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 26 March – 5 April 1930, cat. 6 (another example) Work by Members of the Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria, Town Hall, Melbourne, 13 – 24 October 1931 (another example) Exhibition of Oils, Watercolours and Lino Cuts by Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 7 – 23 July 1938, cat. 31 (another example) The Drawing, Print and Watercolour Exhibition, Contemporary Art Society of Australia, Melbourne, opened 2 December 1952, cat. 14 (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, then touring, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Newcastle Region Art Gallery, New South Wales; The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1975 – 76, cat. 50 (another example) A Survey of Australian Relief Prints 1900 – 1950, Deutscher Galleries, Melbourne, 13 April – 5 May 1978 Art Deco and works from the period, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 16 June – 14 July 1980 (another example) Project 39 – Women's Imprint, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1 – 31 October 1982 (another example) Claude Flight and his Followers: The Colour Linocut Movement between the Wars, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 18 April – 12 July 1992, cat. 17 (another example) Modernism 1900 - 1950: prints and drawings from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 23 July – 25 September 1994 (another example) Review: Works by Women from the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 8 March – 4 June 1995 (another example) Art Deco: from Sydney Cinemas and Pubs to Skyscrapers, Museum of Sydney, Sydney, 12 June – 5 September 1999 (another example) Dorrit Black Collection, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 17 April – 29 May 1999, cat. 1 (another example) Modern Australia Women: Paintings and Prints 1925 – 1945, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 24 November 2000 – 25 February 2001; then touring to the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, the S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney and the Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria (another example) The Story of Australian Printmaking, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 30 March – 3 June 2007 (another example) Australian Collection Focus: Colour, Rhythm, Design - wood & lino cuts of the 20s & 30s, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 12 March – 11 July 2010 (another example) Professor Sadler, Japan and Australian modernism, University Art Gallery, University of Sydney, Sydney, 3 April – 24 July 2011 (another example) Dorrit Black 1891 – 1951, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 24 April – 15 May 2011, cat. 9 (another example) Sydney Moderns, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 July – 7 October 2013 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) Modern impressions; Australian prints from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2 September 2016 – January 2017 (another example) Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 19 June – 8 September 2019 (another example) LITERATURE 'Art & linoleum cut out pictures with umbrella ribs', Sun, Sydney, 16 March 1930, p. 8 (illus., another example) Butler, R., and Deutscher, C., A Survey of Australian Relief Prints 1900/1950, Deutsher Galleries, Melbourne, 1978, p. 92 (illus., another example) North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, cat. L.1, pl. 5, pp. 27 (illus., another example), 131 Waldmann, A., Project 39 – Women's Imprint, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1982, np. Edwards et al., Review: Works by Women from the Permanent Collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1995, n.p. Coppel, S., Linocuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scolar Press, Aldershot, 1995, pp. 66, 152 (illus., another example), pl. 31, cat. DBI Topliss, H., Modernism and Feminism, Australian Women Artists 1900 – 1940, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1996, p. 142 (illus., another example) Hylton, J., Modern Australian Women: Paintings & Prints 1925 – 1945, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2000, p. 25 (illus., another example) Butler, R., Printed Images by Australian Artists 1885 – 1955, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2007, p. 205 (illus., another example) Campbell, H., Colour, Rhythm, Design: Wood & Lino cuts of the 20s & 30s, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2010, pp. 2, 16 (illus., another example) Mimmocchi, D., Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2013, pp. 79, 178 (illus., another example), 310, 320 Grishin, S., Australian Art: A History, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2015, p. 232, pl. 23.4 (illus., another example) Lock-Weir, T., Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, pp. 8 – 9 (illus., another example), 154 (illus., another example), 199 (illus., another example) Samuel et al., Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2019, pp. 15, 16 (illus.), 39, 40, 49, 70, 74, 90 (illus.) and illus. back cover (another example) ESSAY Adelaide-born Dorrit Black began her studies at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts around 1910, moving to Sydney in 1915 where she attended Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School. In England in late 1927, she studied for several months at London’s Grosvenor School of Modern Art, and later in France sought out other progressive teachers – André Lhote, who introduced her to Cubism and Albert Gleizes, who offered ‘a bridge from Cubism to pure abstraction: from the static to the dynamic.’1 Armed with this firsthand knowledge of developments in contemporary international art, when Black returned to Australia at the end of 1929 she joined the ranks of a small group of female artists, including Grace Crowley, Anne Dangar, and earlier, Margaret Preston, who, through the exhibition of their art, sometimes teaching – and in Black’s case, her energetic proselytising – played a critical role in the introduction and spread of approaches to modern art in Australia. While Black’s first introduction to the linocut technique was probably through Thea Proctor in Sydney during the early 1920s,2 the most significant influence on her work in the medium was Claude Flight. Teaching at the Grosvenor School from 1926 – 30, he revolutionised printmaking in the 1920s and 30s through his passionate advocacy of the colour linocut, regarding it as the modern medium for the modern age. His 1927 book, Lino-Cuts. A Hand-Book of Linoleum-Cut Colour Printing (1927), was the first major publication on the subject and quickly became the standard manual used by artists across the world. Although Black only studied with Flight for a few months, she absorbed his example of the use of bold colour, the reduction of subject matter to simplified shapes, and patterns based on a dynamic system of opposing rhythmic lines and forms. One of the earliest colour linocuts Black made after her encounter with Flight, Music, 1927 – 28 clearly reflects his influence in its strong design and lively sense of movement, and the master approved, writing to Black after seeing a trial proof, ‘I think it very good. I especially like the person at the piano… I think you have got away with the idea very well… I believe that rather abstract ideas work better in Lino-cuts than definite views.’3 Indeed, Flight’s admiration for this print was such that he included it, along with four others by the Australian artist, in the first of the regular exhibitions of colour linocuts that he organised at the Redfern Gallery in London in 1929.4 The image was inspired by a jazz evening at the Dominion Arts Club in London and the dynamism of the composition, with its sweeping arcs of background line, colour and pattern, and the stylised dancing figures, gives vivid expression to the energy and excitement of the experience. Printed on delicate cream paper in five colours – black first, followed by yellow ochre, red-brown, grey-green and blue – from five separate linoblocks, this impression is inscribed with the edition number 10/50, however as was often the case with relief prints (linocuts and woodcuts) by Australian artists at the time, it is unlikely that the entire edition was ever completed. Other catalogued impressions of Music are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Art Gallery of South Australia and the National Gallery of Australia. 1. Lock-Weir, T., Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, p. 56 2. Freak, E., ‘The Modern Medium: Colour Linocuts’ in Lock-Weir, ibid., pp. 144 – 145 3. Claude Flight, letter to Dorrit Black, 25 March 1928, cited in Lock-Weir, ibid., p. 36 and Coppel, S., Linocuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scolar Press in association with the National Gallery of Australia, Aldershot, 1995, p. 66 The other prints by Black included in the Redfern Gallery exhibition were The Acrobats, 1927 – 28; Wings, 1927 – 28; The Castle, Taormina, c.1929; and Argentina, c.1929. KIRSTY GRANT
DORRIT BLACK (1891-1951) The Castle, Taormina c.1928-29 colour linocut on cream wove paper, printed from five blocks in yellow ochre, blue, green, red brown, ed. 5/50 initialled lower right in pencil upon image editioned and titled beneath image: Sicily, The Castle, Taormina 5/50 20 x 26cm PROVENANCE: Sotheby's, Sydney, 17 November 1988, lot 142 The Collection of Colin Lanceley Leonard Joel, The Estate of Colin Lanceley, Sydney, 16 November 2015, lot 202 Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITIONS: First Exhibition of Linocuts, The Redfern Gallery, London 1929, cat. no. 41 (another example) A Group of Seven, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney 1930, cat. no. 26 (another example) Drawing, Print and Watercolour, Contemporary Artist's Society, Adelaide 1952, cat. no. 9 (another example) A Survey of Australian Relief Prints 1900-1950, Deutscher Galleries, 13 April - 5 May, 1978, cat. no 124 (another example) Dorrit Black Collection, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney 1999, cat. no. 3 (another example) Out of the Darkness: Prints and Drawings from the University of Western Australia Art Collection, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth 2010 (another example) Dorrit Black: Retrospective Exhibition, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide 2011, cat. no. 15 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 June - 7 September 2014 (another example) LITERATURE: Lock, T., Dorrit Black Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2017, p. 50, 152, 200 (illustrated, another example) Butler, R. & Deutscher, C., A Survey of Australian Relief Prints 1900-1950, Deutscher Galleries, Melbourne, 1978, p. 93 (illustrated, another example) OTHER NOTES: Dorrit Black was at the forefront of the modernist movement, and a key participant in bringing these ideas to Australia from Europe in the 1920s. Leaving Adelaide for England in 1927, Dorrit Black attended the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London to study under Claude Flight three days a week. Flight took great interest in Black's rhythmic use of colour and suggested using a multi lino-block to refine the build-up of colour within each print, a technique executed by only his most advanced students. Having forged a great relationship, Flight and Black kept in close contact even after Black had departed London to travel around Europe. The pair would write to each other about their learnings and exchange concepts, with Flight even displaying her works amongst his own and that of other students. Joining her Australian comrades, Grace Crowley and Anne Dangar, Black enrolled in the Academie Lhote on Rue d'Odessa in Montparnasse. Intrigued by the aims and methods of the Cubist Modernist Movement, Black was eager to work with teacher Andre Lhote, one of the original Cubist artists. In the late 1920s, Black travelled through Europe, spending three weeks in Taormina, Sicily. This is where Black would produce some of her most prolific works blending the modern printmaking teachings of Flight with the Cubist perspectives of Lhote. "The Castle, Taormina" demonstrates volume and solidity through the advanced overlaying of colour and the dramatic vertical forms and shadows. Rather than the use of thick black outline, Dorrit expertly balances her use of block colour and integrates shadowing and depth through segmented line to depict the angled surface of the landscape. Dorrit successfully represents the towering heights of the Sicilian mountains and the dramatic formations of cloud in the sky, dissecting her subject into a balanced and striking modernist composition. Her geometric depiction and patterning of the landscape is a great example of her experimentation with modern methods and her complete adherence to the principles she had recently learnt. In 1929, Claude Flight held the First Exhibition of British Linocuts at Redfern Gallery, London. Five linocuts by Black had been selected, including "The Castle, Taormina". Flight wrote to Black: "let me congratulate you on your prints they are wholly delightful & the ones I like especially are 'music' (wings), and the landscape (The Castle, Taormina). The landscape is the best lino landscape I have seen yet - I wish I had done it myself". Hannah Ryan, Art Specialist RELATED WORK: The Castle, Taormina, 1928, oil on canvasboard, 54 x 37cm, University Art Collection, The University of Sydney, Sydney.
Dorrit Black 1881 - 1951 Corner of the Garden (C. DB 32) Linoleum cut printed in colors, circa 1936, signed in pencil, titled and numbered 4/50, on tissue thin Japan paper, unframed image: 260 by 308 mm 10¼ by 12⅛ in sheet: 304 by 377 mm 12 by 14⅞ in
![Dorrit Black, Untitled [Still life with teapot], c.1940 – 51](https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/Deutscher_and_Hackett/66/817066/H4043-Lp50qdKrCmulRf.jpg)
