31 August – 20 October
This year the Portia Geach Memorial Award celebrates its 60th year and to mark this milestone the S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, is presenting a selection of Geach’s work alongside previous winners of the Award.
Born in Melbourne in 1873, Portia Geach studied painting at the National Gallery School, Melbourne from 1893-96. In 1896 she won the first travelling scholarship awarded to an Australian to study at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, where she remained for four years.
She returned to Melbourne and began experimenting with her art eventually focusing on figure studies, portraits and atmospheric landscapes. The family moved to Sydney settling in Cremorne Point. She painted murals for buildings in New York in 1917, and in 1926 was exhibiting at the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Disillusioned by the lack of support from the male dominated art world Portia then directed her energies fighting for the rights of women in Australia.
Following her death in 1959, her surviving sister Kate Geach created the bequest that carries her name for an art award for Australian women artists. Held each year, the Portia Geach Memorial Award is given to a portrait of the highest artistic merit become synonymous with the developing profiles of Australian women artists.