Bea Maddock
Encyclopedia
Biography
Born in HobartHobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
, Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
, the daughter of an Anglican clergyman.
Bea Maddock studied art education at the University of Tasmania
University of Tasmania
The University of Tasmania is a medium-sized public Australian university based in Tasmania, Australia. Officially founded on 1 January 1890, it was the fourth university to be established in nineteenth-century Australia...
, Hobart and taught secondary school in Hobart before travelling abroad to study at the Slade School of Art, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Her teachers included William Coldstream
William Coldstream
Sir William Menzies Coldstream was a British realist painter and a long standing art teacher.-Biography:...
, Ceri Richards
Ceri Richards
-Biography:Richards was born in the village of Dunvant, near Swansea, the son of Thomas Coslett Richards and Sarah Richards . He and his younger brother and sister, Owen and Esther, were brought up in a highly cultured, working-class environment...
and Anthony Gross. During this time she visited Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Holland and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, where she closely studied the work of the German Expressionists, who were a formative influence. She also stopped in Bombay, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
during the return trip by ship to Australia.
She returned to teaching in Launceston, Tasmania
Launceston, Tasmania
Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...
before settling in the state of Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
. She taught printmaking at the Victorian College of the Arts from 1970 and returned to Tasmania as Head of the School of Art, Launceston in 1983-84. She was a Creative Arts Fellow at the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
, Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
in 1976.
Maddock lived and worked at Mount Macedon, Victoria until the Ash Wednesday fires
Ash Wednesday fires
The Ash Wednesday bushfires, known in South Australia as Ash Wednesday II, were a series of bushfires that occurred in south-eastern Australia on 16 February 1983. Within twelve hours, more than 180 fires fanned by winds of up to 110 km per hour caused widespread destruction across the states...
of 1983 forced her to flee. Her house, studio and a large archive of the work of many decades was destroyed. She later returned to her native state of Tasmania. In 1987 she participated in the 'Artists in Antarctica' program with Jan Senbergs and John Caldwell. While on that voyage, she badly fractured her leg on Heard Island, which compromised her mobility for several years afterwards.
She was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
medal in 1991.
Maddock is best known as a print
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
maker, in which area she has had a profound impact on contemporary practice in Australia, combining printing with encaustic
Encaustic
Encaustic may refer to:*Encaustic painting*Encaustic tile...
painting and installation art
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
to explore the natural environment, Aboriginal
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
Australia, and Australian history.
She has won many prizes and is represented in the National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
, all State galleries, and the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York and the National Gallery in Washington.
Her most recent major work, 'Terra Spiritus... With a Darker Shade of Pale', is a circumlittoral incised drawing in 51 parts of the entire coastline of Tasmania, each feature labelled with both the English and the aboriginal Tasmanian topographic names. The pigments used to make the drawing are made from native Tasmanian ochres.
Staff of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania are currently preparing a catalogue raisonné
Catalogue raisonné
The typical catalogue raisonné is a monograph giving a comprehensive catalogue of artworks by an artist.The essential elements of a catalogue raisonné are that it purports to be an exhaustive list of works for a defined subject matter describing the works in a way so that they may be reliably...
. It will contain entries on 978 works produced by the artist between 1952 and 1983.
Further Reading
- Irena Zdanowicz, ' "Geography with a Purpose": Bea Maddock's Terra Spiritus', Print Quarterly, XXVIII, 2011, pp. 471-77