We find the path of an abstract painter an exceedingly difficult one here in Australia. In fact, Ralph Balson and I are the only two painters I am aware of who think seriously about abstract painting at all.
Grace Crowley to Albert Gleizes, 30 June 1947
Celebrated artists Grace Crowley and Ralph Balson played pivotal roles in the evolution of abstract art in Australia. Crowley was born in Barraba, New South Wales, in 1890, and commenced full-time studies at Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School in 1915 before being appointed head teacher in 1918. In 1926, Crowley and Anne Dangar, who had met at art school, travelled to France to further their academic pursuits. In Paris, Crowley studied under André Lhote and Albert Gleizes, pioneering artists of the Cubist movement.
Balson was born in Dorset, England, in 1890, and was apprenticed to a plumber and house painter at thirteen before moving to Australia ten years later. Primarily a self- taught artist, Balson enrolled in night classes at the Sydney Art School in the early 1920s, where Crowley was one of his teachers. The duo were reacquainted following her return to Australia in 1930, where Crowley became a central figure in the distribution of modernist ideas.
While teaching at the Sydney Art School, Crowley adopted a conservative approach to her own artistic endeavours. It was not until she travelled overseas with Dangar, who was keen to study developments in contemporary art in Europe, that Crowley was seduced by modernism.
In 1927, Crowley commenced studies under Lhote at his academy in Montparnasse. Crowley thrived under Lhote’s tutelage, and it was here she first learnt about dynamic symmetry and the Section d’or, or ‘golden section’. In 1928, with Dangar and fellow Australian artist Dorrit Black, Crowley attended Lhote’s summer school held in the medieval village of Mirmande in the south of France. Lhote recorded each student’s accommodation, noting that Crowley, Black and Dangar shared a room at the local butcher, the Urbillac premises.
The following year, Crowley was included in the French Salon des Indépendents, which led to the offer of exhibition at the prestigious Bernheim-Jeune Gallery, Paris. However, Crowley’s family were appealing her to return to Australia to assist in the care of her ailing mother. Prior to her departure, Crowley participated in a series of classes with Gleizes. Although their time together was brief, Gleizes’ teaching greatly impacted Crowley’s practice, and would later feed into her move into non-representational art.
Crowley farewelled Europe in December 1929, and returning to country New South Wales was a shock after her four-year sojourn. In 1932, she took up a teaching position at Dorrit Black’s Modern Art Centre. There, Crowley was reacquainted with Balson, and Rah (Fiz) Fizelle, whom she had met up with overseas.
Crowley and Fiz opened the Crowley-Fizelle School in 1932, and the school emerged as a leading centre for modernism in Australia. The school attracted artists who were increasingly interested in abstraction – including Balson and Frank and Margel Hinder – and was a place where Crowley was able to teach the abstract principles she had been introduced to while abroad. Following the closure of the school in 1937, Crowley and Balson began working together at Crowley’s studio apartment, and soon after were painting exclusively together.
Exhibition 1, the inaugural display of semi-abstract painting and sculpture in Australia, opened at the David Jones Gallery in Sydney in 1939. Featuring numerous members of the Crowley-Fizelle circle, it opened just two weeks before the declaration of World War II. During this intensely experimental phase, Crowley and Balson became closer in painting style and direction. Despite a prevailing mood of uncertainty and anxiety, they continued pushing the direction of their works further still, making the radical leap into pure abstraction.
I look forward all the week to this one morning I am free to paint. I have trained myself to visualise and record what I see quickly, for no sooner has the moment arrived than it is gone.
Ralph Balson to Grace Crowley, quoted by Crowley in 1966
Balson was an intellectual artist who created works inspired by his knowledge of contemporary scientific and philosophical principles. While Balson did not commence painting until he was in his thirties, it was to become the major focus of his life, dedicating himself to his artistic practice outside of his work week.
In 1941, Balson held a solo exhibition at Anthony Hordern’s Fine Art Gallery in Sydney, the first exhibition of purely abstract painting in the country. The exhibition comprised a series of sophisticated paintings featuring flattened and geometric motifs and were referred to as his Constructive paintings.
Although Balson’s solo exhibition was relatively overlooked at the time, it is now recognised as a watershed moment in Australian art history. Intriguingly, Balson’s works from this period were signed by Crowley, with his name inscribed in her distinctive geometric handwriting, reflecting the intimacy of their painting partnership.
Crowley and Balson’s move into pure abstraction saw both artists experimenting with coloured paper as a form of inspiration for their compositions. While Crowley’s semi-abstract works of the 1930s were meticulously planned, and based on sketches, her works from the 1940s saw the introduction of a more experimental approach to her arrangements.
Along with paper, Crowley also worked with ribbon or cord, and she used these physical elements as a working board for her final paintings. Abstract painting, 1947, exemplifies the balanced yet dynamic compositions Crowley was producing at this time. The geometric shapes and ribboned lines create a sense of rhythm, drawing the viewer’s eye across the painting.
As Balson’s Constructive paintings evolved, their compositions continued to be based on structured relationships of form and colour. However, following his solo exhibition, Balson introduced into his works the sense that the shapes were diaphanous, or filtering light, as shown in Constructive Elements, 1944. From around 1946, Balson no longer included circular or oblique forms. Instead, his works of this period featured a reduction of forms towards right-angled geometry, reminiscent of the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s abstract works.
The Australian art world at this time was relatively hostile towards abstraction, and Crowley and Balson’s work received a lukewarm reception. While they all but disconnected from the local art scene, their artistic partnership was to prove to be one of the most important in the history of Australian art.
Crowley purchased ‘High Hill’, a property in Mittagong, New South Wales, in 1954, and a studio was set up for Balson. Crowley painted very little from this point. Conversely, this was to be a prolific period for Balson, who retired the following year and was able to fully dedicate himself to his art. Balson’s paintings began to embrace a more expressionist, painterly style of abstraction. Referred to as his Non-objective paintings, they featured elegant shifting areas of dappled colour. As the series progressed, the application of paint became looser, with more visible brushstrokes.
Between 1960 and 1961, Balson and Crowley travelled extensively overseas – Balson’s first international travel since his move to Australia. Their return saw another shift in Balson’s work, the beginning of his Matter paintings. These paintings showed the influence of his firsthand experience with international abstraction, such as the work by American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock, and Informalist European artists, in particular Antoni Tàpies and Alberto Burri. Working with large pieces of hardboard, Balson employed a semiautomatic pouring technique, letting the paint glide across the picture plane.
While planning a second trip overseas, Balson passed away in 1964. Following his death, Crowley promoted Balson’s legacy and oversaw the acquisition of his work by major institutions and regional galleries. Despite Crowley’s significant role in their artistic partnership, over the years she greatly underplayed her own contribution. The extent of her involvement was further obscured by large gaps in her oeuvre, and it is well documented that Crowley destroyed or discarded many of her own paintings.
In 1966, the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney, mounted Balson Crowley Fizelle Hinder. This recognition from a major institution put Crowley’s work in the public eye, and she was further acknowledged with retrospectives by the AGNSW in 1975 and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, in 2007. Curated by Elena Taylor, the 2007 retrospective solidified Crowley and Balson’s transition into complete abstraction as a parallel move – a process of mutual collaboration. Crowley passed away in 1979. A Balson retrospective was held at Heide Museum of Modern Art in 1984.
While the exact nature of their relationship remains an enigma, Crowley and Balson’s dynamic exchange extended and challenged both artists, and together they formed one of the most important artistic partnerships in Australian art history.
Grace Crowley first encountered dynamic symmetry and the Section d’or, or ‘golden section’, while studying at André Lhote’s Académie Lhote in Paris in the late 1920s. Portrait, 1950, is Crowley’s most formal abstract work and has been arranged following the proportions of the golden section.
Dynamic symmetry refers to the use of geometric principles – basic geometric shapes such as rectangles, angles and triangles – to create balanced and harmonious compositions through mathematical relationships and proportions.
The golden section, also known as the golden ratio or mean, is a component of dynamic symmetry. Admired for its aesthetic harmony, the ratio is found in the natural world and has been applied in various fields including art and architecture.
The composition of Portrait, 1950, is harmonious. The bold red line sits at the intersection of the top and left vertical thirds of the painting, while the height of the white triangle is exactly three red bars in length.
If the two sides of the white triangle extended all the way to the top of the canvas and you divide the length between the two edges of white triangle with the distance between the top left corner of the canvas and the first edge of the protracted white triangle, the result is 1.618, the golden ratio.
The blue circle in the upper right sits in the distance of its radius from the painting edge, and the width of the painting is exactly eight blue circles. This beautifully composed painting is highly planned and structured, a skilful example of the implementation of dynamic symmetry within an abstract painting.
Painting no. 14, 1941, was included in Ralph Balson’s groundbreaking solo exhibition held at Anthony Hordern’s Fine Art Gallery in Sydney in the same year. It was the first exhibition of non-objective painting ever held in Australia. Non-objective art defines a type of abstract art that is usually, but not always, geometric and aims to convey a sense of simplicity and purity. The work on display in Balson’s exhibition featured complex compositions with dynamic interplays of form and colour. Described as his Constructive paintings, these works were to form part of a major series that Balson continued to produce until the mid-1950s.
While Constructivism began as a modern art movement in Soviet Russia in the wake of the 1917 Revolution, it quickly moved through Europe and across the globe. Informed to a significant degree by the Cubist movement, Constructivism emphasised abstraction, geometric shapes and industrial materials, aiming to embody modern principles and social value.
The influential text on International Constructivism, Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art, edited by the artists Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo and the architect Leslie Martin in London, was published in 1937. It was around this time that Australian abstract painters, including Balson and Frank Hinder, introduced the use of ‘constructive’, or variations thereof, in their own titles or to describe their work.
The compositions of Balson’s Constructive paintings exhibited at Anthony Hordern’s were planned out in pencil on the support. Despite their formalist structure, the paint layers were often applied freehand with great confidence and urgency, giving the surfaces a tactile painterly quality.
Featuring repeating geometric motifs of pure colour that sit across modulating forms, Painting no. 14 is typical of Balson’s works from the period. The elongated grey rectangles are punctuated by coloured circles, their rhythm guiding the eye across the picture plane and through the dynamic symphony of shapes.
Beckett Rozentals is NGV Curator, Australian Art.
This exhibition is supported by Major Partner Macquarie, and Creative Victoria.
See these works as part of Grace Crowley & Ralph Balson on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 23 May.
Header images:
Robert Walker, Grace Crowley 1970, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Robert Walker archive, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Louise Walker 2008 National Art Archive, Art Gallery of New South Wales © Robert Walker/Copyright Agency, 2024
Peter Balson, Ralph Balson in his studio with grandson Michael Balson, National Art Archive, Art Gallery of New South Wales © Ralph Balson Estate