The donation of an archive of 85 prints and etchings by Elisabeth Cummings to the New England Regional Art Museum was announced at the opening of the new exhibition Elisabeth Cummings: Interior Landscapes on Friday 18 August 2017.
“Elisabeth Cummings is widely admired and is being acclaimed as one of the great Australian artists of her generation, especially for her work as a painter,” said Robert Heather, Art Museum Director. “This gift will provide an opportunity for curators, artists, students and visitors to discover the range of work that she has done on paper and will create an opportunity to examine her work as a printmaker over a number of years.”
“This gift of eighty-five of her prints and etchings from 1995 to the present day has been valued at close to $100,000 and will complement NERAM’s extensive collection of works on paper by leading Australian artists from throughout the 20th Century.”
“Elisabeth is donating these works to NERAM through the Cultural Gifts program and we are planning that they will be displayed through the exhibitions program here at NERAM within the next few years.”
Elisabeth Cummings was born in Brisbane in 1934, the daughter of an architect and a teacher. At 19, Cummings moved to Sydney and studied at the National Art School before receiving the prestigious NSW Travelling Art Scholarship which enabled her to spend the next decade in Europe.
Cummings moved back in Sydney in 1969, where she commenced teaching at East Sydney Tech on a part-time basis, as well as at numerous other art schools including the National Art School, something that she continued to do for the next 30 years.
In 1970 she settled in Wedderburn, a rural retreat outside Campbelltown on the Georges River south of Sydney, together with a group of other artists. Today she divides her time between Wedderburn and Sydney.
Cummings’ works are represented in many state and regional collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Artbank, the National Gallery of Australia, Lismore Regional Art Gallery, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery and the Queensland Art Gallery.
New England Regional Art Museum is currently hosting the major touring exhibition Elisabeth Cumming: Interior Landscapes which opened on Friday 18 August with a large enthusiastic crowd of visitors.
The retrospective exhibition has been curated by Sioux Garside, founding Director of the Campbelltown Art Gallery and also of the Sydney University Art Gallery, who has also contributed to the recent fully illustrated monograph about the artist and her work published by the Drill Hall Gallery at Australian National University in 2017.
Elisabeth Cumming: Interior Landscapes is a Drill Hall Gallery touring exhibition and will be on display at the New England Regional Art Museum from Friday 18 August until Sunday 4 November 2017. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue and a monograph book which is available at the NERAM Shop.
