The art of Mary Alice Evatt

Making it accessible

Mary Alice Evatt & Australian modernist art

Melissa Boyde tells the remarkable story about modern art and Australia’s country towns.

Speaking in New York just after the war Mary Alice emphasised the importance of government recognition that:

“art is able to crystallize emotions, intellectual trends, moments in the past, moments in the future, for its people, thus clarifying their views on life, and in making critical or appreciative art viewers also people capable of a larger and more complete life as citizens of a modern state.”

In Paris she spent time with Picasso at his studio looking at his wartime paintings and hearing about the details of his involvement in the Resistance.

As a result, she and Bert invited him to attend the UN Assembly, where he received a standing ovation.

In his autobiography art historian Bernard Smith recounts how, as a young art teacher posted to a school at Murraguldrie in country New South Wales (NSW) in the mid 1930s, he tried unsuccessfully to borrow books on modern art from the country lending service of the State Public Library.

On a visit to Sydney he made an appointment to see the NSW Chief Librarian W.H. Ifould, “a man of considerable power and influence in New South Wales” who was also a trustee of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW).

Smith took to the meeting the small catalogue listing the art books in the country section and “asked, as discreetly as he could manage, why it offered no books on modern art”. Ifould was very clear: “There are no books on modern art in the Country Reference Section … because to the best of my knowledge no one in the country is interested in modern art”.

This essay explores the history of taking modern art to country towns in NSW, particularly the contribution of one woman, Mary Alice Evatt.

Mary Alice was involved in the modernist art movement both locally and overseas. Through her international connections she was also well-informed on the ‘Art for the People’ movement: in America the Federal Art Project, established under Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1932, emphasised the central role of the arts in a democracy and in Britain the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts was established in 1939 on principles of opportunity and participation for all citizens.

In Australia, Mary Alice promoted similar ideals focusing on arts access, education and participation as part of the modern state.

These views, combined with her advocacy of principles of social equity, led to her becoming a key broker in the delivery of one of the main ‘Art for the People’ initiatives in Australia, the AGNSW’s Country Art Exhibition Scheme.

It was through this scheme that modern art found its way not only into library catalogues but into the heartland of NSW country towns.

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