NICHOLAS, Hilda Rix
The Fruits of the Farm c 1914

coloured crayons on paper
unsigned
45 x 30  cm

Exhibited: possibly at the ‘Exhibition of Pictures by E. Hilda Rix Nicholas’ at the Guild Hall, November 1918 (catalogue no. 23, priced at 7 pounds 10 shillings) and at the ‘Exhibition of Drawings and Oil Paintings by E. H. Rix Nicholas’ at Anthony Hordern’s Fine Art Gallery, June, 1919 (catalogue no. 78, priced at 8 gns).

Comments: Hilda Rix Nicholas’s best-known French oil paintings are probably 'A Mother of France' (Australian War Memorial) and 'Grandmere' (Art Gallery of NSW) both painted in 1914 and each featuring an elderly peasant woman similar to the woman depicted in the foreground of this drawing. The woman in this drawing bears an extremely close resemblance to the Etaples peasant woman shown in a photographic postcard in the Rix Nicholas Archive (illustrated p22 of Hilda Rix Nicholas by John Pigot).

In Etaples, Hilda Rix rented a studio owned by Mme Monthuy-Pannier, a well-known resident of the French coastal town, who had built four artist’s studios in her garden. ‘It was spacious, airy and delightfully provincial with its tiled fireplace and quaint chimney corner, and she loved it from the first moment. It was ideal for her needs, with the town square just around the corner, and the garden was a perfect setting for her pictures.’ (Pigot, p19). When not sketching in the market place Hilda Rix employed models who posed in the studio or garden.

Her sister Elsie wrote that the peasants were ‘ideal models, their costumes were so picturesque and simple, the types many and varied.’ However, while other artists at the time tended to idealise the peasant, in line with the conventions of the Salon, Rix tended to focus more realistically on rural domestic labour and on the authentic characteristics and gestures of people. As a result her images remain both fresh and ‘earthy’.

Hilda Rix Nicholas exhibited her lively coloured crayon drawings from 1912 onwards in Paris and in subsequent exhibitions in Australia in the years following World War 1. The above work has been in private hands for about 70 years and is probably identifiable with the work of this title exhibited in 1918 and 1919, probably being purchased from the latter exhibition.

References: The Art of Hilda Rix Nicholas, Anthony Hordern, 1919, limited edition; Hilda Rix Nicholas, Her Life and Art, by John Pigot, Miegunyah Press 2000. Similar images by Rix Nicholas can be found in 'Peintres Australiens à Etaples' by Jean-Claude Lesage, available in Australia from Nicholas Pounder, bookseller.

$ 9900 including GST

Enquire about this work >

< Back