Rosalie Gascoigne

Rosalie Gascoigne (1917–1999) was a New Zealander-Australian sculptor who shot to late fame at the age of 57 for her poetic assemblages of eclectic found materials. She showed at the Venice Biennale in 1982, becoming the first female artist to represent Australia there. In 1994 she was awarded the Order of Australia for her services to the arts. She died in Canberra in 1999.

Gascoigne was born Rosalie Norah King Walker in Auckland, New Zealand, and emigrated to Canberra, Australia in 1943 at the age of 26 in order to become a war bride. Here she married astronomer S. C. B (Ben) Gascoigne, later to become an eminent professor, and set up home in the isolated scientific community of Mount Stromlo. During the many lonely years spent raising her three children, she found solace by making natural assemblages, first via traditional flower arranging, later with the rigorous Japanese art form Sogetsu Ikebana. Her work in this medium was outstanding, earning praise from Japanese master, and founder of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana, Sofu Teshigahara. [Vici MacDonald 1998) "Rosalie Gascoigne", Regaro, Sydney, p. 21] Nevertheless, by the late 1960s she had become dissatisfied with such limitations, and under the influence of artist Michael Taylor, started experimenting with small scrap iron sculptures and wooden boxed assemblages, all composed of materials she found while on scavenging expeditions in the Canberra hinterland. Although the fierce, sunburnt landscape of Australia was initially a shocking change from the damp green hills of her familiar New Zealand, by this time she had come to love the "boundless space and solitude" of her new home. Much of her art reflects this, though some also harks back to her roots in New Zealand.

Gascoigne was strongly encouraged by James Mollison, then director of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, who spotted her distinctive artistic talents early, in her flower arrangements. Her first serious exhibition was at Ann Lewis's Gallery A in Paddington, Sydney, in 1974, when Gascoigne was 57; it was an instant success, and a mere four years later she had become a major figure in the Australian art world, with a survey at the National Gallery of Victoria. Her assemblages moved through many stages, to a certain extent dictated by the colours and types of materials she was currently interested in.

She said that her art-making materials "need to have been open to the weather." She thus used mostly found materials: wood, iron, wire, feathers, and most famously yellow and orange retro-reflective road signs, which flash and glow in the light. Some of her other best-known works use faded, once-bright drinks crates; thinly-sliced yellow Schweppes boxes; ragged domestic items such as torn floral lino and patchy enamelware; vernacular building materials such as galvanised tin, corrugated iron and masonite; and fibrous, rosy cable reel ends. These objects represent, rather than accurately depict, elements of her world. "The countryside's discards ... no longer suggest themselves but evoke experiences, particularly of landscape." (V. MacDonald, "Rosalie Gascoigne").

Text is another important element of her work; she would cut up and rearrange the faded, naive lettering found on these items to create abstract yet evocative grids of letters and word fragments, sometimes alluding to the crosswords and poetry of which she was so fond. Knowledgeable and widely read, she was inspired amongst others by the artists Colin McCahon, Ken Whisson, Dick Watkins and Robert Rauschenberg, and the poets William Wordsworth, Peter Porter and Sylvia Plath. She also had a fondness for the pronouncements of Pablo Picasso. However gradually both colour and text seemed to fade from her work, and in her final years she created meditative, elegiac compositions of white or earth-brown panels.

Although working vigorously into her 80s, with occasional help from an assistant, her age at the height of her success precluded the travelling that would have been necessary to build the international audience her work deserved. Although she exhibited occasionally in Europe - including Italy, France and England - the major holdings of her work remain in Australia and New Zealand, both of which claim her as their own. Fine examples of Gascoigne's oeuvre can be found in all the main Antipodean galleries; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, owns one of her smaller pieces.

References

The most comprehensive book on her work to date is MacDonald's monograph "Rosalie Gascoigne" (ISBN 0-646-34788-8, currently out of print). This features large colour images of work from all stages of her career, first person interviews, and documentary material. See also exhibition catalogues, the most substantial being "From the Studio of Rosalie Gascoigne" (ISBN 0-7315-2830-1) containing memoirs and correspondence from her husband, son and daughter-in-law. Also recommended are "Rosalie Gascoigne: Plain Air" (ISBN 0-86473-472-7); and "Rosalie Gascoigne: Material as Landscape" (ISBN 0-646-33956-7), both of which feature memoirs, essays and photos.

* Vici MacDonald (1998) "Rosalie Gascoigne", edited by Steve Bush, Regaro, Sydney.
* Mary Eagle, ed. (2000) "From the Studio of Rosalie Gascoigne", Australian National University Drill Hall Gallery, exhibition catalogue.
* Gregory O'Brien (2004) "Rosalie Gascoigne: Plain Air", City Gallery Wellington, Victoria University Press.
* Deborah Edwards (1998) "Rosalie Gascoigne: Material as Landscape", Art Gallery of New South Wales.

External links

* [http://www.australianbiography.gov.au/gascoigne/bio.html Rosalie Gascoigne at AustralianBiography.gov.au]