Modern Design: The World Turned Inside Out

Modernism was a philosophical movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that was based on an underlying belief in the progress of society and moving forward. Rejecting the traditional neoclassical architecture and Beaux-Arts styles that dominated the 19th Century, Modernism pushed forward with new construction methods heavily involving glass, steel, and reinforced concrete. Buildings could grow taller and lighter, and the world started to be reborn. Bauhaus – founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 – was a fusion of artists, film makers, writers and architects merging craft traditions with modern technology and mass production. The ideas of modernism were being manifested in the Bauhaus; building materials were brought to the forefront, incorporated into the aesthetics and design, while ornamentation and facades were stripped away. Modern Design Auction Mon 16 Nov, 6.30pm MELBOURNE

LEFT: AN ALVAR AALTO AUTO TROLLEY Sold for $2,640

BELOW LEFT: SECTIONAL MODERNIST CABINET Sold for $8,400

BELOW RIGHT: FIVE WENDINGEN ARCHITECTUAL DESIGN MAGAZINES

OPPOSITE: BAUHAUS BUILDING

BY WALTER GROPIUS (1925–26) This explosion of design came after four years of bloodshed and pain, and lasted until the advent of a bigger, bloodier war. Yet, in those 22 years of relative peace, artists and designers found hope and embraced a new philosophy for the world. We see in the work of Alvar Aalto a move towards the psychological aspects of design; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s embracing of freedom and simplicity; and the legacy of all things Le Corbusier.

As we look back to the present and the uncertain times we live in, it is important to remember those that came before and thrived in times more uncertain than our own. Those who desired to redesign the world going forward, rather than lament over what had been lost.

ANNA GRASSHAM / Head of Modern Design CHRISTIAN COX / Assistant

“Traill had an appreciation early in her life for the natural landscape, with the beauty she saw in it later being depicted in her work.”

HANNAH RYAN

Working almost exclusively in the printmaking technique of etching, Jessie Traill forged a path for women artists and indeed all printmakers across Australia in the first half of the 20th Century. Growing up in the bayside suburbs of Melbourne, Traill had an appreciation early in her life for the natural landscape, with the beauty she saw in it later being depicted in her work, throughout her career as an artist. Traill was brought up in wealthy household. This gave her the unique opportunity to travel widely, resulting in her extended exploration of Europe in the 1900s at the beginning of her career. She studied with Anglo-Welsh artist Frank Brangwyn in London, where he encouraged her to use larger printing plates and highly contrasting shape and line work, resulting in her first striking urban scenes. Traill’s further exploration of etching when she returned to Australia in the 1910s and 1920s had a focus on the natural landscape, often featuring stark, sentinel like eucalypts guarding a still, quiet hillside, as depicted in The West Window (1922). In capturing the essence of her rural surroundings, she imbued it with a warmth and Prints & Multiples Auction Wed 18 Nov, 6pm MELBOURNE

LEFT: JESSIE TRAILL (1881-1967) The West Window 1922 etching 6/20 34.5 x 25cm $2,000-3,000

OPPOSITE: JESSIE TRAILL (1881-1967) Their Time Has Come, in Northumberland 1938 etching and aquatint 22/25 10.5 x 21cm

Prints & Multiples

Jessie Traill —

$3,500-4,500 sense of familiarity. Traill created many poetic but humble etchings from her immediate environment.

In the late 1920s, Traill’s long-lasting interest in documenting the industrial landscape began, leading her to frequently travel to Sydney to record and study the transforming skyline of the city.

These seminal works paved the way for her later depictions in the 1940s of urban landscapes. These works were much more brooding and featured fractured, black silhouettes of the wartime Edinburgh horizon, seen in Black Out (1940). Traill had at this time relocated to Britain during the Second World War and produced many prints depicting the urban environment held hostage to this calamitous event.

These prints and more were featured within our Prints & Multiples July auction, highlighting definitive points in the career of Jessie Traill, of one of the true pioneers of Australian women in art.

HANNAH RYAN / Prints & Multiples Manager