|
BEATRICE LOUISE (BEA) MADDOCK
 Beatrice
Louise
(Bea) Maddock was born in Hobart with a twin
sister, Frances Emily on 13th
September, 1934, the daughters of the Rev. Henry
Mervyn Maddock, an Anglican clergyman and his
wife, Thelma Annie Hallam. She grew up living in
several parishes in Tasmania being Kempton,
Woodbridge, Buckland and Hamilton and was
educated at Hobart High School.
She did her Diploma of Fine Art
at Hobart Technical College, firstly, part-time
while working in the Visual Arts Centre of the
Tasmanian Education Department but resigned to
complete her diploma full-time in 1956. During
this period she had a studio where her parents
lived in Richmond, Tasmania. She then taught at
Hobart High School while studying art education
at the University of Tasmania and then for a
short time taught at Devonport High School.
Between 1959 and 1961 Bea studied
painting and printmaking at the Slade School of
Art in London. During this period she visited
other parts of England, Scotland, France, Italy,
the Netherlands and Germany (where she studied
the German Expressionists in Munich and Essen).
She also studied briefly at the Acedemi de Bell
Arti at Perugia, Italy. Returning to Australia
by ship she disembarked for a day at Bombay
which influenced some works on the theme of
lepers.
Upon her return she taught at
Launceston Teachers’ College and studied
ceramics part-time. She also established a
studio in Launceston. 1964 saw Bea move to
Melbourne where she began painting and
printmaking, the city influencing her Figure
series. She returned to Launceston the following
year when she was appointed Lecturer in Ceramics
at Launceston Technical College. While in
Launceston she acquired her first etching press,
built a stoneware kiln and made her first
artist’s book, The Time. She produced woodcut
prints and etchings, linocuts, screen prints and
paintings and won the Tasmanian Drawing Prize in
1968 and the F. E. Richardson Print Prize in
Geelong in 1969.
From 1970 to 1980 Bea taught at
the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne.
Firstly she was teaching etching, lithography,
screen printing and relief printing at the
National Gallery of Victoria Art School and
later became Senior Lecturer in Printmaking at
the School of Art. From 1979 to 1980 she was
Acting Dean of the School of Art. She lived in
Melbourne until 1977 when she moved to Macedon.
She produced her first photo-screen prints, in
1970 and in 1971, produced her first
photo-etchings. She received a Visual Arts Board
grant to purchase a Hunter Penrose etching
press. In 1976 she took up a Creative Arts
Fellowship for a year at the Australian National
University, Canberra. During the seventies she
received a commission from the Print Council of
Australia, won 4th. Prize at the
International Print Biennale in Krakow, Poland,
received a commission from the Visual Arts Board
for the VIIth. International Exhibition in New
Delhi, India, was commissioned to produce a
print for the Commonwealth Games Print
Portfolio, Edmonton, Canada, was
Artist-in-Residence at Alberta University,
Canada, was also Artist-in-Residence for two
months at the Sydney College of the Arts,
produced the Journey and Pages series, won the
Alice Prize, Alice Springs and was commissioned
to produce twelve panels for the High Court of
Australia by the Visual Arts Board.
1981 saw Bea resign from the
Victorian College of the Arts and become
part-time Lecturer in Printmaking at the Bendigo
College of Advanced Education from 1982 to 1983.
She set up the Access Studio at Macedon for
former students, received a Visual Arts Board
Equipment Grant for a Hollander paper beater and
received a Queensland Art Gallery Purchase
Prize.
16th February, 1983,
was the date her house and studio at Macedon
were destroyed in the Ash Wednesday bushfires.
Afterwards she based herself at Arnold before
moving to Dunolly, Victoria. Bea did a lecture
tour of New Zealand in 1983 with the exhibition,
Bea Maddock Prints 1969-1982. In July of 1983
she returned to Launceston as Head of the School
of Art, Tasmanian College of Advanced Education,
however resigned in December, 1984 to work
full-time as an artist. She was appointed a
member of the Council of the Australian National
Gallery, Canberra and was Chairperson of the
Ritchies Mills Arts Centre, Launceston from 1984
to 1986. She worked from her Launceston studio
and during the winter months worked from her
Dunolly studio where she set up the Red Lion
paper mill. She also received a commission to
make a portrait of Greta Horte, first Principal
of the Women’s College, University of
Melbourne.
Through the Artists in Antarctica
Programme she visited Antarctica in January and
February of 1987 where she broke her leg and was
confined to her bunk on board the ship, MV
Icebird, however she did produce Forty Pages
from Antarctica completed in Launceston in
April, 1988 from this voyage. She was
commissioned by the Australian National Gallery
to produce a painting for the ANZ Bicentennial
Art Commission and by the Parliament House
Construction Authority to design a pair of
posters for the new Parliament House, Canberra
using quotes from Prof. Manning Clark. 1988 and
1989 saw Bea create the encaustic painting,
‘Tromemanner – forgive us our trespass’ for the
Manton Exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery,
another encaustic painting, ‘Taurai – but in the
memory of time’ commissioned by the Hugh D. T.
Williamson Foundation of the National Gallery of
Victoria and complete the artist’s book,
Artifacts from Tromemanner.
She severed all connections with
gallery dealers in 1990 and sold her Dunolly
studio. She was awarded the honour of Member of
the Order of Australia in 1991 and in the same
year was commissioned to make a print by the
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery,
Launceston for their centenary and she completed
the artists book, To the Ice. 1992 and 1993 saw
the travelling exhibition, ‘Being and
Nothingness: Bea Maddock Work from Three
Decades’. Also in 1993 she received the
Clemenger Award for Contemporary Art. Bea has
also produced ‘Terra Spiritus – with a darker
shade of pale 1993-1998’.
Bea’s work was hard-edge and
colour-field painting until about 1970 when she
moved towards her more familiar serialised
imagery, both painted and photographed and often
accompanied by lettering displaying her
technical proficiency. The themes of loneliness
and isolation are often present in her work.
Later works also focus on our colonialism and
its inheritance.
Although Bea did not marry she
has an adopted son, David.
Since 1964 Bea has held over
thirty solo exhibitions in Australia and
participated in about 65 group exhibitions in
Australia, South-East Asia, Europe, Canada and
South America including many international print
biennales.
The three most important
collections of Bea’s works in Australia are to
be found at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art
Gallery, the Australian National Gallery and the
National Gallery of Victoria, however her work
is also to be seen in regional galleries, the
Museum of Modern Art, New York and institutional
and private collections in the U.K., Continental
Europe, the U.S.A., Canada, Japan, India and
Australia.
Thank you to Tim
Hallam for his contribution |
