painter, was born in Melbourne on 12 December 1907, daughter of Charles Algernon Lempriere (grandson of the colonial painter T.J. Lempriere ) and Dora, nee Mitchell, sister of Dame Nellie Melba. Her wealthy family patronised local artists; Janet Cumbrae Stewart did a portrait of her mother and Florence Rodway and Bess Norriss Tait depicted Helen herself. Initially she studied art with Max Meldrum 's follower A.D. Colquhoun then, from 1930, with the dissident ex-Meldrumite Justus Jorgensen . For fifteen years she was one of the notorious 'bohemians’ at Jorgensen’s Eltham. She helped erect the first stage of the romantic complex of Montsalvat (begun 1935), making mud bricks for its walls and carving many of its wood and stone decorations. She also painted in appropriate tonal style. Extant oil paintings date from January 1935. On July 1940 she burst into bright pure light and colour when painting her mother’s house and garden at Lilydale – a building she designed as well as drew. Henceforth, she recollected, she was besotted with impressionism for plein air studies though continuing to paint portraits tonally. On 15 June 1945, much to Jorgensen’s dismay, his faithful disciple married Keith Wood. The following year, after Keith’s discharge from the army, they moved to Sydney. Artistically, this period is rounded off with the uncompromisingly realist Self Portrait of 1945 – her husband’s favourite portrait of her which he kept all his life.
Forty years of independent, professional practice followed. Between 1954 and 1973 Lempriere held over twenty solo exhibitions. She was one of the few Australian painters to establish an independent, international reputation in the 1950s and ’60s, but it was made in Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Utrecht, The Hague and Milan more than in London, New York or Sydney (although she had solo exhibitions in all these places too) and consequently was unappreciated in Australia. Nor did she ever abandon figurative representation, a conscious choice made when studying with Fernand Léger in Paris. A more welcome and influential mentor was the Dutch artist, Fred Klein (father of the neo-dadaist Yves). She exhibited at the Salon des Surindépendents in 1953-55 and showed L’Adieu (1958) there in 1961 in the exhibition 'Surrealistes et Symbolistes’.
Lempriere painted Aboriginal subjects almost exclusively in Paris. An early attempt to express her belief in the basic duality of the European-Australian artist by combining Aboriginal themes with European colours and techniques is the unresolved Self Portrait of 1949, painted in Sydney (ill. Heritage ). Her “Aboriginal” paintings done in France more closely resemble the surreal frottages of Max Ernst (with similar echoes of fin de siècle symbolism) than Aboriginal rock art, despite being worked on rough hand-made paper to achieve a rocky effect.
Back at Sydney in 1966, Lempriere’s themes changed. Her 1969 solo exhibition at David Jones showed the results of a visit to Cambodia, focussing on the temples and the poetic atmosphere of Angkor Wat. Her most popular exhibition was of colourful semi-abstract marine paintings inspired by a visit to the Barrier Reef. She also produced some competent romantic lithographs (NGA) and throughout her life drew lively watercolour and pencil sketches, many of birds and animals. Although never a member of any circle of artists, her paintings seem most closely allied to the Sydney 'Charm School’ artists, as she herself perhaps was in training, aspiration and influences after the Melbourne years.
After some years of debilitating illness, Helen Lempriere died on 25 November 1991. Woolloomooloo Galleries held a two-part retrospective of her work in 1993-94. In 1994 Keith Wood established a scholarship for craftworkers in her name. The first Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship was awarded to Lin Li in 1997, and in 2001 the Helen Lempriere Sculpture Award was inaugurated at Weribee Park, Victoria and awarded to Karen Ward.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
Note: Primary
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 1992
