Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces

Dorrit Black is the last major Australian modernist to be the subject of a monograph. Her importance to Australian art has not been revised for thirty-five years, and the book aims to reposition her as a figure of great significance in the development of Australian modernism. The book places Dorrit Black at the forefront of bringing to Australia the revolutionary movement of cubism upon her return to Sydney from Europe in late 1929. Black significantly contributed to the acceptance of modernism in Australia through both her teaching and art practice in Sydney and Adelaide. Although best-known as a print-maker the book highlights her talent as a painter. The power and luminosity of her later Adelaide south coast and Adelaide Hills landscapes are unsurpassed and demonstrate a major shift in modern Australian landscape painting. The book illustrates in colour a selection of her paintings, linocut prints, drawings, watercolours and textiles and the subjects range from portraiture, still life to landscape. The essays are broadly chronological and cover several major themes: Black's formative European period (1927-29), her second Sydney period (1930-33) and her Adelaide period (1935-51).