Rosemary Valadon’s large-scale oil paintings are characterised by theatricality and opulence, feminist agency and vitality. Between 1990 and 1996 she completed The Goddess Series, portraits of Australian women as mythological/archetypal figures, referring to them as ‘a testimony to the goodness and healing powers of women’. Her sitters included actor Ruth Cracknell AM (1925–2002), who considered this painting to be her definitive portrait. Cracknell became a household name through her character Maggie Beare in the ABC comedy Mother and Son, which ran from 1985 to 1994. Over five decades she appeared in many theatre, television, radio and film productions, including A Cup of Tea, a Bex and a Good Lie Down at the Phillip Street Theatre and a memorable performance as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest for the Melbourne and Sydney theatre companies. After writing her autobiography A Biased Memoir (1997), she published an account of her experience of grief following the death of her husband of 41 years, Eric Phillips, Journey from Venice (2000). In 2001 she received the Gold Logie Hall of Fame Award and a lifetime achievement award at the Helpmann Awards. Cracknell was also an influential spokesperson for older Australian women and an advocate for First Nations rights.
Purchased 2000
© Rosemary Valadon
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Drawn from the National Portrait Gallery collection, this salon-style hang references the lavish 18th- and 19th-century European salons where paintings were hung floor-to-ceiling.
Well behaved women seldom make history, as the saying goes, and the National Portrait Gallery, consequently, is full of awesome Australian women who refused to conform to narrow ideas about their place and their worth.
