Skip to main content
Menu

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

The Gallery’s Acknowledgement of Country, and information on culturally sensitive and restricted content and the use of historic language in the collection can be found here.

Study for self portrait

c. 1965
Jean Appleton

oil on masonite (frame: 103.5 cm x 88.0 cm, support: 81.0 cm x 76.0 cm)

Jean Appleton (1911–2003), painter and art teacher, studied at the East Sydney Technical College, before travelling to London. Strongly interested in modern art, she attended the avant-garde Westminster School, where she completed what are considered some of Australia's first cubist paintings, Still Life and Painting IX (both 1937). With the outbreak of war she returned to Australia, thereafter teaching at Canberra Grammar and then at the Julian Ashton and National Art Schools in Sydney. The first of her thirteen solo exhibitions was held at Sydney's Macquarie Galleries in 1940; over decades, she was close friends with fellow Macquarie artists Grace Cossington Smith and Thea Proctor. She painted many still-life pictures, featuring flowers and fruit arranged on sunlit indoor tables, but from the 1950s onward she also painted abstract works, often inspired by landscapes and influenced by Paul Cézanne. Though her work is now represented in major collections, Appleton was like many women artists of her generation in that recognition came late in life: she was in her eighties when a public gallery first presented a retrospective exhibition of her art.

This is a study for the self portrait with which Appleton won the inaugural Portia Geach Memorial Award in 1965. Her abstract landscapes are evoked in the background to the finished self-portrait, which is more sombre than this sketchy, light-filled, rosy study.

Gift of Laurie Curley OAM and Mrs Robyn Curley 2012
© Estate of Jean Appleton

The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. Works of art from the collection are reproduced as per the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). The use of images of works from the collection may be restricted under the Act. Requests for a reproduction of a work of art can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.

Artist and subject

Jean Appleton (age 54 in 1965)

Subject professions

Visual arts and crafts

Donated by

Laurie Curley OAM (1 portrait)

© National Portrait Gallery 2024
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia

Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

This website comprises and contains copyrighted materials and works. Copyright in all materials and/or works comprising or contained within this website remains with the National Portrait Gallery and other copyright owners as specified.

The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. The use of images of works of art reproduced on this website and all other content may be restricted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Requests for a reproduction of a work of art or other content can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.

The National Portrait Gallery is an Australian Government Agency