Grace Cossington Smith - Sydney

Sydney

She painted the city of Sydney, its people, the crowds and places such as restaurants. For example her painting of Martin Place, City Centre. She went to the city often to sketch, though she was somewhat embarrassed with drawing in public. When the Prince of Wales visited the city, Grace went to the city to record this event. She did sketches of the buildings around where she was standing, but relied on memory to record the actual moment when he passed by, obviously because she did not have time to record what would have taken only a couple of seconds. This painting, The Prince, accurately records the scene of the prince being driven in his car through the street, which is lined with a large crowd of people. It shows the warm reception which Australians gave to the British royalty at the time, when Australia was still very much part of the British Empire. She followed this painting with other paintings based on sketches done in Sydney city, of crowds of people rushing past in Rushing, almost at humorous pace, with one woman looking at the viewer with a surprised expression. They show that Sydney was already a busy city with large crowds of people going to and from their jobs. A less hurried crowd is shown in Crowd, which shows a massive crowd nonetheless, almost all of them wearing hats, reflecting the fashion of the time.