Dorrit Black

Dorrit Black studied at Grosvenor School of Modern Art. The recorded working language is English. Work by Dorrit Black is recorded in the collections of National Gallery of Victoria, Auckland Art Gallery, National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia and Art Gallery of New South Wales.

• Name — Dorrit Black • Birth Name — Dorothea Foster Black • Born — 23 December 1891 • Birthplace — Burnside, South Australia • Died — 13 September 1951 • Place of death — Adelaide, South Australia • Occupation — Artist

Dorothea Foster Black was born on 23 December 1891 in the Adelaide suburb of Burnside, the daughter of engineer and architect Alfred Barham Black and Jessie Howard Clark, an amateur artist and daughter of John Howard Clark, editor of the South Australian Register. Dorothea attended the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts in about 1909, working in watercolours, and attended the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney in 1915, where she concentrated on working in oils. In 1927, Black went by herself to London, England, and attended the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, where she experimented with colour linocut printing while studying under Claude Flight. Black was influenced by Flight to use bold geometrical patterns and harmonious colour schemes. In 1928, she studied at André Lhote's Academy in Paris. Black was influenced by Lhote's "compostional principles of geometric order". In 1929, she briefly worked with Albert Gleizes.

Black was strongly influenced by the Modernist and Cubist art movements she was exposed to in London and Paris. By the time she returned to her home country in late 1929, Black had become an active proponent of the Cubist style, and brought the styles back to Australia with her. Black then held an exhibition at Macquarie Galleries in Sydney in 1930. This was one of six one-woman shows which were to feature her work.

• Illustration — The Bridge (1930) by Dorrit Black Black created most of her linocuts in the 1930s. She worked mainly in watercolours in the late 1930s and then returned to working in oils. She settled in Adelaide, South Australia, in the late 1930s with her ageing mother, and painted many landscapes of the Adelaide hills and the south coast. Black's lino-prints were integral to her art practice. As she grew older "the vitality of the natural world" became fundamental. "Air Travel 3: The pineapple plantation" is an example of Black's lino-prints. The making of linocuts allowed Black to abstract her subjects by eliminating detail and emphasising structure. Abstraction allowed her to communicate sensation. Black is noted for her 1930 painting The Bridge, showing the Sydney Harbour Bridge as it was being constructed, before the arch was joined. The Bridge was painted in jewel-like colours such as aquamarine and "shimmering peacock" and was Australia's first Cubist landscape. It was painted in Sydney.

Black was interested in creating an environment that would enable others to work in the new style. She established the Modern Art Centre in Margaret Street, Sydney, in 1931, the first gallery in Australia to devote itself to modernism. It was also one of the first galleries in Australia to be established by a woman. Over the next few years, the Modern Art Centre became a "source of inspiration and opening to a wider vision" to artists such as Nancy Hall. It hosted small but significant exhibitions by artists who became important proponents of Australian modernism, including Roland Wakelin, Grace Crowley, Grace Cossington Smith, Ralph Balson, and Rah Fizelle.

On returning to Adelaide, Black taught part-time at the South Australian School of Art. She was a member of the South Australian Society of Arts and the Contemporary Art Society.

Black was a finalist for the Archibald Prize for portraiture in 1931. The Art Gallery of South Australia purchased her work Mirmande (1928) in 1940.