AT THE MUSEUM
DISCOVER UNUSUAL PIECES FOUND IN THE PERMANENT COLLECTIONS OF GALLERIES AROUND THE COUNTRY.
IN 1926, aged 40, Anne Dangar set off for Paris with her fellow art student Grace Crowley. They studied with André Lhote, an early teacher of the principles of abstraction in painting. After a brief visit to Sydney, where she found the local artistic community unsympathetic, Dangar returned to France in 1930. Settling at Moly-sabata, an artist commune established by Albert Gleizes just south of Lyon, she began to make pottery decorated with abstract designs. In 1939, she spent some time in Morocco working alongside local potters in Fez. The influence of Islamic design, in the shapes and decoration, can be seen in her later pots.
Several boxes of pots sent back to Grace Crowley and her friends in Sydney in the 1930s are among the earliest examples of abstract design in Australian decorative arts. The sophistication of her modernist design was admired by her Australian friends but not a wider audience. In France, Dangar’s reputation as a potter is well established and her work can be found in several art museums. In Australia, the National Gallery of Australia, the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney, and the Shepparton Art Museum in Victoria, have fine examples of Dangar’s work.
This cheese plate, made in about 1935, is an excellent example of Dangar’s abstract decoration. The slip trailed and painted browns and greens, are the fashionable colours of the period.
Anne Dangar’s pottery is occasionally offered for sale at auction in Australia. Prices vary according to the object and its condition, but buyers have been lucky and paid as little as $1200 for a plate. Higher prices have been achieved more recently and in 2017 $5000 was paid for a plate dating from the 1930s.
Anne Dangar’s cheese plate is currently included in
A Finer Grain: Selected Works from the SAM Collection at Shepparton Art Museum until October 25, 2020.
70 Welsford Street, Shepparton, Victoria, (03) 5832 9861, sheppartonartmuseum.com.au