A never-before-seen water colour painting titled Muchea 1930s features in an incredible history-chronicling exhibition which has just opened at the Holmes à Court Gallery in West Perth by artist Elizabeth Blair Barber (1909 – 2001).
Living a seemingly double life for many of her nine decades, this avid storyteller’s public face was as Betty Bunning, the socialite wife of prominent WA businessman, the late Charles Bunning. But to the art world, she was Elizabeth Blair Barber, the gifted and prolific painter who chronicled WA history, persuaded celebrated figures of the day to sit for portraits, and played a pivotal role in nurturing young artists.
Elizabeth Blair Barber: A Life Amongst Painters is a heartfelt celebration of a gifted artist whose work was overlooked for far too long but who was instrumental in forging a new appreciation of female artists in society.
The exhibition of around 200 of Blair Barber’s artworks, many meticulously restored, has been a labour of love for the Bunning family, the name behind Australia’s best-known hardware and garden centre chain. The late artist’s son, Bob Bunning, said his mother had been an extraordinary Australian painter whose legacy captured eight decades of WA history, along with many treasured family memories. “The result of the restoration and framing works has been transformational. It has been a great feeling of satisfaction to me to see these works come to life again,” Mr Bunning said.
“Much of my mother’s work has never seen the light of day until now. Partly because society considered female artists an oddity at the time, but also because she was busy juggling life as Betty Bunning, society wife and mother of three, whose husband, my father, was busy building the family business.
“It is my hope that others attending the exhibition will delight in her work as I do.”
Preparing for the exhibition over the past few years has been a journey of discovery for its
curator Connie Petrillo. “As curator I really grew to understand Elizabeth Blair Barber the artist,” Mrs Petrillo said. “Her work was highly individualist, and her approach to painting was about the spontaneous recording of the moments around her. Her work is built from expressive brushstrokes that once laid down, remain as a trace of her experience.”
Mrs Petrillo worked closely with Mr Bunning to decide which of the paintings – from the hundreds the family had safely stored over the decades – to include in the show. “This is a unique opportunity for people to own a unique piece of WA art history,” Mrs Petrillo said.
Their collection spans nearly 80 years, from a small sketch Blair Barber completed in 1925 as a
16-year-old, to paintings from the 1940s and ’50s, right through to floral arrangements painted in
her final years. It’s the largest time-span involving a single artist that Mrs Petrillo has curated, with about 90 per cent of the works being shown for the first time. Several depict scenes from the sawmills Blair Barber painted while accompanying her husband on his trips to the South West, building roads and houses and establishing new mills. Many of those towns no longer exist, giving these artworks extra significance as snapshots of Western Australian history.
“The artist’s legacy is a fascinating one, affording us an insight into the world of both art-making and life in 20th Century WA,” Mrs Petrillo said. “She was such a major figure in the Perth art scene for so many decades and took so many young artists under her wing that she deserves to be widely recognised and honoured.”
Elizabeth Blair Barber: A Life Amongst Artists runs until Saturday, 10 August 2024 at the Holmes à
Court Gallery.
