The Collection of the Late Andrée Harkness

She had a scientific background and studied to become a pharmacist, pausing her career to raise a family.  She possessed creative talents as an amateur photographer, winning local prizes for her photographs. In her 20s, she visited the garden of Vita Sackville-West, and spent much of her lifetime cultivating an encyclopedic knowledge of horticulture and garden design. Her success in designing an impressive garden of her own earned her several commissioned projects in the field. Initially, Andrée acquired postcards and prints of the masters she saw in exhibitions on her travels abroad.

CLARICE BECKETT (1887-1935), End of the Garden circa 1929, $80,000-120,000

She seriously began collecting art in the late 1970s when she saw the works of Clarice Beckett. From there, her collection evolved into a curated selection of significant artworks by predominantly Australian women artists. Andrée generously donated over 70 artworks by women artists to the National Gallery of Victoria. In her final years, the gallery celebrated her extensive collection with a standalone exhibition at the Ian Potter Centre, titled Modern Australian Women Artists, Works from a Private Collection. The following select artworks have remained in the family and are amongst some of Andrée’s most cherished acquisitions from over 40 years of collecting.

Andrée first encountered Clarice Beckett's paintings in 1979 - a retrospective at Realities Gallery, Melbourne, curated by Rosalind Hollinrake, who revived the artist from the brink of extinction. Andrée was immediately drawn to At the End of the Garden, circa 1929 - the locale and subject matter struck a chord of familiarity; minute details captured in fleeting expressive brushstrokes, such as the poise and attitude of a black chook. Beckett’s transcendental scenes of daily life around Beaumaris and greater Melbourne are now highly prized and respected. She did not receive significant recognition for her work during her lifetime. Her journey, filled with hardship and suffering, resembled a harrowing tale by one of the Brontë sisters. Despite this, Beckett persisted with grit and determination, producing an oeuvre of misty tonal paintings that captured the atmosphere and many moods of developing Melbourne. The story and talent of Beckett inspired Andrée to investigate further, unearthing other women artists who had fallen into obscurity. Inspired by their art as much as their personal histories, it was ‘the independence, courage and confidence of many of these artists [that] have drawn me to them.’1

DORRIT BLACK (1891-1951), The Quartette 1936, $35,000-55,000

Andrée's collection honours the progressive influence of Australian printmakers from the early 19th century. The interwar period was an essential time in the development of Australian Modernist art, enhanced by the advent of speedier travel and communication between Australia and the world at large. The prints of Ethel Spowers, Eveline Symes, and Dorrit Black embody the modernist spirit. Spowers & Symes were close friends from Melbourne. They were well educated and raised in privileged families, and their fathers were rival newspaper tycoons. The Melbourne friends encouraged each other, travelling to London to study at The Grosvenor School of Modern Art under Ian McNab and Claude Flight, two years after Dorrit Black. They had arrived at a pivotal time. Futurism was an explosive force in London, and many artists produced works during this period that ennobled the machine age, featuring daily scenes of life played out in fractured cubist compositions. 'One favourite is Ethel Spowers' Wet Afternoon, 1930, cleverly designed to show a crowd of people and the angular rhythm of umbrellas, with the diagonal lines of rain giving tension and movement.'2

There was an exciting sense of optimism in the medium's modern accessibility, speed and freedom from older printing traditions. 'Dorrit Black's composition of four string players, The Quarette, c. 1935, similarly captures the vitality and fleeting intensity of a group coalescing. Black manipulates fractured cubist space and repetitive rhythmic cuts radiating out from the figures to create a scene of pulsing light, heat and energy.'3

Flight featured all three artists in London exhibitions in the 1930s, and he championed the medium and his followers with a zealous intensity. Spowers, Symes and Black each gained relative success for women of their era, although their influence was still limited during their lifetime. Now very much celebrated, their artworks would be any collection's highlight.

Andrée Harkness in her Toorak home

Ultimately, Andrée’s collection had the practical purpose of making her home a beautiful place to live, preferring works that had a livable quality to them in size and subject. Each room was a balanced and harmonious combination, and congruity between frames, furniture, periods, and mediums was all considered in the arrangement. Most of Andrée’s artworks were acquired from auctions, she thoroughly researched and understood the value of each piece. She was a fierce bidder in the room and rarely relinquished once committed. Her collection boasts an impressive and highly sought-after wattle painting by Penleigh Boyd, the three girls gathering wattle in the centre of the composition, recalling childhood memories as one of three sisters. Her horticultural expertise and passion resonate in the glorious blooms of Arthur Streeton’s Rhododendron still life. ‘What I look for in flower paintings is the choice of flowers, the selection of vase and particularly their arrangement in order to obtain a balance of composition and colour. To my eyes these features are often underrated.’4

Streeton maintained great esteem for the skill required to paint flowers well and was also an avid gardener. ‘His love of flowers inveigles him into a manner with paint which makes them fragile, beautiful things.’5

Andrée’s collection was innately personal to her. When asked what inspired her preference for mainly collecting women artists, she reflected that it was simply ‘the quality of their art.’6 She endearingly referred to them as ‘her women’ and would call them by their first name as if they were long-lost friends. ‘I must go and dust Dora’ she would say to her partner Richard, which would elicit responses such as ‘Which Dora?’. Through years of discipline and refinement, Andrée’s collection formed a cohesive narrative of Australian artists from the 1890s to the 1960s.  With quiet determination, Andrée demonstrated the collaborative role private collectors can play in enhancing museum collections. These remaining works from the collection showcase her intuitive eye for composition and beauty, grounded in a deep understanding of context, history, and her own personal journey.

- Sarah Garrecht

View the Andrée Harkness Collection.

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1, Andrée Harkness, Introduction, Modern Australian women artists, the Andrée Harkness collection,  Amaled Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2020, p. 9

2, Ibid., p. 7

3, Caroline Jordan, Printmakers, Modern Australian women artists, the Andrée Harkness collection,  Amaled Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2020, p. 152

4, Andrée Harkness, Introduction, Modern Australian women artists, the Andrée Harkness collection,  Amaled Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2020, p. 7

5, Harold Herbert, The Art of Arthur Streeton, The Argus, 17 March 1931, p. 8