{"id":415682,"date":"2026-05-07T04:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T04:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/415682\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T04:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T04:50:14","slug":"art-gallery-lands-modernist-masterpiece-after-675000-bidding-war-inreview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/415682\/","title":{"rendered":"Art Gallery lands \u2018modernist masterpiece\u2019 after $675,000 bidding war – InReview"},"content":{"rendered":"

For three weeks in late 1928, Dorrit Black took her paints and paintbrushes to Taormina, a hilltop town on the east coast of Sicily. It proved a picturesque spot \u2013 notwithstanding the \u201cmalevolent\u201d presence of Mount Etna on the horizon, whose eruption the Adelaide-born artist would witness on the trip.<\/p>\n

Black had just undertaken a crash-course in European Cubism alongside fellow Australians Grace Crowley and Anne Dangar under French painter Andr\u00e9 Lhote, with the trio applying Lhote\u2019s methods to landscapes around the French countryside \u2013 most notably the mountain village of Mirmande, which Crowley and Dangar all painted around the same time.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u201dI have been enjoying painting again tremendously, more, I think, than I have done ever before,\u201d Black would write in a letter the following February. \u201cAnd I have a pretty clear idea now of the direction in which I want to aim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly a century later, Art Gallery of South Australia curator Elle Freak says this short sojourn in Italy was a key moment for the 36-year-old, as she struck out on her own in more ways than one.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dorrit Black (centre) in France circa 1928 with two unidentified women \u2013 possibly Grace Crowley on the right. Photo: Courtesy Art Gallery of South Australia<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see her, importantly, breaking away from those rigid mathematical systems and actually starting to respond to nature,\u201d Freak tells InReview. \u201cShe\u2019s finding her own visual language, and for me, it foreshadows her later work where she creates those more expressive, personal landscapes responding to scenes in South Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

One surviving canvas from Black\u2019s Sicilian trip \u2013 which Freak calls a \u201cmajor modernist masterpiece\u201d \u2013 was likely included in a well-reviewed Paris salon showing under the title Paysage, Taormina, and later exhibited in a solo show at Sydney\u2019s The Macquarie Galleries in September 1930. It was subsequently shown a handful of times at the Royal South Australian Society of Artists back home in Adelaide, including a posthumous tribute show after Black died in a car accident in 1951.<\/p>\n

The painting, now titled Sicilian mountain,\u00a0remained with a member of Black\u2019s family, and for the next seven decades only publicly surfaced twice: in AGSA\u2019s 2014 exhibition, Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, and last year\u2019s Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890-1940 <\/a>at AGSA and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which placed Black, Crowley and Dangar\u2019s work in the context of a broader movement of expatriate women looking beyond their home country for inspiration and, at times, liberation.<\/p>\n

\"\"Installation view featuring Dorrit Black\u2019s Sicilian mountain (far right), Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Photo: Saul Steed \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

Then, last November, the painting hit the market for the first time via Sydney auction house Smith & Singer. With an estimated price of $120,000\u2013180,000, the painting drew headlines interstate when it finally went under the hammer for over half a million dollars<\/a> \u2013 a reported $675,000 including buyer\u2019s premium. It was the highest price a Black work had ever fetched at auction \u2013 eclipsing an earlier $86,000 record set by a London auction house in 2014 (for a print of Black\u2019s volcanic linocut The eruption, inspired by the same trip).<\/p>\n

Speculation about the identity of\u00a0Sicilian mountain\u2019s new owner was put to rest in February when Black\u2019s hometown gallery was quietly confirmed as the buyer<\/a>, just a few months after Dangerously Modern \u2013 which Freak co-curated \u2013 reacquainted audiences with the work.<\/p>\n

Art Gallery of South Australia director Jason Smith\u00a0explained the gallery\u2019s commitment to keep the painting in Adelaide despite the record price tag.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Sicilian mountain has never before been on the open market, the work was highly sought after,\u201d Smith told InReview in a statement. \u201cThe rarity and importance of Sicilian mountain made it essential for the AGSA collection. The art historical significance of the work is exceptional.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freak says the rising value of Black\u2019s work also reflects an overdue appreciation for Black and her contemporaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing the result of\u00a0a\u00a0new understanding of the significance of women artists, not just in Australia, but across the world,\u201d Freak says. \u201cI think there\u2019s a deep understanding now of the significance of the work of Dorrit Black, and also an understanding of how rare this material is. There are very few oils from this European period by her; she talks in her letters home about not having much to show. Six months in Paris, and she said, \u2018I only kept 3 things\u2019. So we know how rare the material is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funding for the acquisition came from the James and Diana Ramsay Fund, established by AGSA\u2019s longtime benefactors James and Diana Ramsay. The acquisition was made in memory of Diana who on May 7 would have celebrated her 100th birthday.<\/p>\n

\"\"Nicholas Ross, Chairman, James and Diana Ramsay Foundation ; Kerry de Lorme, Executive Director, James and Diana Ramsay Foundation ; Elle Freak, Acting Curator of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia; and Jason Smith, Director, Art Gallery of South Australia with Dorrit Black\u2019s Sicilian mountain, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Photo: Saul Steed \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cDiana, along with James, rarely put their names to projects, but when they did, it was not for glory; it was for advocacy, to make a difference and to improve lives,\u201d Kerry de Lorme, Executive Director, James and Diana Ramsay Foundation said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Diana would be profoundly pleased to see this important Dorrit Black work acquired in her memory, not as a tribute to her, but as a continuation of what mattered to Diana: ensuring that great art is accessible and shared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freak says the gallery now has over 70 works by Black in its collection, but only a handful from this European period \u2013 including Mirmande, and its own edition of The eruption, acquired in 1999.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a gap in our representation of her work, and we feel it holds great significance\u00a0for the\u00a0people of Adelaide \u2013 an Adelaide-born modernist having this breakthrough moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dorrit Black\u2019s Sicilian mountain is now on display in the Elder Wing at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Freak will give a Tuesday Talk<\/a> about the painting on May 19, 12.30pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For three weeks in late 1928, Dorrit Black took her paints and paintbrushes to Taormina, a hilltop town…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-415682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}