Anne Hall was part of the Heide circle, of which Charles Blackman, Sidney Nolan and Hall’s husband John Perceval were also members. Like them, she pursued a Figurative Expressionist style, smudging the objective and subjective. In a way particular to her however, Hall cut to the nucleus of her subject, bearing their soul in all its beauty and pain.

In ‘Untitled (Twisting Girl)’, Hall sketches a woman. While her face is still, the woman’s body twists like a top spinner. In much of Hall’s portraiture, her subject appears in movement, like an asteroid hurtling towards earth. There is a dynamism here, as though she has studied this woman from multiple perspectives and fused them together.

Like Joy Hester and Mirka Mora, Hall forged a compelling female voice in an otherwise male dominated space. That her career was at times overshadowed by her marriage is a testament to Modernism’s issues with gender parity. Now, collected by The National Gallery of Australia, the Ian Potter Museum and Geelong Gallery, her absence is being redressed.

For collectors of Modernist Australian art and those hankering after a unique insight into the Antipodean movement, Hall is a vital find.

 
Anne Marie HALL (1945 - )
'Untitled (Twisting Girl)' 1977
ink on paper
Image Size: 20 x 13 cm
Signed: Signed and dated lower right: Anne Hall 77
Accompanied by a Letter of Provenance

Condition: Fair
© The Artist or Assignee