Working across multiple disciplines, Australian artist Jacqueline Hick is widely celebrated for her atmospheric, figurative paintings. She was born in Adelaide in 1919 and spent the early part of her career travelling Australia, England, France and Italy. She was a founding member of the Contemporary Art Society, Adelaide Theatre Group and a board member of the Art Gallery of South Australia. Hick is considered a central figure in Adelaide’s 1940s art scene; she continued to practice and exhibit into the 1990s. Her artworks are represented across major Australian institutions including the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Art Gallery of South Australia, where she was a member of the board.

Hicks subject matter varied, often including and ranging through social-realist works, surrealist-inspired landscapes, cities and people.

The City encapsulates her widely recognised style of atmospheric and psychologically charged figurative paintings. In it Hick captures the complexities of urban life with both nuance and intensity, exploring the metropolis—not through its architecture or skyline, but through its people. The City presents a dense, almost claustrophobic vision of urban existence. Figures merge into one another—overlapping hands, limbs, torsos—a tidal push and pull that renders the individual anonymous. This is not a city of monuments but of movement, flux, and collective momentum. The composition becomes a study in homogeneity: a human mass, unified in its motion yet stripped of distinction. The tonality serves to amplify this atmosphere creating a rich and dramatic composition. There is a heightened sense of urgency and rhythm in the brushwork, creating a visual pulse that mirrors the constant, often exhausting pace of urban life. This is city life as lived from within, not observed from above.

For collectors of works that explore the creative layering of sensory and visual forms, The City is a modern day reflection on the chaos of the city through a futurist lens, speaking to both the aesthetic and psychological experience of modernity.

Jacqueline HICK (1919 - 2004)
'The City'
oil on board
Image Size: 86 x 103 cm
Dimensions: 105 x 121 x 4 cm
Signed: Signed 'Hick' lower right.

Comes with Letter of Provenance

Condition: Very Good: Describes a work of art's image as Excellent, but may show some small signs of surrounding wear to paper or frame. There are no tears to paper margin or disruption to the paint surface.

(c) The Artist or Assignee