The Squatter's Daughter (Lambert)
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| The Squatter's Daughter | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | George Washington Lambert |
| Year | 1924 |
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 61.4 cm × 90.2 cm (24.2 in × 35.5 in) |
| Location | National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
| Website | https://artsearch.nga.gov.au/detail.cfm?irn=155506 |
The Squatter's Daughter is a 1924 painting by Australian artist George Washington Lambert. It is part of the collection of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.[1]
The painting depicts Gwendoline ‘Dee’ Ryrie, the "squatter's daughter" wearing a white shirt and jodhpurs standing by her horse in her family's farming property at Michelago, in New South Wales, Australia.[1] Lambert had met Ryrie's father Major General Sir Granville Ryrie during World War I in Palestine while working as an official war artist.[2] The horse itself was a gift to Gwendoline from Lambert.[2]
Composition
In this painting Lambert set out to take a more formal approach to the Australian landscape, looking to reduce the landscape to definite forms.[1]
[Lambert] simplified the triangular mass of the hill and sharpened its outline and counterbalanced this with the strong verticals of the trees and the horizontal streak of green grass in the lower centre. Lambert painted with tight controlled brush strokes, so that the image seems still, but lifelike, with the trees and grass delineated by a sharp, scintillating light
— Anne Grey, [2]
Lambert described his portrayal of Ryrie as "like a figure on a Greek vase" passing "gracefully across the foreground".[1]
Provenance
Lambert sold the painting in 1926 to Englishman George Pitt-Rivers. The painting was acquired by the National Gallery of Australia in 1991 with the assistance of James Fairfax and Philip Bacon and the people of Australia.[1]