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Jessie Traill N

Almost anyone who has set foot inside was at a distinct disadvantage. It was not Academic Results P 2%
the doors of Janet Clarke Hall will have enough to simply have financial support 10%
more than a passing acquaintance with and family approval. Women at all levels I am delighted to report that 2024 was another great year H3
the works of the Australian artist and of society were disbarred from active for the academic program at JCH, both in terms of results 8%
printmaker Jessie Traill (1881-1967). participation in intellectual, professional and engagement throughout the year. As Dean of Studies,
Over 25 of her precisely composed, and political spheres, and their attempts I found it particularly rewarding to see six of our graduate
introspective works adorn the common to demonstrate their capability were students and young alumni take on mentoring roles as they
areas in JCH, lending the interior of met with open denigration, persecution, themselves became academic tutors for the College. H2B
the building a uniquely congruent or (in extreme cases) exposed them to Some of the more popular subjects in 2024 included Modern 14% H1
appearance. Strongly informed by prosecution. and Contemporary Literature; Chemistry; The Secret Life 46%
Edwardian Romanticism, Art Nouveau, It matters deeply that women like Jessie of Language; Mind Brain and Behaviour; Introductory
and the Arts and Crafts movement as Anthropology; and International Politics. Our Resident Tutors
well as Modernism, Jessie’s works are Traill, and the first residents of the also helped deliver some insightful Thursday Forums on
Trinity Women’s Hostel, fought to live
recognisably Australian in style and have graduate research pathways, careers and employability, and H2A
a distinctive femininity. a life outside of these restrictions and navigating climate change as young people.
succeeded. It’s also deeply important that 20%
Caroline Ambrus, in her 1992 work, they were supported in these endeavors Briana Ellis
Australian Women Artists: the First Fleet to through the financial contributions of Dean of Studies
1945, notes that while the first generation other women, notably Janet Lady Clarke;
of Australian women settlers often and practically and intellectually by men % 2009 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024*
operated with a degree of autonomy and of influence, such as Dr Alexander Leeper.
social freedom almost equivalent to that Because however arduous and lonely the H1 33 39 43 40 38 44 40 48 51 45 36 43 46
of their male counterparts, the end of the Jessie Traill - 1919 (from the State Library of climb may be, success is rarely won in H2A 25 22 22 20 23 25 29 21 18 20 22 21 20
Victoria Manuscript Collection)
nineteenth century saw the resurgence isolation. H2B 18 17 18 19 19 12 15 14 13 13 15 13 14
of a superficial ideal of femininity among in Australia, anticipating (or, more
the Australian upper and middle-class probably, partly inspiring) the Australian H3 11 9 7 9 9 9 7 7 8 8 8 10 8
in which the degree of a woman’s modernist relief prints of the 1930s. P 11 10 9 10 8 8 8 7 9 12 13 10 10
idleness was ‘a measure of her husband’s N 2 3 1 2 3 2 1 3 1 2 6 3 2
commercial and professional success’. When war broke out in Europe in
To demonstrate her point she quotes 1914, Jessie joined the Voluntary Aid
the following passage, published in The Detachment, working in a convalescent
Antipodean in 1892: facility in Roehampton and a military
hospital in Rouen throughout the war.
‘Her first season over, the Australian She, along with fellow artist, Iso Rae,
girl loses her freshness… She is an was one of only two Australian women
eminently social being, and delights artists to portray the war while in France,
in herding with her kind; primed with although neither woman ultimately
local gossip, her happiness lies in received recognition for her efforts. Jessie
retailing the samer [sic], and gathering travelled extensively throughout her
more for distribution. A mild form of lifetime, and many of the works in the
tennis is in vogue, and with a willowy JCH collection feature European subjects,
slouch she moves across the ground, as well as the hauntingly beautiful bush
more intent on flirtation than tennis and industrial scenes for which she is best
… in dress she is a copyist, not having known. Unlike many professional artists,
sufficient artistic cultivation to be she achieved international professional The etching of The Little Wood -1912 (JCH
original. Reading … is not to her taste. recognition in her lifetime, exhibiting collection and on display in the Joske Wing)
Her soul loveth not needlework, and works at the Paris Salon and at the Royal I think it is therefore eminently fitting
she has acquired by constant practice Academy of the Arts in London in 1909 that so many of Jessie’s works have
the art of contentedly doing nothing. and 1914, and her works were acquired found a home here at JCH, where they
Her fingers help her showy execution by the National Gallery of Australia. She serve as a visual reminder to visitors of
on the piano, but she is no musician.’ was a trailblazer, and a deeply admirable the extraordinary Australian women of

Described by prominent art historian individual. the early 20th century who, like Jessie,
Sasha Grishin as ‘one of the great While practical reality and the emerging challenged established notions of their
Australian artists of the 20th century’, feminist movement – as well as the role, intellect, and capabilities.
Jessie Traill lived an independent individuals and organisations who A collection of Jessie’s personal papers
and adventurous life. Accomplished advocated and fought for women’s rights and artworks are held by State Library
in painting, aquatint, etching and – may have challenged the chauvinistic Victoria and works by her are in the
lithography techniques, she studied fever-dream of young womanhood collections of the National Gallery
at the National Gallery of Victoria Art articulated by The Antipodean, it cannot Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, and
School under Frederick McCubbin, before be denied that a woman seeking to make National Gallery of Victoria.
moving to London to study under the a living in the arts, or any other stream of Dr Jack Tan, Resident Tutor, conducting a student tutorial
famous printmaker Frank Brangwyn. She recognised profession (except perhaps Emily Pyers
was one of the first women printmakers the oldest one) at the turn of the century College Librarian and Archives Officer
20 L u ce Number 23 2024 Janet Clar ke Hall 21