Jean Isherwood (1911 - 2006)

Isherwood was born in Marrickville, Sydney in 1911. At the age of fourteen she won a scholarship to the National Art School at East Sydney Technical College (now an Institute of Technical and Further Education).

In the dramatic architectural surroundings which had previously comprised Darlinghurst Gaol, Isherwood learned an appreciation of linear perspective and accurate draughtsmanship which she later applied with great skill to her rural landscapes.

In 1929 she commenced work as a fashion artist with an advertising agency, continuing her studies for a further five years at the National Art School and Royal Art Society as an evening student. She later worked as a freelance artist and illustrator.

Isherwood's first exhibited work with the Australian Watercolour Institute in 1934 was a small painting of a building site. From that time she became a frequent exhibitor in major art exhibitions. She was a student of Antonio Dattilo Rubbo.

She became part of Sydney Bohemian art scene, and met John Dabron whom she married in 1940. They moved to Springwood in the Blue Mountains and had two children, Josephine and Jacqueline. They divorced in 1948.

After the divorce, she returned to fashion drawing and illustration to support herself, pursuing her art interests, as she had before, on the weekend. She took up full-time painting in 1952.

From 1961 to 1974, Isherwood taught at the National Art School. This was a period of conflicting views in the teaching of art in Sydney, a time when a disciplinary approach to the skills of perspective, anatomy and design was considered by many of both the teachers and students alike as passé and unnecessary to the creation of works of art, the stylistic vogue being Abstract Expressionism.

Jean Isherwood was one of the several teachers who determinedly maintained the opposite position. An exacting teacher, she stalked her perspective drawing students with a kneadable putty eraser in hand, challenging their skills with arrangements of battered metal rubbish bins, piles of broken chairs and, on rainy days, a dripping sixteen-rib umbrella.

It was said of Miss Isherwood that no student escaped her class without being able to draw parallel lines and precise ellipses, freehand.

In 1959 Isherwood travelled around New South Wales by car. From that time onwards, she became primarily a landscape painter, and, through her attachment to the countryside, a major exhibitor in the art competitions held in conjunction with the shows run by the local Agricultural Societies and culminating each year in the Sydney Royal Easter Show with its exhibition attracting hundreds of entrants.

From 1950 until her death Isherwood won more than 100 first prizes in various art competitions.

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Jean_Isherwood

About Us

'My Country' Watercolour series by Jean Isherwood.

These paintings are on semi-permanent display in the Creative Arts Centre, Gunnedah. Before her death in 2006, Jean Isherwood explained in an interview where she drew inspiration for her watercolour ‘My Country’ Collection.

	I love a sunburnt country A view from a hill on Moonbi Ranges, NSW
	A land of sweeping plains Strip farming, Liverpool Plains near Willow Tree, NSW
	Of ragged mountain ranges Flinders Ranges
	Of droughts 1981 drought, Monaro Hwy, between Canberra and Cooma
	And flooding rains McDonald River in flood, Moonbi hills, Bendemeer, NSW
	I Love her far horizons Back road QLD vista opened up on a wide plain, completed from memory.
	I love her jewel sea Beautiful shapes and patterns below the water, foreshore near Townsville, QLD. (Jean memorised this particular scene as she had forgotten to take her camera with her.)
	Her beauty Just as the last rays of the sun as it caught the top of the Spinifex, Alice Springs, NT.
	And her terror Bushfires in the Blue Mountains, NSW, flames lashing out - memory and imagination.
	The Wide Brown Land for me Berridale near Cooma, NSW during the 1981 drought.
	The stark white ring-barked forests 1959-1960 composition, Armidale, NSW to Tasmania.
	All tragic to the moon Memories from driving at night around Armidale, NSW.
	The sapphire-misted mountains On the road from Moonbi to Gloucester, NSW.
	The hot gold rush of noon Road to Dungowan, NSW
	Green tangle of the brushes Rainforests all over the coast from Bega, NSW to northern QLD.
	Lithe lianas coil Composition – rainforests.
	Orchids deck the tree tops From books.
	Ferns the warm, dark soil Composition
	Core of my Country Gum trees beside Lake George near Canberra.
	Her pitiless blue sky Drought year, Narrandera/ West Wyalong, far western NSW.
	When sick at heart, around us From a dam with a fascinating shape, West Wyalong, far western NSW.
	And then the grey clouds gather Dramatic wonderful sky approaching Singleton, NSW - from a photo.
	And we can bless again the drumming of an army A woolshed along a road from Dungowan, NSW.
	The steady soaking rain Remnant tree trunks were one of Jean’s favourite objects, near Inverell, NSW.
	Core of my Heart, my Country Dirt road, Killarney, NSW near the border in the early 1960’s.
	Land of the Rainbow Gold Looking over the Peel Valley, first time Jean had painted a rainbow, Moonbi Ranges, NSW.
	For flood In the air near Broken Hill, NSW around the Darling which was in flood at the time
	And fire Lady Wakehurst Drive near Narrabeen, NSW.
	And famine 1981 drought, near Goulburn, NSW.
	She pays us back threefold In the Peel Valley between Moonbi and Tamworth, NSW.
	Over the thirsty paddocks Mauve mountains, Cooma-Monaro Highway, NSW.
	The filmy veil of greenness that thickens as we gaze. From Jean’s window in her studio in her Moonbi home, looking down into the Peel Valley, NSW.