Passage

Precociously talented, Dora Chapman received a string of art awards for her virtuosic draughtsmanship in the 1930s. Her early paintings express a forthright realism, which later moved into expressionism, although in this work it is possible to see that she also experimented with pure abstraction.

Passage was created during Chapman’s time working for the Sydney Studio of Realist Art (SORA). With its socialist ideals, SORA was a progressive artistic hub, offering art lesssons, lectures and an art library, and encouraging realist depictions of everyday life. The abstraction of Passage shows Chapman independently exploring the radical pictorial philosophies that were in opposition to those of the realist art studio. Its title points to a physical reality, yet its fragmented, recessive spatial play shifts the work into the transcendental realm.

After spending a career committed to art education, as well as working in the shadow of her husband, the artist James Cant (1911–1982), at the age of fifty-eight Chapman retired from teaching at the South Australian School of Art. For the first time in her life she turned to full-time art practice, with subsequent exhibitions repositioning her as a major figure in Australian art history.

Tracey Lock, Curator of Australian Paintings and Sculpture