BORLASE, NANCY (1914-2006)

"Ethereal Figures" (c.1980)
oil on board
40 x 40cm
details on verso
*private collection, Sydney
 
Nancy Borlase AM was a prominent New Zealand-born Australian Modernist. She studied life drawing and sculpture at East Sydney Technical College under Frank Medworth and Lyndon Dadswell and also life drawing under Rah Fizelle and Grace Crowley before switching to painting. In 1939 she joined the Contemporary Art Society, NSW branch and was an active committee member of the Society between 1952—1970. Borlase started as a figurative painter before moving to abstract expressionism. Her work was influenced by a study tour to New York in 1956, where she encountered Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko. Her works are represented in most National Galleries, including the Art Gallery Of NSW and the National Gallery in Canberra.