• Portia Geach: Portrait of an Activist

Portia Geach: Portrait of an Activist

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Portia Geach heralded the age of the modern Australian woman. Sophisticated, creative and a formidable advocate for women, she was equally championed for her campaigns and pummeled for interfering in the business of men. 

At the age of 17 she began her studies at the National Gallery School in Melbourne, with Bernard Hall as her sponsor she became the first Australian woman admitted to the Royal Academy, entering the painting class in 1897. She embraced the vibrancy of London’s art scene and took night classes in stained glass for two years at the Central School of Arts and Crafts exhibiting a piece of painted glass at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900. She furthered her studies at Whistler’s Académie Carmen and the Académie Julian in Paris before returning to Australia in 1900.

Back in Melbourne, she established an Academy of Art in Collins Street, supported the suffrage campaign and eventually became a leader in the women’s movement. In addition to exhibiting with the Victorian Artists Society, solo exhibitions at Anthony Hordern’s in Sydney and the Athenaeum in Melbourne, extended periods in studios in New York, she fought for equal pay, access for women to political power and better standards of healthcare. She represented Australia at international women’s assemblies, famously led the potato boycott in 1929 in opposition to the ever-increasing prices and travelled extensively, encouraging women to follow in her footsteps.

This publication on the life and career of Portia Geach is a reengagement with her contribution to artistic practice, social equality and feminist politics in Australia during the early twentieth century. It establishes her contribution as a forerunner to the women's movement and affirm the contemporaneity of her views in both her practice and life choices.

This long overdue biography is by art historian Dr Julie Cotter who has written the books Portraits Destroyed and Tom Roberts and the Art of Portraiture.

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