Clarice Beckett

Clarice Beckett
Australian 1887–1935

Rainy day 1930
oil on canvas on board
Geelong Gallery
Purchased 1973

Clarice Beckett studied at the National Gallery School under Frederick McCubbin before becoming a pupil at Max Meldrum’s art school where the tonal principles of Rembrandt, Velázquez and Corot were championed.

Beckett preferred to work en plein air—wheeling a cart packed with paints and easel about the streets of her bayside home in Beaumaris—to capture the modern world. She developed a distinctly atmospheric style, rendering seemingly everyday scenes such as this Melbourne streetscape in a loose painterly style and reduced tonal palette.