Skull of a triceratops

Barbara BRASH
Australian 1925–1998

Skull of a triceratops 1971
thermograph and colour screenprint
Colin Holden Charitable Trust
© the estate of the artist

Paying homage to screenprinting’s origins in fabric design, Brash was known to execute works in alternate colourways to explore the effects made possible by different chromatic combinations.

Writing in a 1998 retrospective catalogue of Brash’s work, painter Dorothy Braund asserted that ‘as a colourist there are few to equal her.’ Braund, who studied with Brash at the National Gallery School and subsequently at the George Bell School, noted her friend’s sensitivity and understanding of colour from an early age, continuing: ‘We were taught to scrape our palettes scrupulously clean for the next day’s work. Barbara always took my muddy scrapings for the body-colour part of her palette, the following day turning them into magic on her canvas’.

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Read by a voluntary Geelong Gallery Guide