Nancy Wilmot Borlase (24 March 1914 – 11 September 2006) was a New Zealand-born Australian artist, known for her

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

-based abstract paintings and

portraits A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...

, and as an

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

and commentator. Her work is displayed in the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

and other major galleries.

Biography

Born in

Taihape Taihape is in the Rangitikei District of the North Island of New Zealand. It serves a large rural community. State Highway 1, which runs North to South through the centre of the North Island, passes through the town. History and culture Early ...

, New Zealand, in 1914, Borlase was 16 when she decided that art was her calling and shifted to

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

, where she studied at

Canterbury College School of Art The Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury was founded in 1882 as the Canterbury College School of Art. The school became a full department of the university in the 1950s, and was the first department to move to the suburban Ilam ...

under

Francis Shurrock Francis Aubrey Shurrock (1887–1977) was a notable New Zealand sculptor and art teacher. He was born in Warrington, Lancashire, England in 1887. He studied under Édouard Lantéri at the Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) ...

. Borlase moved to Australia in 1937, at age 22, where she studied life drawing and sculpture at

East Sydney Technical College The National Art School (NAS) is a tertiary level art school, located in , an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The school is an independent accredited higher education provider offering specialised study in studio arts ...

under Frank Medworth and Lynden Dadswell (1937–1940)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 and 1970. She lived for a while next to

Sidney Nolan Sir Sidney Robert Nolan (22 April 191728 November 1992) was one of Australia's leading artists of the 20th century. Working in a wide variety of mediums, his oeuvre is among the most diverse and prolific in all of modern art. He is best known ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, was befriended by his benefactor John Reed, and worked as an artist's model. She married trade union figure

Laurie Short Laurence Elwyn Short (15 December 1915 – 24 March 2009) was an Australian trade union leader and leading figure in the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Short was the national secretary of the Federated Ironworkers' Association (FIA), now part of ...

in 1941. Borlase started as a figurative painter before moving to

abstract impressionism Abstract Impressionism is an art movement that originated in New York City, in the 1940s.Eduoard Malingue Gallery. ''Impressionism to Modern Art.'' Hong Kong: Eduard Malingue Gallery, 2011. 10. It involves the painting of a subject such as real-li ...

. Her work was influenced by a study tour to New York in 1956, where she encountered

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...

and

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Latv ...

. Other study tours included tours to the USA 1960; Europe 1956, 1969, 1972, 1973; China 1976 (as one of three art writers). She worked as an art critic at '' The Bulletin'', Sydney between 1972 and 1973 and the ''

Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper i ...

'' from 1973.

Notes and references

External links

Article: "Too much learning is not enough for artist". "Sydney Morning Herald"
Weekend Edition, 17–18 April 2004
Photo with article: Nancy Borlase

Nancy Borlase interviewed by Hazel de Berg
– sound recording {{DEFAULTSORT:Borlase, Nancy 1914 births 2006 deaths Members of the Order of Australia New Zealand emigrants to Australia Australian women painters People from Taihape 20th-century Australian painters 20th-century Australian women artists 21st-century Australian women 21st-century Australian people