FAHEY, Jacqueline;
Last Summer
1971
Oil on board
1125 x 665mm (image); 1180 x 720mm (frame)
Jacqueline Fahey is one of those artists encouraged by the women’s art movement in its earliest years in Aotearoa to make unashamed use of her own domestic environment as a subject for painting. Her works are noteworthy for the skill with which they capture subtle moments of domestic psychological tension. She has described the home as the battlefield of the psyche.
In Last Summer, Fahey’s daughter Alex is seen in passive-resistant conflict with her father, Dr Fraser McDonald. The ironic use of everyday items, including a placemat made from neckties, contrasts with the significant objects found in still lifes by artists such as Frances Hodgkins and Rita Angus. Fahey revels in what Liz Eastmond has called ‘the chaotic tidal wave of domestic clutter’.
Inscriptions
"LAST SUMMER" / $250.00 ; Property of Mrs D Holland / Gloucester St / Christchurch [verso]Exhibition History
Gathered Voices: Highlights from the Fletcher Trust Collection, The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū, Whakatū Nelson, 19 August to 12 November 2023 (toured)
Jacqueline Fahey’s Suburbanites, New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, 1 August 2019 to 1 November 2019 (toured)
Jacqueline Fahey: Say Something!, curated by Felicity Milburn, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, 22 November 2017 to 11 March 2018
Jacqueline Fahey: Portrait in the Looking Glass: Paintings from 1957–1995, Fisher Gallery (now Te Tuhi), Tāmaki Makaurau, 26 April to 26 May 1996
The Group Show, CSA Gallery, Ōtautahi, 15 to 30 September 1973, cat. no. 94
References
Felicity Milburn, Say Something!: Jacqueline Fahey (Christchurch: Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, 2017), 29, 65. (Here dated 1971.)
Provenance
1993–
Fletcher Trust Collection, purchased from Webb’s, Tāmaki Makaurau, 14 October 1993, lot 159
1973–93
Collection of Doris Lusk, purchased from the Group Show, 1973