ELAINE HAXTON 1909-99 Australian A/P Intaglio ETCHING Paris Spring 1969
ELAINE HAXTON – Paris Spring. A rare intaglio etching on paper by the highly collected Australian artist Elaine Haxton. An abstract composition called Paris Spring, signed in pencil. Dated 69 and denoted artist proo. This work was therefore likely produced during or shortly after her time spent with Stanley Hayter at Atelier 17 in paris. Unframed on paper measuring 19.5 x 15 cm image. Image in super condition, great tones and texture. Leaving school at fourteen, she studied at the East Sydney Technical School before travelling to London to work with an advertising agency and further her studies at the Grosvenor School of Art. In Sydney she became a key member of a group including Russell Drysdale, Donald Friend and William Dobell; the latter painted her for the Archibald Prize in 1941. In 1942 she was commissioned by Walter Magnus to paint scenes from the Ballets Russes production Le Coq D’Or on the walls the restaurant of that name in Ash Street, Sydney. The following year she won the Sulman Prize for these restaurant murals, which had been painted over by the early 1950s. Ten years later she was the only woman in the Australian delegation to China; the trip inspired much of her later work, which included prints that she had learned to make in Paris and Japan. Haxton turned her interest towards printmaking in the 1960s. She trained in Paris at Atelier 17. The studio of Stanley Hayter. In 1967 at Rue Moulin Vert. A six-time Sulman finalist in the 1940s and 1950s, Haxton exhibited extensively. A retrospective exhibition of her prints and drawings was held at Stadia Graphics in 1983, and another at Hamer Mathew galleries in 1990. Her work was included in Creating a Scene at the Victorian Arts Centre in 2004 and Stage Fright: The art of theatre at the National Gallery of Australia in 2005.