E Phillips Fox delighted in capturing the tonal differences of colours found in light and shade. In The green parasol he did this during the full blaze of a summer’s day, expressing his fascination with the sunlight
filtering through a green parasol onto a woman’s face, hand and pale green dress. He applied the paint heavily, juxtaposing touches of pure colour to produce an effect of shimmering light. However, he left some areas
of the light fawn canvas unpainted to create a sense of light and air, allowing reflecting areas between the colours.
The model for the painting was Edith Anderson and the setting was Fox’s garden. Fox presented a genteel and leisurely way of life that was harshly disrupted a few years later with the onset of the First World War.
An Edwardian expatriate artist, Fox studied in Melbourne and Paris, and achieved a reputation for his sensuous and stylish works celebrating light and colour. With Tudor St George Tucker he founded the Melbourne Art School
in 1892, and about 10 years later returned to London where he married the English artist Ethel Carrick. They lived mostly in Paris and revisited Australia three times.
Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 2014
From:
Collection highlights: National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2014
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The green parasol, depicting friend and sometime student Edith Anderson, was painted in the idyllic surroundings of the Fox’s home at 65 Boulevard Arago, Paris. Painted in the afternoon sunlight, the work emanates the
warmth and glow of a relaxing summer’s day in the garden. The painting reveals Fox’s ability to create dappled and diffused light across the scene and demonstrates his position as one of Australia’s Impressionists.
The pure, vibrant and juxtaposing colour and raw, unpainted patches crossing the canvas create both movement and quiet within the painting. The stirring of leaves and petals is sensed in the mass of trees and flowers;
Edith’s movement as she settles herself and her dog while holding her parasol in place brings a certain tension. But her face, seen in half-profile, is peaceful and untroubled. Edith looks fondly at her pet and is relaxed
in the company of the painter. This is life in Edwardian Paris and an intimate moment revealing the friendship between sitter and artist.
The green parasol is also an example of Fox’s desire to blur portrait and subject painting; to make a picture rather than paint a portrait. Edith and the garden appear to become one. The green chiffon of Edith’s dress
melts into the surroundings while the middle- and background collapse, drawing us towards her as the central focus. We enter her calming space. Yet the garden, its movement and light, remain vividly present.
Edith Anderson (1880–1961) and her future husband, Penleigh Boyd, were close friends of the artist. Originally a painter from Brisbane, Edith studied in London and had been living in Paris for some time. Fox first asked
her to model for The green parasol as well as a number of other paintings because he was attracted by her rich auburn hair and grey-green eyes—both fashionable at the time.
Life in Paris for E Phillips Fox allowed him to paint as he wished. After his marriage to Ethel Carrick he was no longer reliant on commissions to support his career, as had been the case in London. Success in Paris was
confirmed by his membership of the Société Nationale de Beaux Arts (1910) and the International Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers (1912).
The green parasol was the first portrait to be acquired for the national collection, purchased by the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board in 1946.
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