Ann Newmarch facts for kids

Ann Foster Newmarch (June 9, 1945 – January 13, 2022), known as "Annie", was a famous South Australian artist. She was a painter, printmaker, and sculptor. Annie was well-known for using her art to help the community, fight for social justice, and support women's rights. She helped start two important art groups in Adelaide: the Progressive Art Movement and the Women's Art Movement (WAM). Her most famous artwork is a colourful screenprint from 1978 called Women Hold Up Half the Sky!.

Early Life and Learning

Ann Newmarch was born in Adelaide, South Australia, on June 9, 1945.

She studied at the Western Teachers College and became a teacher in 1966. After that, she spent a year studying philosophy and psychology at Flinders University in Adelaide.

In 1968, she taught art at high schools. The next year, in 1969, she became a lecturer at the South Australian School of Art. She taught there until 2000.

From 1973 to 1974, Annie continued her studies at Flinders University. She learned more about philosophy, women's studies, and how art and politics are connected. This helped her become an artist who openly shared her political views through her work.

Her Art Career

Annie Newmarch was one of the first female teachers at the South Australian School of Art. In 1997, she became the first woman to have a special exhibition of her past works at the Art Gallery of South Australia. This show was called The Personal is Political. She lived and worked in Prospect for about 50 years, using her studio there. She was also the first artist to be officially invited to work with the City of Prospect.

In 1969, she had her first solo art show in Adelaide. However, she often said that art galleries were mostly run by men and focused too much on making money.

Her powerful artwork, Women Hold Up Half the Sky! (1978), greatly influenced her career and other artists. It is her most famous piece. In late 1978, she began teaching screen-printing workshops at her Prospect studio. She also started the Prospect Mural Group that same year.

In 1980, after visiting the US and UK, Annie and other members of WAM created a mural called Reclaim the Night for the Adelaide Festival of Arts. It showed women taking part in a street protest with powerful words. In 1983, she started the idea of painting Stobie poles, which is still a popular art form today.

In 1988, Annie was invited to China with another artist, Anne Morris. They worked with four Chinese artists to create large murals in Xianyang, China.

What Her Art Was About

Annie Newmarch created many different types of art. She didn't stick to one specific "signature style." She became involved in the women's movement in 1970. She managed to balance teaching, being a mother, making art, and working on community projects. She worked with painting, printmaking, and sculpture. She was especially known for her experimental printmaking. She often used personal images to make strong social and political points about women's roles in society.

Her art explored how gender affects the world. She questioned common ideas about gender. Annie embraced feminism in the early 1970s. Her art showed that all art is political. It also highlighted that not having a voice means accepting things as they are. Her early work often used silkscreen printing. This was a cheap and easy way to make art, and she was very good at it.

Later, in the 1990s, her work included more sculptural objects. After that, she focused on the objects themselves as the main subjects. She also used hands and the body as "canvases" to explore artmaking.

Her art has been described as political, feminist, emotional, personal, and complex. Her work showed that "the personal is political." This meant that personal experiences are connected to bigger social and political issues. Her art showed women's often unseen work, motherhood, and other issues important to women. In an article from 1981, Annie wrote that she wanted her art to reach "women who are treated unfairly because of sexism and people who are used by capitalism." She said her art was not for "an 'elite educated' art gallery audience who can afford to ‘invest’ in art."

She later wrote:

Art should be made out of personal experience not out of “art” concerns. Personal experience is only a useful source of art when it is accompanied by an understanding of the social conditions in which it arises. An artist has a responsibility as an image make to concerns wider than herself or her art.

Women Hold Up Half the Sky!

Annie Newmarch's most famous artwork is Women Hold Up Half the Sky! (1978). It is a colourful screenprint based on a photograph. The title comes from a famous saying by former Chinese leader Mao Zedong: "Women hold up half the sky."

This artwork was first designed as a poster. It shows a photo of a middle-aged woman carrying a man in her arms, with the words written at the bottom. The woman in the photo was Annie's Aunt Peggy. She was a single mother who raised eight children and had many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Annie admired her aunt very much. She saw her as someone who lived an unusual and strong life. Aunt Peggy mostly built her own house, learning skills usually done by tradespeople. The screenprint was based on a small photo from the 1940s. It was "a little summer picture of something [Peggy] had done for a dare when a whole lot of people at a party had said ‘I bet you couldn’t lift your husband up’." Annie's artwork, by adding Mao's quote, turned it into an inspiring image for women. With this piece, she wanted to "show the strong, encouraging aspects of women." This was different from her earlier work, which often focused on loneliness in suburbs and criticised how women were shown in advertising.

Annie said about the work, "It was never meant to be just an art image. It was meant to be a confirming, joyful, cheap, available poster." However, it has had a huge impact, being shown all over Australia and the world.

Fighting for Change

Annie Newmarch was very interested in politics, and it always played a part in her artwork. Her work showed her concerns about society, politics, and the environment, including Aboriginal land rights. She was an important person in Adelaide's Women's Art Movement (WAM), which started on August 7, 1976.

Progressive Art Movement

In 1974, Annie Newmarch helped start the Progressive Art Movement (PAM). This group focused on political issues, social concerns, and education. It included writers, artists, filmmakers, and poets. Printmaker Ruth Faerber wrote in 1977 that PAM was "driven by strong Marxist social and political ideas." She said they had a shared plan for action and felt an urgent need to make changes.

Other artists connected with PAM included:

Andrew Hill (born 1952) is a painter, printmaker, and designer for theatre, film, and graphics. He was a professor at UniSA from 1979 to 2014 and held leadership roles there.

Awards and Recognition

• In 1989, Annie Newmarch received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her contributions to the arts.
• On September 22, 2010, she received the Australia Day Award for her artwork Women Hold Up Half the Sky!. This piece shows how incredibly strong women are. It was a tribute to her Auntie Peg, who built a house by herself while raising eight children and working two jobs. This artwork was also made into a postcard for four major art galleries.
• In October 2019, the City of Prospect renamed their community gallery the Newmarch Gallery. This was to honour her long involvement with community arts in Prospect.
• In December 2019, Newmarch was "Highly Commended" at the South Australian Ruby Awards.

For Individual Works

• Women Hold Up Half the Sky! (1978)
  • A major exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia in 1995 was named Women Hold Up Half the Sky after Newmarch's print.
  • In 2007, it was the only Australian artwork chosen for the WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles.
  • From 2020 to 2021, it was part of the Know my Name exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia.

Her Death and What She Left Behind

Annie Newmarch passed away peacefully on January 13, 2022. She is remembered by her three children: Jake Newmarch, Bruno Medlin, and Jessie Kerr.

She left behind many artworks and helped raise awareness about important issues. She also founded the Progressive Art Movement and guided many women artists. An article in ARTnews magazine said that she had "reshaped the Australian art scene as an educator and activist."

In February 2022, Sydney artist Vivienne Binns called Newmarch a "giant" in the art world.

Women Hold Up Half the Sky! became a symbol of the women's rights movement in Australia.

The tradition of decorating Stobie poles in Adelaide, which she started, continues today.

Exhibitions

Newmarch's art was shown in many galleries in Adelaide, including Greenaway Art Gallery (1994, 1995, 1996, 2001) and Prospect Gallery (1992, 1999, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009).

Her works Suburban window (1973) and Three months of interrupted work (1977) were part of important feminist exhibitions, like A Room of One’s Own (Melbourne, 1974) and The Women's Show (Adelaide, 1977).

Other notable exhibitions include:

• As the Serpent Struggles, first shown at the Experimental Art Foundation in 1987.
• The Personal is Political, her first major look back at her work, at AGSA, 1997.
• Anticipation, JamFactory Atrium and Prospect Gallery, 2005 to 2007.
• WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, 2007.
• A survey exhibition at the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art in Darwin, Northern Territory, 2017.

Art Collections

Annie Newmarch's artworks are held in all state galleries, including more than 40 works at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Her art is also in major private collections.

Major collections that hold her work include:

See also

In Spanish: Ann Newmarch para niños