Barbara Hanrahan facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Barbara Hanrahan
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Barbara Janice Hanrahan c. 1968
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| Born | 6 September 1939 Adelaide, South Australia
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| Died | 1 December 1991 (aged 52) Adelaide, South Australia
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| Nationality | Australian |
| Education | Thebarton Technical School, Adelaide Teachers’ College, and the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts |
| Known for | Printmaking, Writing |
| Partner(s) | Jo Steele |
Barbara Janice Hanrahan (1939–1991) was an amazing Australian artist, printmaker, and writer. Her art and stories often explored relationships, especially those involving women. She also wrote short stories about growing up, which were often based on her own life experiences.
Contents
Early Life & Education
Barbara Hanrahan was born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1939. When she was just one year old, her father passed away. Barbara then lived with her mother, grandmother, and great aunt. This home, filled with strong women, often inspired her art. The suburb where she grew up, Thebarton, also became a big part of her work. Her mother later remarried.
Barbara went to Thebarton Primary School and Thebarton Technical School. She then studied art teaching at Adelaide Teachers' College. At the same time, she took classes at the South Australian School of Arts from 1957 to 1960.
In 1963, when Barbara was 23, she moved to London. She wanted to try something new and exciting. She continued her art studies at the Central School of Art in London. She once said about moving to London: “I wanted to try my life at something bigger. I wanted to get away from safety and walking with little steps."
Becoming an Artist and Writer
Starting Her Art Career
Barbara Hanrahan began making prints in 1960. She worked with her German teacher, Udo Sellbach. In 1961, she won the Cornell Prize for painting. The next year, she became the president of the South Australian Graphic Art Society.
In 1963, she moved to London to study at the Royal College of Art. She lived mostly in England until the early 1980s with her partner, sculptor Jo Steele. Barbara also taught art at colleges in Cornwall and Portsmouth. She often returned to Adelaide to teach and hold her own art shows. Eventually, she moved back to Adelaide for good. Her first art show was in Adelaide in December 1964.
Joining Art Movements
When she returned to Australia, Barbara joined the Australian Women's Art Movement and the Women's Art Register. These groups worked to get fair pay and more recognition for female artists.
Combining Art and Writing
Barbara often mixed her writing with her visual art. She kept a diary when she was a teenager. She also kept one in London to help her understand the new city. She started writing her first book, The Scent of Eucalyptus (1973), after her grandmother passed away in 1968. This book was partly about her own childhood in Thebarton in the 1940s and 1950s.
Her diaries were published in 1998. They showed how Barbara thought about the world. A book about her life was also published that same year.
Her Unique Art Style
Barbara Hanrahan was a talented painter and printmaker. She tried many different printing styles, like screen printing, etching, and woodblock cutting. She would often create the same print in different ways, using new colors or styles. For example, her work Wedding Night has three different versions.
Barbara's art was very personal, but its messages were universal. She showed relationships between friends, women and men, and how people deal with society's rules. These ideas appear again and again in her prints, like Wedding Night (1977) and Dear Miss Ethel Barringer (1975). Both works show her thoughts on women's roles in society. Dear Miss Ethel Barringer shows a woman trying to handle many different roles at once.
One art critic described Barbara's work as exploring “the themes of society and its norms, its expectations and its conventions and how the individual fares therein - buffeted and withstanding, weak and strong. She particularly analyses the relationship between men and women, and, as well, the relationship of the generations." This means her art looked at how people fit into society and how different generations and genders relate to each other.
Art historian Alison Carroll compared Barbara's simple scenes to the pop art of David Hockney. However, Carroll noted that Barbara's art went deeper. She created strong feelings about love, family, and relationships, using a style that sometimes looked childlike. This made her art more emotionally powerful than typical pop art.
Exhibitions and Collections
Barbara Hanrahan's artwork was shown all over the world. Her exhibitions took place in London, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, the United States, and Canada. Many galleries in Australia collect her work, including the National Gallery of Australia. Her print Generations (1991) was even used as the cover for a book called Mixed matches : interracial marriage in Australia.
Where to Find Her Art
- The National Gallery of Australia has about 453 of her drawings and prints.
- The Art Gallery of South Australia holds over 200 of her prints.
- The National Gallery of Victoria has six of her works.
- QAGOMA has 20 pieces.
- The Art Gallery of New South Wales holds 17 of her artworks.
Her Powerful Writing
Barbara Hanrahan's books were just as expressive and direct as her artworks. Books like The Scent of Eucalyptus were seen as breaking away from typical stories about women in the suburbs.
Her novels often featured a main character who was similar to Barbara herself. Annette Stewart, who wrote a biography about Barbara, noted that it was sometimes hard to tell what was real and what was made up in her stories. This mix of reality and imagination gave her writing a special feel.
Barbara's book, Sea Green, tells the story of a narrator named Virginia who moves from Adelaide to London. This book is based on Barbara's own life, with Virginia being a character like Barbara. The book looks back with fondness on the places she once lived.
Another novel, Michael and Me and the Sun, describes her experiences on her journey to London and the relationships she had. It also blends fiction with her own life. Like her art, Barbara's writing was sharp and to the point. She wrote about the traditional roles of men and women, for example, how men expected women to do certain tasks: “To be popular on the ship you had to be willing to iron, and the men came along to the ironing room looking helpless.”
This tension in relationships and their roles was a common theme in both her writing and her art.
Her Books
- The Scent of Eucalyptus (1973)
- Sea-Green (1974)
- The Albatross Muff (1977)
- Where the Queens All Strayed (1978)
- The Peach Groves (1980)
- The Frangipani Gardens (1980)
- Dove (1982)
- Kewpie Doll (1984)
- Annie Magdalene (1985)
- Dream People (1987)
- A Chelsea Girl (1987)
- Flawless Jade (1989)
- Iris in her Garden (1991)
- Michael and Me and the Sun (1992)
- Good Night Mr Moon (1992)
- The Diaries of Barbara Hanrahan, edited by Elaine Lindsay (1998)
Her Legacy
Barbara Hanrahan left a lasting impact. In 1994, her partner, Jo Steele, created the Barbara Hanrahan Fellowship for writers in South Australia to honor her memory. A street in Thebarton is named after her. In 1997, a building at the University of South Australia's City West campus was also named in her honor.
Many of her papers and writings that were not published are kept at the National Library of Australia.
