It is not surprising that the matriarchy rules in Hanrahan’s family. Her father died just a day after she turned one, and Hanrahan (1939-91) grew up with her maternal grandparents, mother, and great-aunts, all of whom lived in Thebarton – a working-class suburb of Adelaide.
Her characters are innocent and audacious. They jostle and quiver in this important salon-hung exhibition at Flinders Museum of Art.
Hanrahan’s bold visual language is reflected in 180 works of art on paper, including woodcuts and linocuts, as well as lithographs and etchings. There are also rare drawings, paintings, and collages.
Barbara Hanrahan, Memento mori, 1976. Screenprint with color inks and paper, 60.4 x 42.4″ (image), edition 6/23. Private collection, Adelaide. (c) The Estate of the Artist, courtesy Susan Sideris.
Their depth and breadth, texture, and clarity require an active engagement.
It is important to be up close and personal with the art you are viewing. You should bend and stretch and almost breathe the air of the work.
The show is meant to be enjoyed, to allow time to soak in the flavor of the conical-breasted, gartered, and corseted women, the bitter sadness of torrential rain, the sour taste of the hypocritical expectations of society, and the sweetness of childhood memories.
An independent woman
Hanrahan was initially trained as an art teacher, but her mother’s career as a commercial painter in a department shop inspired her.
She enrolled in night classes at the South Australian School of Art after graduating in 1960. This is where she made her first linocuts.
Hanrahan, who was independent-minded and more influenced by the dramatism of German expressionism than Australian printmakers Margaret Preston Adelaide Perry or Ethel Spowers, set out to swing London to pursue her artistic dreams a few years later.
Barbara Hanrahan The Angel 1989-90. Hand-colored etching on paper with color inks, 34.8 cm x 22 centimeters. Private collection, Adelaide. (c) The Estate of the Artist, courtesy Susan Sideris.
She was not a big supporter of the Women’s Art Movement, but she worked parallel to it, challenging beauty, social conventions, and sexual mores.
She exhibited in Australia until she returned to Adelaide with her partner in the late 1970s.
After purchasing many works from Adelaide’s Kym Bonython, the Adelaide gallery received legal advice not to exhibit her etchings depicting naked men.
Australian women artists from her time, such as “femail”, Pat Larter, and Charis, used sexually explicit images in collages, photography, and videos. Hanrahan’s characters tend to be unaware, naive, or awkward, as seen in Wedding Night (1977).
Barbara Hanrahan, Wedding night, 1977. Screenprint with color inks on buff paper. 64.5 x 46.7 cm (image). Ed 2/17. Flinders University Museum of Art in Adelaide, 5770. (c) The Estate of the Artist, courtesy Susan Sideris2020
Hanrahan’s technical expertise was criticized for being overly decorative, ironically.
Here, her technical achievements are on display in the etchings like Earthmother (1975) and in the multi-colored screenprints perfectly registered, such as Moss-haired Girl (1997).
Barbara Hanrahan – Moss-haired Girl, 1977. Screenprint with color inks, paper, 63.3 cm x 33.01 cm. Flinders University Museum of Art in Adelaide, 5769, Gift of Jonathan P Steele. (c) The Estate of the Artist, courtesy Susan Sideris2020
Death and life
Hanrahan’s interspecies ecologies are populated with celestial bodies, English and Australian flora, and fauna.
The intertwining of women becomes a tree. Branches sprout from the human trunks. Vulvas are filigreed into flowers. Birds nest in hair. Adam and Eve play before the fall. Angels float Chagall-like through the turbulent skies. Women hover over the Serpentine, London’s Hyde Park, flower-strewn.
