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Perth audiences are running out of time to see a unique collection of works by German émigré artist Elise Blumann, many of which will soon be returned to private owners.

After 10 weeks at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, and playing host to more than 15,000 visitors, Elise Blumann: An émigré artist in Western Australia, 1938 – 1948 will close on Saturday 19 September.

The exhibition, the first of its kind to focus on Blumann’s work for more than 20 years, is a one-time-only collection of works sourced from public and private collections throughout Australia.

Described by William Yeoman in The West Australian as “one of the most beautiful exhibitions to be seen in Perth in recent years” and “not to be missed”, the display focuses on paintings from German Artist Elise Blumann’s first decade in Australia.

It illustrates the bold portraits she produced in the late 1930s to her increasingly abstract renderings of the landscape in the late 1940s.

When Blumann arrived in Perth from Germany in 1938, she was struck by the local landscape and the piercing brightness of the Australian light.

From her new home in Nedlands she experienced a flourishing of creative activity, brilliantly applying aspects of a modernist artistic style to the Western Australian landscape.

Prior to her arrival in Australia, Blumann had lived through a tumultuous period of European history. She studied art in Berlin during World War I and with the rise of Nazism fled Germany in 1934, for Holland and later England.

As a young artist she was attracted to a number of artistic styles – from the Post-Impressionist paintings of van Gogh to various forms of expressive art. In Australia Blumann brilliantly applied aspects of a modernist artistic style to the Western Australian landscape.

Image credit: Elise Blumann, Rottnest lighthouse and salt lake , 1947, oil on board, 46.5 x 54.9 cm, University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Dr and Mrs R. K. Constable, 1985.

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David Stacey (UWA Media and Public Relations Manager)      (+61 8) 6488 3229 / (+61 4) 32 637 716