Rosalie Gascoigne

Australia’s great poet of place, Rosalie Gascoigne transformed discarded materials into luminous meditations on landscape, memory and light.

Written by Courtney Kidd August 2026

Image credit: Rosalie Gascoigne, Monaro, 1988-89, synthetic polymer paint on sawn and split soft-drink wooden crates on plywood
131 × 457 cm (overall). Art Gallery of Western Australia, Boorloo/Perth, purchased 1989. © Rosalie Gascoigne/Copyright Agency.
Courtesy Art Gallery of Western Australia

 

 

 

“You’ve got to pull off something in your hand that isn’t in the palm of your hand before you started”, said Rosalie Gascoigne (1917–1999), a pioneering figure in Australian contemporary art. Her answer to the question, “How do landscapes influence the lives of those who live in their midst?” comes alive in her major retrospective at the National Gallery of Australia, arguably revealing her to be one of the finest artists of the 20th century.

Gascoigne developed her practice later in life, holding her debut exhibition in 1975 at the age of 57. She quickly rose to national prominence when she went on to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1982. Crafting a distinct visual language – poetic assemblages made of salvaged materials such as timber remnants, enamelware and discarded road signs – she created resonant compositions that could evoke the textures, colours and narratives embedded in the land. Her ability to reconfigure, at times dismantle and ultimately transform prosaic materials into poetic objects, and to isolate the everyday from its normal context, created a unique art: a kind of readymade. And while the legacy of Duchamp, who coined the term readymade in 1913, tends to underpin much contemporary art discourse, the practice of this New Zealand-born master, who settled in the remote Mount Stromlo area on the outskirts of Kamberri/Canberra for over 20 years before moving into its suburbs, created a far more profound legacy. Her discarded objects and an element of chance became powerful assemblages that evoked memory, place and the subtleties of the Australian landscape.

Steam (c.1971–73), The crop (1976), and The teaparty (1980) (the latter drawing... Subscribe to read all articles in full