Elisabeth Cummings is one of Australia’s visual art quiet achievers, with a career spanning over 50 years and this major survey, examining her landscape works, is long overdue.  Cummings’ landscapes are distinguished by heavily impastoed surfaces and luminous colour, whether depicting the glowing red and yellow ochres of the Pilbara region, the ruggedly spectacular Arkaroola ridges of the Flinders ranges, or the sands of Elcho Island in Arnhem Land. Cummings’ travels are distilled and brought to life in the sanctuary of her idyllic bush studio on Sydney’s outskirts.
Luminous: The landscapes of Elisabeth Cummings features works from the past three decades, comprising of over 40 major paintings, gouaches and prints from public and private collections.

Born in Brisbane in 1934, Cummings studied at the National Art School in Sydney from 1953–57 and in 1959 was awarded the AGNSW Travelling Art Scholarship. She travelled to Europe, where she lived for almost a decade studying under Oskar Kokoschka in Salzburg. On her return to Australia in 1969, Cummings settled in Sydney, eventually moving to her sanctuary at Wedderburn, surrounded by her beloved gum trees.  

Cummings, who is now in her late 70s, has been painting since the late 1950s and this will be the first opportunity to examine the artist’s landscape imagery in depth, allowing appraisal of her contribution to Australian art practice. 

Luminous : The landscapes of Elisabeth Cummings, is an S.H. Ervin Gallery exhibition curated by Jane Watters and is presented with the assistance of King Street Gallery on William.

Public Programs

Sunday 5 February at 3pm
Meet the Artist: Elisabeth Cummings with artist John Peart
Join two of Australia’s leading artists, Elisabeth Cummings and abstract painter John Peart as they discuss their art practice in the idyllic bush environment of Wedderburn.