Bonzer Words!: Portia Geach
Paula Wilson introduces us to the Australian artist Portia Geach, a tireless fighter for women's rights.
Portia Swanston Geach was said to have had a strong personality. This was probably a good thing, as she would have needed to be a woman of extreme determination to succeed in the lifelong quest she set herself. Portia Swanston Geach was an artist, feminist and campaigner of women's rights both in the home and the Australian art world.
Born in Melbourne on 24 December 1873 she studied design and painting at the Melbourne National Gallery School between 1890 and 1896. She then became the first Australian to win a scholarship and to study at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Portia was a student there between 1896 and 1900, with American painter John Singer Sargent as one of her tutors. She also spent some time in Paris where she is said to have studied under American artist James Whistler.
Portia exhibited her work in England, Paris and New York before returning to Melbourne to hold an exhibition at her Collins Street studio in 1901.
When the Geach family moved to Sydney in 1904 Portia decorated their house with her murals. Unfortunately the house, along with the murals, was demolished in 1991. Although she specialized in portraits she did paint murals in Australia and overseas, and landscapes of Sydney's coastline.
Her political ideals surfaced in her work when she painted a suffragist banner for Vida Goldstein in 1905 and later a portrait of Edith Cowan, Australia's first female Member of Parliament.
Portia often traveled overseas and during a 1917 trip to New York she attended a meeting of the Housewives Association. It did not take much to convince her that Australians would benefit from a similar organisation. When she returned home she wasted no time in founding the New South Wales Housewives Association.
From this time on Portia campaigned relentlessly on behalf of women's rights for equal pay and to hold public office. She exploited the media to express her views on subjects such as: buying Empire goods, date stamping eggs, marking of lamb and in particular the high prices of eggs, milk, meat and bread. Not satisfied with just getting her ideas across through radio and newspapers, she organised a citywide strike against the prices set on staple commodities. The strikers had some success when the price of meat was forced down.
Portia felt so strongly about the deals women received that she sat on numerous committees during the second half of her life. After a dispute with a rival on the Housewives Association she was expelled from the organisation she had formed. Not to be deterred Portia formed the breakaway Progressive Housewives Association in 1947 and served as president until 1957.
Throughout her life Portia also fought against the 'closed front' that faced women in a male-dominated art world. She complained about the way all-male hanging committees hung her and other female artists' work. Usually in bad positions, that was, if they displayed them at all.
When Portia died in 1959 she left her substantial estate to her sister Florence Kate Geach. Her sister's will in turn created the Portia Geach Memorial Award in memory of Portia's lifelong battle against male domination in art. The prize was first awarded in 1965 and was worth £1000 compared with the £780 for the Archibald Prize. Now the Portia Geach Memorial Award is worth $18 000, given for a portrait by a female artist living in Australia.
Today Portia Geach is remembered mainly for the prize created in her name. But her work as an artist and her tireless fight for women's rights should be equally remembered, because she did make a difference.
© Paula Wilson
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Paula writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
Also visit http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/portiageach/
