Jocelyn Maughan wins Gosford Art Prize 2019

Jocelyn Maughan has won the Gosford Art Prize for 2019, for her work Ken in grisaille (pictured).

Grisaille drawing of a middle-aged seated man

Ken in grisaille
(Click to view larger image)

Always the teacher, Jocelyn used the speech as an opportunity to explain what “grisaille” means: Grisaille is a technique – going back to old masters such as Rubens and Van Dyck – where a light-coloured surface is coated with dark grey paint and then highlights are created by rubbing the paint away.

The exhibition of finalists is on at Gosford Regional Gallery until 3 November 2019.

Images of all winning works can be viewed on Gosford Regional Gallery’s Facebook page.

Press release by Central Coast Council:
Prize winners crowned in special ceremony at Gosford Regional Gallery.
 

Couple honoured for services to art and education

Image of newspaper article

The above article appeared in the 18 June 2018 edition of The Peninsula News. The text of the article appears below.

Note: A few details need correcting or clarifying:

  • Jocelyn started teaching in 1959 as a part-time art teacher at East Sydney Technical College (now National Art School) and also as a part-time art teacher at Abbotsleigh School, Wahroonga
  • Jocelyn began teaching full-time in 1960 and founded the art school at Meadowbank TAFE in 1966
  • Jocelyn was a finalist in the Archibald Prize on at least ten separate occasions
  • Robin Norling was not an artist for 77 years; he was 77 when he died

Artist Ms Jocelyn Maughan of Patonga, and her late partner Mr Robin Norling, have both been honoured with an Order of Australia Medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to visual arts and education.

Ms Maughan said she had dedicated her life to fine art and was excited to receive this award for her passion.

“It’s a great honour.

“I’m honoured and delighted because I’ve been recognised by my peers,” Ms Maughan said.

Ms Maughan is driven by a desire to teach others artistic skills and believes that everyone has artistic talent.

“I think we all have some artistic skills but we don’t have them developed enough today.

“People need to develop and team these skills but they aren’t.

“People need to understand that a computer can’t do everything,” Ms Maughan said.

Ms Maughan began teaching art at the Sydney Gallery School in Meadowbank in 1966, when she was 26 years old.

“I love teaching so much.

“I felt that I had a skill at explaining things simply to people.

“I get sick of the art waffle and people saying that they can’t explain art simply,” Ms Maughan said.

Ms Maughan currently owns and directs the Patonga Bakehouse Gallery, and encourages budding artists to seek her out for advice and lessons.

“I give free help to anyone who wants to bring their work to me.

“I also have a free gallery for people to bring their work and sell it,” Ms Maughan said.

Her desire to encourage young artists to pursue their talent goes beyond teaching, personally funding the Children’s Portrait prize of $1000 each year.

School aged artists can submit portrait drawings from life to the Gosford Gallery to be considered for this prize.

Though her art covers many mediums including drawing, printmaking and various forms of painting, she has a soft spot for watercolours.

Ms Maughan is currently a member of the Australian Watercolour Institute, and was Treasurer from 2003 to 2006.

She is also Patron of the Central Coast Watercolour Society.

“It’s unique because watercolour has been put aside in the history of art.

“There are some wonderful watercolourists in our country who have great skills.

“It goes way back in time in Australian history.

“I’m very fortunate to be a member of the Australian Watercolour Institute,” Ms Maughan said.

Ms Maughan’s work has been exhibited at the Wynne Prize in 1995, the Archibald Prize in 1996 and 1997, as well as numerous one and two person exhibitions at the Artarmon Gallery, Woolloomooloo Gallery and the Taree Municipal Gallery.

Ms Maughan’s accolades include the Kedumba Drawing Award, Orange Regional Gallery, 2011, the Margaret Fesq Prize for Portraiture, Royal Art Society of New South Wales, 1983, and the Portia Geach Prize for Portrait Painting, 1976.

Ms Maughan’s partner, the late Mr Robin Norling, was also recognised for his services to visual arts and education.

Mr Norling had been a practising artist for 77 [sic] years, and an art teacher for 14 years when he died last year.

“Robin and I had been together for 26 years,” Ms Maughan said.

“We had a co-artist, co-gallery owner, and co-life journey.

“He was a very imaginative artist.

“He could do great compositions.

“I was more technical, more of a draughtsman.

“Between the two of us we rather helped each other.

“Both of our works improved because of our relationship.

“We were known to pick up the brush and change a few things on each other’s work, with the other’s permission of course.

“I miss him very much,” Ms Maughan said.

Mr Norling had committed himself to both his own art and to educating others in artistic technique.

He had taught art in both secondary schools and in tertiary education in New South Wales.

Mr Norling had taught at the Sydney Gallery School, previously Meadowbank College School of Art, from 1986 to 2000 and had been senior education officer at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from 1978 to 1986.

After their retirement, Mr Norling and Ms Maughan became full time artists, and co-owned the Patonga Bakehouse Gallery together.

In 1962, Mr Norling was a recipient of the New South Wales Travelling Art Prize, allowing him to travel Europe and North Africa creating many artworks.

He was also had involvements as Fellow of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales, president of the Watercolour Institute, and presenter of Young World of Art on ABC radio, 1970–73.

SOURCE:
Interview, 14 Jun 2018
Jocelyn Maughan, Patonga
Reporter: Elizabeth Green

Exhibition in Meadowbank: May 2018

Beach scene
Jocelyn Maughan – Inspirations: Black Head to Patonga
This exhibition acknowledges the extraordinary work and important contribution that Jocelyn Maughan has made to the college’s Fine Arts school, which she founded in 1966 and ran as senior head teacher for many years.

WHERE: See Street Gallery, See Street, Meadowbank
WHEN: 4 – 25 May 2018
Gallery open Tuesday to Friday 11am – 4pm
Free admission

Free gallery talk by Jonathan Cooper in conversation with the artist
Saturday, 12 May 2018, 2 – 3pm

Catalogue – Jocelyn Maughan: An Artist’s Survey

Catalogue contents for the exhibition Jocelyn Maughan: An Artist’s Survey, 23 July – 4 September 2016
(See photos of the exhibition)

tourists in front of cathedral

Siena, lookers and onlookers, 2012 (egg tempera on treated paper)

Foreword

Since Gosford Regional Gallery opened in April 2000, Jocelyn Maughan has been a constant supporter. She has regularly submitted artworks for the Gosford Art Prize and exhibited here with the Australian Watercolour Institute on many occasions.

In 2006 I curated Jocelyn’s major solo exhibition From Patonga. The works in that show focused on the fishing industry of Patonga, documenting the unique setting and community spirit of this beautiful part of the Central Coast.

Jocelyn has given countless artist talks and demonstrations for the Gallery over the years More recently she has also been involved in sponsoring About Face, a summer portrait prize held especially for young people, in the Community Gallery.

We were very eager to hold a survey exhibition for Gosford Regional Gallery which demonstrated the breadth of Jocelyn’s creative work and celebrated her achievements as a significant local artist.

This exhibition provides a glimpse of Jocelyn’s considerable oeuvre, highlighting important early works, recurring themes and showcasing her accomplishment across a diversity of materials.

Tim Braham
Team Leader, Gosford Regional Gallery

Woman in Tibet, 2005 (watercolour)

Woman in Tibet, 2005 (watercolour)

Jocelyn Maughan

self portrait

Self portrait at 17, oil on panel, 1956

Having demonstrated a talent for drawing at a very early age, Jocelyn Maughan began the 5-year art diploma course at East Sydney Technical College (“the Tech”) in 1954.

Maughan specialised in Fine Art Painting, which involved a major component of figure painting and drawing. Maughan was awarded the prestigious Robert Le Gay Brereton Prize for draughtsmanship, a prize she now supports for today’s art students. Under the tuition of Tom Thompson, Maughan delighted in the transparent tempera technique, and her major diploma work was a mural, which for many years occupied a major wall at the art school. Maughan graduated with an Honours Diploma in 1958.

The following two years Maughan was offered part-time teaching work at the Tech, and also as junior art teacher at Abbotsleigh School. She found a delight in teaching and, at the age of 21, she was invited to join the staff at the Tech and complete a course of teacher training. Thus began a teaching career of 34 years.

In 1966 she founded the highly regarded Meadowbank College of TAFE art school and became Senior Head Teacher.

Along with her career as a teacher, Maughan married, brought up two sons and continued with her own art. She undertook many portrait commissions and was a finalist in the Archibald Prize for portraiture many times. She won the Portia Geach Memorial Award in 1975. Other awards include the Margaret Fesq Memorial Art Prize and the Kedumba Drawing Award. In 1983 the Australian Watercolour Institute elected Maughan as an exhibiting member and her paintings have been included annually, both in Australia and overseas. Maughan is also a Fellow of the Royal Art Society.

Maughan enjoyed teaching with a passion, as she believed she could clarify art education from a practical aspect. Many former students still keep in touch and speak of the valuable skills and knowledge acquired.

mural

Mural at East Sydney Technical College

Observation and delineation

drawing of male nude

Student study

It is not only information that ‘informs’, but also how that information is structured. Through Jocelyn Maughan’s figure drawing in particular one can see that the way visual information is structured is fundamental to her artistic development, and to many of the subjects that she undertakes.

Drawing the nude was a major part of art training up to the 1960s and Maughan found that she had a facility for capturing movement and rhythm. As a child she always took a sketchbook to regular family beach excursions and delighted in the semi-clothed figures.

Whether it is a lino block print or a tempera panel for a mural or a compositional demonstration piece, the energy of the work starts with a vigorous grisaille – generally transparent black oil paint on a slippery, non-absorbent ground. The paint is workable for about three hours and, with sensitive wiping out, dabbing, scumbling, scratching and re-delineating, she is able to achieve a full tonal range. The grisaille method, used in past times by Rubens and Van Dyck, entices broad and bold generalisations and juxtapositions.

cricket game

Cricket match: grisaille

This exhibition includes landscapes, nudes and figure compositions, many of which started life as a grisaille drawing. As the artists shifts from grisaille to watercolour, tempera or oil paint, subtle changes are made to the composition. While the subject often remains the same, Maughan takes advantage of the chosen final medium, such as the fluid puddles of wet-into-wet watercolour, or the dry hatching required by the tempera technique. (This transformation is a little like having the same poem read first by, say, a Scotsman and then by a French demoiselle.)

Frank Hinder, one of Maughan’s mentors, who became a leader of Sydney’s modernist movement, gave his followers the example of taking an idea through the gamut of media: pencil, watercolour, tempera, oil and even electric-powered luminous kinetics.

An even earlier influence Maughan proudly confesses was a delight in lettering, She says her aesthetics finds its origins in her early parallel career as a signwriter and also as a teacher of classical letter design.

lettering

Another influence was a charismatic teacher, a New Zealand painter, illustrator and art critic, James (Jimmy) Cook. Cook had a way of simplifying the diversity of art history from the painter’s point of view. He also attracted as art students returned servicemen from World War II, via the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. Among these was Tom Thompson, who also became one of Maughan’s influential teachers. Others were Guy Warren, Tony Tuckson and Lindsay Churchland, who were among the first wave of post-war modernists in Australia.

Maughan was a very youthful 15-year-old when she first went to full-time art school. She just loved to draw, and wandered wide-eyed into the new world of philosophy and aesthetics.

Even earlier than this, Maughan’s list of influences were her parents: both had drawing skills that would be the envy of any trained diploma art student. Her mother, Kylie, attended the Malvern Art School, UK, under Principal Illingworth Varley, as a young person. Many of the precepts that Maughan still holds dear – such as ‘Learning to draw is learning to see’ and ‘There is no edge on a rounded form; every line continues beyond your view’ – originated from Varley’s teaching. Both parents encouraged Maughan to pursue an art career, a decision she has never regretted.

Maughan has an extraordinary ability to work quickly if needed, and thus is able to capture and summarise movement or to capture a likeness in a portrait. This skill is also useful in following a moving object such as an animal in a paddock or an elephant at the circus.

2 elephants

Elephants,’circus’study’

So much does she enjoy this facility that she often waylays visitors or passers-by to persuade them to sit for a free portrait.

Maughan has not sought fame through the commercial gallery system, instead delighting in art for its own sake. Many years were devoted to teaching, as well as to domestic life. However her own art ran a parallel existence and, as in childhood, a sketchbook always accompanied family outings.

Jocelyn Maughan’s good health and studio environment continues and expands her daily painting habits. Her greatest influence and inspiration in recent years has been her studio partner, artist Robin Norling.

List of works

1. Lookers and onlookers, Siena, oil sketch, 2013
2. Bird’s eye view, oil sketch, 2013
3. Duomo, Siena, bird’s eye view, watercolour, 2013
4. Archway, Siena, tempera on paper, 2013
5. Lookers and onlookers, tempera on paper, 2013
6. Fishermen of Patonga, tempera on gesso panel 2012
7. Patonga series, lino prints, 2014
8. Fishermen of Patonga, tempera on gesso panel, 2012
9. Collection of recent works, 2012-16
10. Fisherman Carl, grisaille oil on paper, 2008
11. The roots of time, watercolour, 1996
12. The Rock, pencil drawing, 2005
13. Sculpted tree, pencil drawing, 2006
14. Pine patterns, pencil drawing
15. Back Beach, grisaille oil on paper, 2010
16. Shell cascade, watercolour, 2014
17. Fractured reflections, watercolour
18. Central Railway, oil, 1997
19. The mill, watercolour, 2000
20. Circus friend, watercolour
21. A day in the paddock, pencil, 1993
22. Last day at the Show, pencil and watercolour, 1995,
23. Student life study, oil, 1957
24. Esther, oil on card, 1958
25. Jocelyn, self portrait age 17, oil on panel, 1956
26. Student life study, oil, 1957
27. Portrait of Gran, oil on panel, 1956
28. Workmen, just up the road, oil on card, 1955
29. Boots and all, watercolour, 2006
30. Street in Balmain, tempera on panel, 1957
31. Drawing for ‘Street in Balmain’, pen and wash, 1956
32. Dr John Yu, oil on canvas, 1997
33. Julie, oil on canvas, 2002
34. Chrissy, oil on canvas, 1995
35. Margaret, oil on canvas, 2002
36. Dr Brian Jarvie, oil on canvas, 2011
37. Robin, oil on canvas, 2011
38. Woman in Tibet, watercolour, 2005
39. Quick sketch from life, watercolour
40. Quick sketch from life, watercolour
41. Opera House series (5 works), pen, pencil & watercolour on paper, 1964

Exhibition 2016

Jocelyn Maughan, Siena, lookers and onlookers, oil study, 2012 (detail)

Jocelyn Maughan, Siena, lookers and onlookers, oil study, 2012 (detail)

Jocelyn Maughan: An Artist Survey

Gosford Regional Gallery
36 Webb St, East Gosford NSW
23 July – 4 September 2016

Jocelyn Maughan is a multidisciplinary artist and educator whose career spans over six decades. This exhibition is a celebration of Maughan’s artistic endeavours, showcasing her dedication to form and composition across a variety of mediums.

“I believe that nature is a marvellous resource awaiting an imaginative interpretation by the artist.” – Jocelyn Maughan.

View photos of the exhibition
See the catalogue