From Australia’s Jewish Past: Sara Levi – renowned flower and landscape artist
Sara Levi was an Australian artist who was born in 1870. She was a flower and landscape painter.
Sara Levi
She was the eldest daughter of Alfred and Rachel Levi, who were founding members of Melbourne’s Jewish Community and lived in St Kilda for many years.
She studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne from 1893 to 1898, as well as with Emanuel Phillips Fox – an Australian impressionist painter who spent much of his life in Paris.
Many of Sara’s landscapes were painted in Melbourne’s suburban parks and beaches. Brighton Beach, together with Fitzroy Gardens, Richmond Park, (now a golf course and freeway) and the Yarra River, were some of her favourite places to paint.
Sara later became a member of the National Gallery’s Past Students’ Association, as well as of the Australian Institute of Arts and Literature, the Victorian Artists’ Society, and the Women’s Art Club of Melbourne (later the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors). Sara also exhibited with the Australian Natives Association and was awarded a gold medal in one of their competitions. She showed paintings at the Women’s Work Exhibition in Melbourne in 1907, and with the Yarra Sculptors’ Society from 1898, the Art Society of Tasmania, the Bendigo Art Society, and in Adelaide and Sydney and continued to exhibit her work until the late 1930s.
Her mature work was very typical of Melbourne paintings made under the dual influence of the National Gallery of Victoria’s treasured Bent Tree by Camille Corot and the tonal theories of the contemporary artist Max Meldrum – a Scottish-born Australian artist and art teacher, best known as the founder of Australian tonalism, a representational painting style that became popular in Melbourne during the interwar period.
He also won fame for his portrait work, winning the prestigious Archibald Prize for portraiture in 1939 and 1940. His influence is evident in Sara’s style in her use of strong colour and vague form. There were many comparable visual artists at the time, but Sara’s work was regularly highly praised. One critic observed that her work was ‘ambitious in colour contrast, but unobservant in its form’. Another praised the manner ‘in which the tone relations are exceptionally just in their balance’.
Chrysanthemums
A book written by Leon Caetoni and published by Edward A Vidler called The Art of Sara Levi in 1922. It was noted as one of the first books devoted to the work of an Australian female artist. Edward Vidler considered Sara to be very successful in painting wattle – that of the Cootamundra Wattle. Sara’s work was described in Trove on 22 December 1922 as ‘a choice example that has caught the grace and charm of our national flower. The article went on to say that Sara had caught what so few Australian painters of this subject have been unable to catch, viz, the spirit and sentiment of the floral masses. The Melbourne “Argus”, critic said ‘’it is a choice example – quite a poem – that has caught the grace and charm of our national flower. Her chrysanthemums and her delightful oil paintings have concentrated on work by local artists and authors in an attempt to popularise Australian art.
Examples of this artist’s work include landscapes, seascapes and flowers. She has caught what so few of our Australian painters on this subject have been unable to catch, viz., the spirit and sentiment of the floral masses. Her chrysanthemums and her delightful oil painting of “Roses”, are two pictures that would delight the eye of an art connoisseur. Of the others, Twickenham Ferry and Reflections are – deserving of special mention. The lighting in each case is managed with more than ordinary consistency and the tone relations are exceptional in their balance. We feel sure that with further experience and with that patient devotion to her art which has characterised her so far, Miss Levi will go very far in the art world.”
After living with relatives in Armadale for several years, Sara died suddenly in a Malvern hospital on 16 October 1942. She was buried in St Kilda Cemetery with funds bequeathed for a scholarship. Sara’s work has been offered at auction multiple times.
The AJHS acknowledges the following references in the preparation of this story:-
Australian Art Sales Digest; Trove, Deakin University, Dictionary of Australian Artists on Line
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