Portrait of Ida

Max Meldrum
Australia
1875 – 1955

Portrait of Ida
c.1910
oil on canvas on board
Place made
France
Medium
oil on canvas on board
Dimensions
49.5 x 59.4 cm
Credit line
Gift of Joan Beer, Colin Cowan, John von Doussa AO QC, Diana Evans and Frances Gerard through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation Collectors Club 2010
Accession number
201010P32
Signature and date
Not signed. Not dated.
Media category
Painting
Collection area
Australian paintings
Copyright
Courtesy estate of the artist

  • Max Meldrum is notable for formulating an influential theory of perception and a painting system. When applied to the painting process, soft and dreamy atmospheric effects were created.

     

    These delicate qualities are evident in this formative work, painted at the end of Meldrum’s eleven years of investigations in France into the science of looking. Portrait of Ida depicts his first-born daughter, Ida (pronounced Ee-dá). She is positioned in a shallow space in front of a fashionable Japanese screen and looks directly at the viewer. It is an informal, yet intimate, portrait of his daughter at the tender age of four.

     

    Her direct gaze is symbolic of the focus of Meldrum’s life’s work. Until entering the Gallery’s collection, the painting remained in the possession of the Meldrum family – for 100 years. 

     

    Tracey Lock, Curator of Australian Paintings and Sculpture

  • [Book] AGSA 500.