Earth, Fire, Water, Air: Anne Dangar's Letters to Grace Crowley, 1930-1951

384 Pages·2002·2.68 MB·English

by  Helen Topliss

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Earth, Fire,
Water, Air
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Image rights unavailable
Anne Dangar in her studio, Moly-Sabata, c.1930s
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Earth, Fire,
Water, Air
Anne Dangar’s letters to Grace Crowley,
1930–1951
Edited by Helen Topliss
Allen & Unwin
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This book was undertaken to commemorate and perpetuate
Anne Dangar’s legacy
First published in 2000
Copyright © Helen Topliss 2000
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one
chapter or 10% of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied
by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that
the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a
remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
9 Atchison Street
St Leonards NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://www.allen-unwin.com.au
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Dangar, Anne, d. 1951.
Earth, fire, water, air: Anne Dangar’s letters to
Grace Crowley, 1930–1951.
Bibliography.
Includes index.
ISBN 1 86508 241 4.
1. Crowley, Grace, 1890–1979—Correspondence. 2. Dangar,
Anne, d. 1951—Correspondence. 3. Women artists—
Australia—Correspondence. 4. Women potters—France—
Sablons—Biography. I. Topliss, Helen, 1946– .
II. Crowley, Grace, 1890–1979. III. Title.
738.092
Set in 10.5/14 pt Granjon and 10.5/14 pt Cochin by Bookhouse, Sydney
Printed by South Wind Productions, Singapore
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Contents
Preface vii
Map x
Introduction 1
1 Sydney to Sablons, 1930–1931 33
2 Movement Towards the Centre, 1932–1933 63
3 Toujours les Choses Tournent, 1934–1938 114
4 Arabian Night Stories, 1939 167
5 Tormented Movements in Translation, 1940–1945 211
6 La Poterie Moly-Sabata, 1946–1949 251
7 ‘Life on Earth is a Passing Through Time’, 1949–1951 300
Epilogue 327
Personae 331
Glossary 344
Illustrations and Plates 351
Bibliography 353
Index 356
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Preface
This book represents a complete account of Anne Dangar’s life in
France from 1930–51. In editing the letters I have followed Dom
Angelico Surchamp’s example in his edition of Anne Dangar’s corre-
spondence by standardising syntax, leaving out repetitive passages and
making some corrections to spelling. However, I have retained Anne
Dangar’s idiosyncratic mode of expression and her penchant for excla-
mation marks. Wherever possible I have identified people that she writes
about and events that took place. There are also a number of gaps in
the correspondence through lost pages, the illegibility of letters written
on both sides of very fine paper and the occasional censorship of pass-
ages by Grace Crowley, the recipient of the letters. Grace Crowley also
carried out some editorial work by providing summaries of many of the
letters, writing comments directly on the text, and underlining passages.
The letters are copiously illustrated with images of pottery or other
objects that Dangar was describing to Grace Crowley, as well as many
diagrams illustrating Gleizes’ theories.
During the preparation of the manuscript I received a great deal of
help from people in France. I would like to thank Monsieur Philippe
Prache and Monsieur Petri at the Fondation Albert Gleizes in Paris for
allowing me to stay at Moly-Sabata, Sablons, and Dom Angelico
Surchamp for sharing his memories of Anne Dangar with me and being
a generous and congenial host at the Abbaye de la Pierre-Qui-Vire,
Saint-Léger Vauban where I stayed for three days. I interviewed a
number of people who had known Anne Dangar when they were
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viii Earth, Fire, Water, Air
children and my thanks go to the following: M. Louis Pegeron,
Mme Astier, Mme Gilka Geoffray-Beclu, Mme Geneviève Dalban,
Mme Martin Grimaud, M. and Mme Coste, M. Delhomme, Mme
Dalicieux, Mme Gamandon and Mme Buard. I would also like to thank
Jean-Jaques Dubernard, who took over M. Paquaud’s pottery (where
Anne Dangar worked for many years), for sharing information with
me; the mayor of Sablons, M. Andrieux and his wife who were both so
encouraging about my research; M. Claude Maillard, the artist-caretaker
of Moly, who spoke to me about Albert Gleizes and his wife Juliette
(née Roche); Mr Richard Brooke for showing me his manuscript on
Albert Gleizes; M. and Mme Maurice Grimaud who talked to me about
Dangar’s close friendship with their family; M. Jean Chevalier who
offered information about Gleizes and Dangar in the 1940s; and
M. Henri Giriat at the Fondation Albert Gleizes who reminisced about
his time at les Méjades with Albert Gleizes and Anne Dangar. I also
owe a great deal to Richard Rousseau, a resident potter working in Anne
Dangar’s old pottery at Moly-Sabata, who was enthusiastic about my
research from a potter’s point of view. It was Richard who first suggested
that I could stay at Moly and introduced me to a number of people in
the region. Without his generous help I would not have been able to
achieve all that I did within such a short space of time. In addition I
would like to thank my aunt Mme Héla Leneman for her hospitality
in Paris.
I also owe thanks to the Australian Research Council, which awarded
me a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship for three years to carry out
research on women artists and early modernism, and the Humanities
Research Centre at ANU, which afforded me the necessary support to
enable the completion of this work. I have a special debt to M. Laurent
de Gaulle of the French Embassy in Canberra, who secured a grant for
me to travel to central France so that I could conduct the last leg of the
research, and his colleague at the embassy M. Alain Monteil who made
possible a second trip to France to photograph Anne Dangar’s work for
this book. And to Mr Franco Belgiorno-Nettis of Transfield who was
most enthusiastic about my research and generously assisted my work
in France. Many thanks to Jim Koutsouris for his generosity and sup-
port for my project.
I am very grateful to Hilary McPhee for suggesting that I take this
difficult manuscript to Sophie Cunningham at Allen & Unwin, where
from the outset Hilary’s advice was confirmed by Sophie’s encourage-
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Preface ix
ment and optimism about this book. This book would never have seen
completion without the help, expertise and unfailing good humour of
its editor Jane Yule, who kept me at the task through all its permu-
tations. As always I owe a particular debt to my daughters Julia and
Maggie who have been encouraging, understanding, helpful and deter-
mined that I should complete this book; in particular Julia, who followed
my passion for Anne Dangar’s pottery all the way to France and took
the photographs for the book.
Helen Topliss
Melbourne 2000
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PARIS
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