Dorothy Mary Braund (1926–2013) was an Australian post-war figuration and contemporary feminist artist, whose practice included painting, printmaking and teaching.
[1] Braund's extensive career was instrumental in contributing to the Modernist art scene, along with a generation of significant women artists including: Mary Macqueen, Barbara Brash, Anne Marie Graham, Constance Stokes, Anne Montgomery (artist) and Nancy Grant.
[6] As an infant she made marks with a gold bangle in overlapping rhythms making large circular patterns on the white kalsomined wall next to her cot.
[8] Braund discovered a magazine photograph of an American sculpture of a woman washing her hair, which she cut out and stuck in her homework book as the first influence of complete simplicity.
[5] The painter Louise Fairley, a friend of her aunt Isabel Tweedle, recommended that Braund attend The George Bell School in 1943 to study art.
[7] From 1945 to 1949 Braund studied at the National Gallery School under the instructors William Dargie, Murray Griffin and Alan Sumner.
[1] Her efforts enabled her to be chosen by Sumner who sent Braund and other students to the George Bell School for extra study and to learn to draw quickly.
[8] While studying at the National Gallery School, Braund and another student named Judy Hunter exhibited modernist works in 1943 with the Contemporary Art Society (CAS).
[15] She travelled to Greece three times as she was motivated by the simplicity of colour and shapes, finding it the perfect setting for her painting style.
[5] They travelled on a freighter Chadraka and took a Kombi van on board, subsequently driving from Karachi through Pakistan, Iran and Turkey.
[1] Braund's residence changed multiple times over the years; she lived in Asia, India, Greece, England and Australia.
[15] Many of the themes in Braund's work drew on familiar everyday experiences and social activities such as public rituals of the Australian beach.
[18] Braund's artworks often illustrate scenes of intimate lovers, parents with children, relationships between individuals and groups expressed through articulations of form and shape of the human body.
[18] Braund's work focused on form and design as the main expression, characterised by rhythmic line tension, close colour harmony, tone, shape and reduction of the object.
[19] In the 1940s and 50s, Braund rejected the national Romanticism of Australian art and wanted to convey emotion through observation and perception of line and form and representations of the familiar and mundane.
[1] Braund's Bali paintings were inspired by the sense of relationship, sympathy, compassion and tenderness of kids constantly with their fathers.
"[21] She also reflected on her oil painting 'Ruffled Jumper,' 'I got sick of my boring heads which always look like eggs so to avoid the issue I put a hat on the child.
[25] In 1950, Braund exhibited in a group show together with 20 other painters including Alan Sumner, George Bell, William Frater, Roger Kemp, Arthur Boyd and others, at the opening of the new Stanley Coe Gallery.
[15] In 1952, she was included in the Victorian Artists Society Spring Exhibition and received a review by Alan Warren who states, "With its almost savage brightness and sound patterns, Dorothy Braund's composition shows a definite maturing of a very personal style.
"[12] In 1955 The Age review on the George Bell Group at Peter Bray Gallery commented on Braund's work, "…a joyous feminine expression.
[14] In 1964 at Leveson Street Gallery, Bernard Smith reviewed Braund's work, "Lively, personal style in which a classical feeling for form is linked with a shrewd and civilised eye for the bizarre and comical" and "there are one or two paintings which are masterly in their own way.
[1] Braund's work has been offered at auction multiple times, realising prices ranging from US$214 to US$20,935, depending on the size and medium of the artwork.