Ann Newmarch

This is The Gleeson Tapes and in this series we'll be delving deep into the archives to hear from some of Australia's most enduring and influential artists.

In the late 1970s, before the National Gallery of Australia opened its doors, the surrealist artist and writer James Gleeson set out across Australia with a tape recorder and a mission to build an oral history archive that captured the stories behind key works of art in the National Collection, told by the artists themselves.

Gleeson completed close to 100 interviews, letting the tape roll and the stories unfold from one artist to another.

In this episode, Gleeson visits Grace Crowley, one of the leading figures in modern art in Australia.

We meet Crowley in her late 80s, and as the tape starts recording, she takes us from her childhood memories in regional Australia to France, where she received on-the-ground training in modern European art.

Crowley also shares an endearing portrait of her relationships with the artists Anne Dengar, with whom she made the leap from Sydney to Paris in 1926, and Ralph Bolson, who was her close collaborator until his death in 1964.

Just seven months after Gleeson's visit, Crowley passed away at the age of 88, making this recording a poignant and final testimony from one of Australia's greatest modernists.

Oh, well, of course, I was born in the country.