SECCA is delighted to present Smart’s Labyrinth: A Portrait of the Artist Jeffrey Smart
Courtesy of the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia

A portrait of one of Australia’s most important post war painters, Jeffrey Smart. The film opens at Smart‘s enchanting villa at Urbino in Tuscany. He is embarking on a portrait of fellow painter Margaret Olley. We trace the progress of this painting throughout the film. He talks illuminatingly about his distinctive style and subject matter and the meaning behind it. We learn that although his paintings of lonely figures set in bleak industrial landscapes under dark brooding skies suggest early 21st century decay he, on the contrary, sees the post industrial society as a thing of great beauty. Smart drives through the urban Italian landscape searching for and finding a location to paint. He visits an ancient church in Tuscany where he reveals his fascination with Piero Della Francesca, he also visits Cezannes studio in the south of France where he pays homage to the ‘master’. The film concludes back in his studio where he completes the Olley painting and muses “everything has already been done by great and better men in the past and ‘there is only the trying’.

Thursday 30 January, 5.15pm - 6.15pm, FREE

A SECCA event hosted at the Bega Valley Commemorative Civic Centre. Food and drinks available for purchase.

This event is part of the SECCA Open Late program, explore the Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award 2024 after the screening.

Please book your free ticket at the link below or for more info email secca@begavalley.nsw.gov.au