She had her first show at 57. Today she's an art icon

There were no enchanted forests on the hills outside Canberra in 1943.

Subscribe now for unlimited access.

or signup to continue reading

Instead, when Rosalie Gascoigne moved to Mount Stromlo Observatory with her astronomer husband Ben, she found an isolated community that was "all air, all light, all space, all understatement".

Rosalie Gascoigne with Flight of parrots c1975, left, at Mount Taylor and, right, Metropolis, 1999. Pictures supplied

She would spend many lonely years up there, 17 in all and some without a car, bringing up three children and collecting pieces of the landscape.

Life was hard, but Gascoigne saw beauty and possibility all around her, thanks to her lifelong habit of collecting things - from scraps of corrugated iron to shells, driftwood, feathers, discarded enamel kitchenware and Arnott's biscuit boxes.

Rosalie Gascoigne with Flight of parrots c1975 at Mt Taylor. Picture supplied

By the late 1960s, when the family had moved to Deakin, she was collecting scrap metal and later, soft-drink crates.

The works she created would make her one of Australia's most significant artists, coming into her own in the 1970s, when the art world was opening up to new ways of thinking.

Gascoigne's first exhibition was in 1974 when she was 57 years old, and she didn't have her own studio until she was 66.

In 1982, she was the first woman artist to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale.

By then, her works were in several public collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of NSW.

A major new show at the National Gallery of Australia of more than 80 works is a surreal and serene journey through her life as an artist, from her earliest works and flower arranging - she had an intense phase of ikebana - to her later trippy arrangements of corrugated iron flecked with paint, yellow Schweppes boxes, road signs and rusting enamel.

Rosalie Gascoigne, Parrot morning, 1976

Gascoigne worked right up until her death in 1999, and her final works, including the major 10-panel installation Earth, are included in the show.

Incredibly, she had no artistic training, just a keen and playful eye for colour, texture and atmosphere.

Curator and head of Australian art Deborah Hart said Gascoigne was an artist who, despite no formal training, was able to master and transcend traditional art forms and appeal to contemporary audiences.

Rosalie Gascoigne, Metropolis, 1999

Born in New Zealand in 1917, Gascoigne had no connection to the art world before moving to Canberra.

"[It was] her love of collecting things as a young girl and a young woman," she said.

"Her love of poetry, her love of arranging things - she really didn't know what it would be to be an artist when she came here."

While her husband studied the stars, Gascoigne had her eyes firmly on the ground, and the vast vistas of early Canberra and its surroundings.

Rosalie Gascoigne, Feathered chairs, 1978

"Out of what was initially such hardship and isolation - she felt like a square peg in a round hole, and it was the crucible of her art for me," Dr Hart said.

The show traces her early days up the mountains of what was then just outside Canberra, and into the suburbs of Deakin and Pearce, and through to her later years of bold and vast installations, featuring retro-reflective road signs and weathered timber.

She learnt more about the art world in the 1970s when she met the NGA's founding director James Mollison, and read books featuring works by Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso.

"[Her son] Martin gives her a book on assemblage, and suddenly her work has a name," Dr Hart said.

Rosalie Gascoigne, Suddenly the Lake, 1995

"It's not like it's actually telling her what she should be doing, but it's affirming what she's already doing - this is a real pattern. She suddenly finds herself validated in this collecting of raw materials.

"And she goes, 'this is so exciting. I've found my place'.

"It's an Australian place, but it's also got an international resonance."

• Rosalie Gascoigne is showing at the National Gallery of Australia from October 24 to February 14. Entry is free.

More from Entertainment