A humble artist of significant impact

Elisabeth’s career as an artist spans over 60 years, and she is considered among Australia’s most respected living artists. To this day she continues to create and exhibit. She is a multi-disciplinary artist and celebrated colourist painter, working within painting, printmaking, drawing and ceramics. Inspired by the Australian bush, and a sense of place and memory, these are ongoing themes in Cumming’s semi-abstract landscapes, interiors and still life paintings.

Elisabeth comes from a creative family (her father was an architect and her mother a teacher) and she was often surrounded by creative family and artist friends, as well as a home filled with artworks.

Elisabeth has shared that her years at Grammar were enjoyable and stimulating.

'I had some interesting, stimulating teachers and a number of good friends.'

After graduating from Girls Grammar in 1952, Elisabeth studied at the National Art School in Sydney where she is an esteemed alumna of 1957. In 1958 she won the prestigious NSW Travelling Scholarship and was based in Florence, Italy for the next decade.

In 2022, Elisabeth’s work was featured in the important exhibition Know My Name, Australian Woman Artists at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and exhibition that shone an often-neglected light on the role of women in the history of Australian art.

Elisabeth’s work was also the focus of an extensive and significant retrospective exhibition in 2023 entitled Radiance, The Art of Elisabeth Cummings, held at the National Art School, Sydney.

After her study and work in Europe, Elisabeth returned to Australia, and received a generous donation of land where she established a new artists’ community in Wedderburn in the early 1970’s.

Her studio in Wedderburn in Sydney’s south-west fringe remains her base to this day. While she sometimes travels to inspire new experiences and creative moments, her Wedderburn studio remains her artistic base and creative pulse point.

Elisabeth has always demonstrated the energy and motivation to follow her passions and explore her creative potential, no doubt fired from her formative childhood years when she was being influenced by people and places that allowed creative expression to thrive.

Elisabeth’s works are hung in Australia’s national and state art galleries and in numerous private collections including BGGS.