Grace Cossington Smith occupies a crucial place in Australian art of the twentieth century.

She was a resilient adherent of an aesthetic system many of her colleagues could not sustain. Cossington Smith produced some of the most intricate and elaborately executed images of her generation, investing even the smallest of her compositions with an implacable spirituality. A student of Dattilo-Rubbo, and a contemporary of Wakelin and de Maistre, she surpassed these figures both as a draughtsperson and a colourist. Her allegiance to Van Gogh and Cezanne, through enduring, did not inhibit her own highly distinctive manner.