Elise Hawthorne               

Bursting on to the Australian art scene in the mid-1980s, award-winning artist Wendy Sharpe has gone on to stamp her mark in the art world as an artist of high regard, her work held to critical acclaim.  Wendy’s awards, major commissions, prizes, residencies and exhibitions are nearly too numerous to list. Her paintings housed in the collections of prestigious galleries, her works are highly collectable. It is important to note that she has won the prestigious Sir John Sulman Prize, the much coveted Archibald Prize and the Portia Geach Memorial Award. Wendy is currently a finalist in the 2019 Dobell Drawing Prize with her LADDERS TO THE SKY gouache artist folding book, to be exhibited at the National Art School Gallery Sydney from 28 March- 25 May. 

Not so much has been written about Wendy’s Jewish ancestry. She is the only child of British parents who immigrated to Australia as Ten Pound Poms in the 1950s, settling in Sydney’s northern beaches where Wendy grew up in the 60s and 70s. Wendy’s mother Marjorie Boasman was born in Yorkshire, she wasn’t Jewish, but Wendy’s much-loved father, writer and historian Alan Sharpe was of Russian Jewish heritage. He hailed from London’s East End; his parents were Ben Cohen and Elizabeth (known as Bessie) Cohen née Fishman. Sadly Ben died at a young age leaving Bessie a widow with two young boys Alan and Ronnie. Bessie found it tough bringing up her children in 1930s London, so subsequently Alan was looked after by a relative and Ronnie was sent to live in an orphanage while Bessie went out to work. Eventually, Bessie married Dave Shapavitch who changed his last name to Sharpe; hence Alan Cohen became Alan Sharpe. In the early 1900s, Wendy’s grandmother, Bessie Fishman’s Orthodox Jewish relatives fled the town of Kamenets-Podolski (now Kamianets-Posilsky), then part of Russia, now a city in western Ukraine. They were lucky to escape the pogroms, settling in London, alive yet doing it tough as refugees trying hard to survive in a foreign land. 

Kamianets-Posilsky has a dark history, apart from the early 20th century pogroms, it is the site of the August 1941 Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre where the Nazis murdered almost 30,000 Jews (~12,000 of local Jews and 18,000 Jews from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania). Wendy’s ancestors escape from their homeland is just one of many thousands if not millions of similar stories of chance survival or planned migration. No words can describe their bravery in the face of intense anti-semitism. Wendy is planning to visit Kamianets-Posilsky with her cousin Ruth Fishman in the latter half of the year to hopefully learn more about their family history. Wendy’s Jewish European ancestry is very much present in her everyday life; she has inherited her father’s dark eyes and his love of history, the arts – his intellectual pursuits. Indeed she looks very much like her grandfather Ben Cohen, in her own words she said, “my Jewish identity is very much a part of who I am.”

Wendy confesses to being a restless spirit, who loves to travel, often and to exotic places for artistic inspiration. With her partner artist Bernard Ollis, they live and work in Sydney and also in Paris, they have an apartment in Montmartre, where they live for part of each year. Wendy fell in love with Paris and all that is had to offer an artistic spirit such as hers after receiving the Dyason and Marten Bequest travelling scholarship and residency at the Cite Internationalé des Arts studio complex in Paris in the mid-1980s.

Bernard and Wendy’s joint exhibition ELSEWHERE: travels through Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Iran and Central Asia is touring regional NSW, showing in Dubbo and Port Macquarie in 2019 and Tamworth in 2020. With the 40th anniversary of Edward Said’s book Orientalism, Wendy and Bernard critically reflect on travel and drawing as creative practices to help them witness and understand each other. Wendy has upcoming exhibitions planned for Brisbane and Perth, and will once again enter a painting in the Archibald.

Wendy was part of a group of leading Australian artists that visited the WW1 battlefields of France and Belgium, the culminating exhibition, The SALIENT: Contemporary Artists at the Western Front ends in March 2020, now showing at the Bank Art Museum Moree, 5 March – 29 April, and then travelling to the Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre, 11 May – 30 June.

Wendy and Bernard’s next adventure means that they will be Artists-in-residence on travel company Chimu’s Arctic adventure, a charter cruise to the top of the world departing on June 23rd. In September, they will be taking part in Renaissance Tours’ South of France –  art, wine and music cruise where they will be leading the art segment of this trip of a lifetime. In October, Wendy will be travelling to Ethiopia with supporters of Hamlin Fistula Australia, drawing and painting their essential work with Ethiopian women, culminating in a fundraising exhibition in 2020.

Not everyone can be a successful artist, but many dream of trying their hand at drawing or painting. Wendy gives budding artists the following tips, “just start, don’t censor yourself, attend art classes, buy cheap paper and draw ten drawings and don’t care what they look like, you might not ever show anyone, but at least you’ve given it a try.”

For a change of pace, Wendy is collaborating with poet Kate Forsyth, creating beautiful images to accompany Kate’s words for a book coming out later in the year. Wendy says she still has much to achieve, including her dream of designing sets and costumes for the Australian Ballet or Opera Australia. She would be following in the footsteps of many great artists before her such as Sidney Nolan’s set and costume design for The Rite of Spring, 1962. I for one hope her dream comes true, Australia’s ballet and opera audiences could only be so lucky.

For more information visit: www.wendysharpe.com

Grandmother  Bessie used to sing a song from the old country, below is a snippet in Yiddish, Russian and English.

Vi iz dus geseleh? (Where is the Village?)

Yiddish: Vo iz der gass? Vo iz der hoyz? Vo iz di maidel ich hob lieb? Russian: Где эта улица, где этот дом, где эта девушка, что я влюблён? Где эта улица, где этот дом, где эта барышня, что я влюблён? English: Where is the street? Where is the house? Where is the girl I love?

This article was first published in JewishCare’s Keeping In Touch magazine www.jewishcare.com.au