Tick … tock
Greg Hansell

2004
pastel on canson paper
75 x 55 cm image, 107 x 84.5 cm framed

Description
Pastel painting in the realist style of a crowded corner of the schoolroom at Rouse Hill House & Farm. Inscribed in pastel, lower left: ‘HANSELL 04’; inscribed lower right: ‘Tick … Tock’.

Significance statement  
Rouse Hill was established by Richard and Elizabeth Rouse in 1813. For over 185 years, six generations of the family continously lived in the house. The estate comprises an 11-room, two-storey sandstone and brick building, Rouse family possessions and a collection of extraordinary farm- and out-buildings. Managed by the Historic Houses Trust (HHT), Rouse Hill estate forms one of the most complete and continuous historical records of the material culture of an early colonial family and its descendants.

Greg Hansell chose to paint the schoolroom as it was the centre of a wide range of social activities during its occupation by the Rouse and Terry families. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century the schoolroom was used to educate Nina and Kathleen Rouse and used as an informal sitting room. Most of the furniture depicted in the painting, including a burr walnut-cased harmonium, derives from this period.

History
The HHT purchased the work from the artist in 2004.

Maker biography
Born in 1949 in Goulburn, NSW, Greg Hansell trained at the St George Technical College between 1976 and 1980. He began painting full-time in 1980 in the traditionalist or realist school of Australian painting. His work is executed in what he describes as ‘earth pastels’ – handmade from rocks and clay without commercial pigments, binders or additives. He has taught pastel painting and conducted workshops for the last ten years including at the Royal Art Society Art School. Hansell is a fellow of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales and his paintings are represented in corporate and academic collections. He has been a finalist many times in the Archibald and Wynne prizes and Salon de Refuse and was awarded a Centenary of Federation medal in 2001 for services to community arts and Windsor Library.

Museum number
HHT2004/5

Image credit
Jenni Carter

Bibliography  
Germaine, Max, ‘Greg Hansell’, Artists and galleries of Australia, Boolarang Publications, Brisbane, 1984, p222
Hall, Michael, ‘From prehistory to the present in 200 years’, Country Life, October 1999, p111
Thornton, Caroline Rouse, Rouse Hill House and the Rouses, C R Thornton, Nedlands, WA, 1988