Nancye Kent Perry, Vault, Melbourne, Collins Street, City Square, 1981
Summary
The Art and Heritage Collection holds two oil landscapes by artist Nancye Kent-Perry (1918–2011), donated by the artist in 2008. Both titled 'Vault Melbourne from Memory', the paintings, made in 1981, show the urban landscape of City Square over which Ron Robertson-Swann's 'Vault' presides. The abstract yellow sculpture is a stark intervention into a space of low light, long shadows and soft twilight colour – an alien interloper, perhaps, towering over the tiny human figures. Kent-Perry's title indicates that the works were done from memory, and 'Vault' is indeed but a memory in City Square. The sculpture proved so unpopular with the public that it was moved to Batman Park just a year after its unveiling; since 2002 it has been located outside the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art on Sturt Street, Southbank.
The Killara-born Kent-Perry came to painting relatively late. Having a fascination with insects, she studied to become an entomologist, graduating in 1945, and then building her research career over the next decade in the United Kingdom and Australia. She was employed by the Australian Commonwealth Health Department when she married Warren Perry in 1957, this compelling her to resign due to government policy prohibiting married women from permanent employment. In the late 1960s, Kent-Perry discovered her talent for painting, taking classes and working in both oil and watercolour. She exhibited her work and was a member of the Victorian Artist's Society.
