Grace Cossington Smith was part of the Post-Impressionist movement. Her work broke away from Australian Impressionism to show her own individual technique.
Smith’s main interest was color. “My chief interest I think has always been colour, but not flat crude colour, it must be colour within colour, it has to shine, light must be in it.” (Grace Cossington Smith) Smith used bright colors in her works and very rarely added dark shadows. She used expressive square brush stokes and left her colors unblended, layering the colors. The paintings she completed in later life were dominated by the color yellow.
The themes she painted include Sydney landscapes, still lifes, and interior views of her home. “All form – landscape, interiors, still life, flowers, animals, people – has an inarticulate grace and beauty; painting to me is expressing this form in colour – colour vibrant with light – but containing this other, silent quality which is unconscious, and belongs to all things created.” (Grace Cossington Smith) Smith’s early works prior to the 1930s depicted city life and public life, such as ballet and musical performances as well as moments capturing life during World War I and II. Her later life works focused on still lifes and private interior scenes of her personal home.