Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University, 1979. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 235-251).

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of History, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Sydney, 2007. / Title from title screen (viewed 26 March 2008). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy to the Dept. of Art History and Theory, Faculty of Arts. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1983. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 21-23).

Thesis (Ed.D)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1990. / Includes appendices. Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Justin Schorr. Dissertation Committee: David S. Nateman. Bibliography: leaves 162-186.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Institute of Fine Arts, 1990. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, p. 213-231).

The purpose of this research was to investigate the past art experiences and the beliefs about ability to create art as held by beginning elementary generalist teachers, and the effects of those beliefs on art teaching. Constructivism as a learning theory formed the theoretical framework for this study. An investigation of the related literature explored the topics of ability to create art, elementary generalist teachers of art, beginning teachers, teachers' beliefs, preparation of art teachers, and beginning teachers' images of self as art teacher. The research, consisting of two phases, was conducted using a descriptive case study methodology. Phase one of the study consisted of using semi-structured interviews with eight elementary generalist teachers in order to determine their past art experiences and their beliefs about their ability to create art. Three of those participants formed the purposeful sample for phase two of the study which consisted of observations of five art lessons per participant, along with pre and post interviews. An extended final interview was conducted along with documentation examination and interviews with school personnel. The thesis which emerged from this study is that beliefs about ability to create art were formed from prior experiences with art, and that beliefs about an ability to create art affected the art teaching practice of the participants. The participants believed that they do not have an ability to create art and do not have the natural talent required to be an artist. These beliefs, along with their limited background in art, lack of subject matter knowledge in art, and their status as beginning teachers adversely affected their art teaching practice. This study revealed eight specific connections between beginning teachers' beliefs about their ability to create art and their art teaching practice. Insights into these beliefs about art making and their connections to art teaching suggest important implications. Noteworthy among these implications are the need for teacher education programs to provide for personal art making skill development and the need for schools to provide support and accountability within art education for beginning teachers.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the past art experiences and the beliefs about ability to create art as held by beginning elementary generalist teachers, and the effects of those beliefs on art teaching. Constructivism as a learning theory formed the theoretical framework for this study. An investigation of the related literature explored the topics of ability to create art, elementary generalist teachers of art, beginning teachers, teachers' beliefs, preparation of art teachers, and beginning teachers' images of self as art teacher. The research, consisting of two phases, was conducted using a descriptive case study methodology. Phase one of the study consisted of using semi-structured interviews with eight elementary generalist teachers in order to determine their past art experiences and their beliefs about their ability to create art. Three of those participants formed the purposeful sample for phase two of the study which consisted of observations of five art lessons per participant, along with pre and post interviews. An extended final interview was conducted along with documentation examination and interviews with school personnel. The thesis which emerged from this study is that beliefs about ability to create art were formed from prior experiences with art, and that beliefs about an ability to create art affected the art teaching practice of the participants. The participants believed that they do not have an ability to create art and do not have the natural talent required to be an artist. These beliefs, along with their limited background in art, lack of subject matter knowledge in art, and their status as beginning teachers adversely affected their art teaching practice. This study revealed eight specific connections between beginning teachers' beliefs about their ability to create art and their art teaching practice. Insights into these beliefs about art making and their connections to art teaching suggest important implications. Noteworthy among these implications are the need for teacher education programs to provide for personal art making skill development and the need for schools to provide support and accountability within art education for beginning teachers. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Master of Philosophy / Grace Crowley was one of the leading innovators of geometric abstraction in Australia. When she returned to Australia in 1930 she had thoroughly mastered the complex mathematics and geometry of the golden section and dynamic symmetry that had become one of the frameworks for modernism. Crowley, Anne Dangar and Dorrit Black all studied under the foremost teacher of modernism in Paris, André Lhote. Crowley not only taught the golden section and dynamic symmetry to Rah Fizelle, Ralph Balson and students of the Crowley-Fizelle Art School, but used it to develop her own abstract art during the 1940s and 1950s, well in advance of the arrival of colour-field painting to Australia in the 1960s. Through her teaching at the most progressive modern art school in Sydney in the 1930s Crowley taught the basic compositional techniques as she had learnt them from Lhote. When the art school closed in 1937 she worked in partnership with fellow artist, Ralph Balson as they developed their art into constructive, abstract paintings. Balson has been credited with being the most influential painter in the development of geometric abstraction in Australia for a younger generation of artists. This is largely due to Crowley’s insistence that Balson was the major innovator who led her into abstraction. She consistently refused to take credit for her own role in their artistic partnership. My research indicates that there were a number of factors that strongly influenced Crowley to support Balson and deny her own role. Her archives contain sensitive records of the breakup of her partnership with Rah Fizelle and the closure of the Crowley-Fizelle Art School. These, and other archival material, indicate that Fizelle’s inability to master and teach the golden section and dynamic symmetry, and Crowley’s greater popularity as a teacher, was the real cause of the closure of the School. Crowley left notes in her Archives that she still felt deeply distressed, even forty years after the events, and did not wish the circumstances of the closure known in her lifetime. With the closure of the Art School and her close friend Dangar living in France, her friendship with Balson offered a way forward. This thesis argues that Crowley chose to conceal her considerable mathematical and geometric ability, rather than risk losing another friend and artistic partner in a similar way to the breakup of the partnership with Fizelle. With the death of her father in this period, she needed to spend much time caring for her mother and that left her little time for painting. She later also said she felt that a man had a better chance of gaining acceptance as an artist, but it is equally true that, without Dangar, she had no-one to give her support or encourage her as an artist. By supporting Balson she was able to provide him with a place to work in her studio and had a friend with whom she could share her own passion for art, as she had done with Dangar. During her long friendship with Balson, she painted with him and gave him opportunities to develop his talents, which he could not have accessed without her. She taught him, by discreet practical demonstration the principles she had learnt from Lhote about composition. He had only attended the sketch club associated with the Crowley- Fizelle Art School. Together they discussed and planned their paintings from the late 1930s and worked together on abstract paintings until the mid-1950s when, in his retirement from house-painting, she provided him with a quiet, secluded place in which to paint and experiment with new techniques. With her own artistic contacts in France, she gained him international recognition as an abstract painter and his own solo exhibition in a leading Paris art gallery. After his death in 1964, she continued to promote his art to curators and researchers, recording his life and art for posterity. The artist with whom she studied modernism in Paris, Anne Dangar, also received her lifelong support and promotion. In the last decade of her life Crowley provided detailed information to curators and art historians on the lives of both her friends, Dangar and Balson, meticulously keeping accurate records of theirs and her own life devoted to art. In her latter years she arranged to deposit these records in public institutions, thus becoming a contributor to Australian art history. As a result of this foresight, the stories of both her friends, Balson and Dangar, have since become a record of Australian art history. (PLEASE NOTE: Some illustrations in this thesis have been removed due to copyright restrictions, but may be consulted in the print version held in the Fisher Library, University of Sydney. APPENDIX 1 gratefully supplied from the Grace Crowley Archives, Art Gallery of New South Wales Research Library)