Margaret Rose Preston (29 April 1875 – 28 May 1963) was an Australian painter, printmaker and writer on art who is regarded as one of Australia's leading modernists of the early 20th century. She was their first-born child; her sister Ethelwynne Lyle McPherson was born in 1877.

Art career

Traveling years (1904–1907; 1912)

After her mother died in 1903, Preston and Bessie Davidson

traveled to Europe, where they stayed from 1904 to 1907, with sojourns in Munich and Paris and shorter trips to Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, and Africa. with its geometric forms, muted palette, and stark lighting. Bill had a placid temperament that complemented Margaret Preston's assertive personality, and they were devoted to each other throughout their marriage. at the 1920 Royal Art Society Spring exhibition. In 1929 the trustees of what is now the Art Gallery of New South Wales commissioned Self portrait (1930) – the first such commission to a woman artist from the Gallery. In the 1930s, she joined the Anthropological Society of New South Wales.

Preston joined the Society of Artists and became a friend of its president, Sydney Ure Smith, the influential editor and publisher of Art in Australia, The Home, and Australia: National Journal.</blockquote>All told, she contributed several dozen articles on art to Ure Smith's publications as well as to the Society of Artists yearbooks. and Harbour Foreshore (1925). and The Bridge from the North Shore (1932). which are both views from Wyargine Point near Edwards Beach. and Children's Corner at the Zoo (1944–46)—are painted in a deliberately naive style, reflecting a then-current interest in children's art. Preston would probably have seen a 1939 Department of Education Gallery exhibition of children's art, and she would have been aware of Roger Fry's theories on creativity and learning in children. Japanese Submarine Exhibition offers a wry look at that paranoia and anti-Japanese sentiments of the war years in Australia. and Manly Pines (1953). Preston won a silver medal at the Exposition Internationale, Paris in 1937, and that year became a foundation member of, and exhibited with, Robert Menzies' anti-modernist organisation, the Australian Academy of Art.

Return to Mosman (1939–1963)

Following their seven years in Berowra, the Prestons returned to Mosman, where they would stay until Margaret Preston's death on 28 May 1963. Among their homes during this period were the former home of actress Nellie Stewart and the Hotel Mosman. Preston's later works built on the Aboriginal themes developed at Berowra, and her very last works had overtly religious themes, possibly in response to the Blake Prize instituted in 1951. and the National Gallery of Victoria.

In 2012, several works by Preston were included by curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev in documenta (13), Kassel, Germany.

In 2024, Geelong Gallery presented an exhibition examining the influence of ukiyo-e on Cressida Campbell and Preston. The exhibition took its lead from Geelong Gallery’s significant print holdings, chiefly Margaret Preston’s hand-coloured woodcut Fuchsia and balsam 1928 (purchased in 1982).

In 2025, works by Preston featured in the Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890-1940 exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

A Margaret Preston painting figures in “Raisins and Almonds”, S1:E5 of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2012).

See also

  • Australian art

References

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Further reading

  • Margaret Preston at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
  • Prints, 69 images by Margaret Preston, Prints and Printmaking, National Gallery of Australia