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_Margaret Preston _
By: Tanya B
Margaret Rose Preston (nee Macpherson) 1875 1963 &.. her restless
temperament has discovered new themes, new colour arrangements, new sources of
design-& Her colour sence is unerring: sparsely added to form, or rich and
harmonious. She never repears a motive, and her art, original and beautiful,
is a complete expression of personality. Lionel Lindsay, Addled Art, (1942),
p.51. Her life& Born in 1875 in Adelaide, South Australia. According to her
own account, Margaret Rose Macpherson decided to become a painter when, aged
twelve, she liked the smell of the floor polish in the New South Wales
National Gallery. Margaret studied art in Sydney under W. Lister Lister, at
the National Gallery School, Melbourne, and at the Adelaide School of Design.
Shared second prize for painting in 1897. Took pupils of her own to support
herself and save up for a study tour of Europe. In 1904 she went to Munich to
attend the Government Art School for Women, going to Paris where she studied
at the Musee Guimet and exhibited still lifes. After a brief return to
Adelaide in 1907 she left again for Europe. After the outbreak of war in 1914,
Margaret, with good friend Gladys Reynall, took lessons in pottery making at
the London Polytechnic so that they could teach shell-shocked soldiers in the
Seale-Hayne Military Neurological Hospital, Devonshire, where Reynells
brother was working as a surgeon. In 1919, after returning to Australia by way
of North America, she married William George Preston, a businessman, and
settled in Sydney. The couple traveled extensively throughout Australia, the
Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Pacific Islands. Although well known for
her decorative still lifes, she was also a skilful wood engraver and linocut
printer. Her woodcut and linocut prints featuring Australian native plants
have become very popular in recent years. A writer and lecturer of art, she
was a champion of and influenced by Aboriginal bark paintings. She was a
member of the Society of Artists, the Australian Art Association and the
Contemporary Group, Sydney. At the Paris International Exhibition in 1937 she
was awarded a silver medal. Influenced by other famous painters of the time
like Cezanne as the greatest of the Moderns; Picasso as the greatest living
Modern; and Matisse and Gaugin for their use of colour. Like Cezanne and
Picasso, she tried to solve problems. She did not paint objects with borrowed
techniques, whether old or new, Modernist or traditional. She was very well
regarded in the 1910s and 20s for how well she could work within the earlier
tradition, then she was an innovator as a Modernist. Then in the later 30s and
particularly right through the 40s she came to gradually learn more and more
about Aboriginal culture. She died in Sydney, 28th May 1963.
Word Count: 461
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