Margaret Rose Preston :: Essays Papers

Margaret Rose Preston1875 1963 .. her unquiet 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, authorized and beautiful, is a complete expression of personality.Lionel Lindsay, Addled blind, (1942), p.51.Her lifeBorn in 1875 in Adelaide, South Australia.According to her own account, Margaret Rose Macpherson decided to set about a painter when, aged twelve, she wantd the smell of the floor review in the New South Wales National Gallery.Margaret studied art in Sydney under W. Lister Lister, at the National Gallery teach, Melbourne, and at the Adelaide School of Design. Shared second prize for painting in 1897.Took pupils of her own to offer herself and save up for a study tour of Europe.In 1904 she went to Munich to witness the Government Art School for Women, going to Paris where she studied at the M calle Guimet and ex hibited still lifes. After a brief return to Adelaide in 1907 she left hand again for Europe.After the outbreak of war in 1914, Margaret, with good helpmate 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 work as a surgeon.In 1919, after returning to Australia by personal manner 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 know 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.