Lot 18

In good condition with no visible signs of repair or damage, light buckling to paper, unexamined out of frame
(65.2 x 56.2cm framed)


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The Artist
Private collection, Murrumbeena
Thence by descent

Exhibition of etchings, woodcuts, etc. by Margaret Preston (and others), The Sedon Galleries, Melbourne, 12 September 1933, no. 10 (another impression)

Butler, R, The Prints of Margaret Preston: A Catalogue Raisonné, Australian National Gallery, Canberra and Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1987, p. 168.
Butler, R, The Prints of Margaret Preston: A Catalogue Raisonné, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 2005, p. 178, no. 173 (another impression illustrated)

"Australian artists must feel inherently the difference between their land and that of others ... the tremendous difference in our flowers ... so our treatment of our flora must be different. If it isn't then it is merely copy and repetition." (Margaret Preston, early 1940s) (1)

Brimming with delicately hand-coloured Australian native flowers; this substantial woodblock print is unmistakably the work of renowned Australian artist Margaret Preston. The vibrantly colourful bouquet tells of a love affair with the Australian bush from the banksia to the kangaroo paw, the coral flower, and the wattle.

In 1932 Preston together with her husband Bill moved to Berowra, NSW, where they purchased a property of fourteen-acres, well hidden from passing traffic by extensive bushland. Previously while Preston had been living in Sydney she would purchase native flowers at florists or was given specimens from her friend TGB Osborn, Professor of Botany at Sydney University. However, the garden at Berowra allowed her to find the subjects for her still-life paintings and prints in her own backyard. It is possible this composition was constructed during her first two years in Berowra, given the first recorded edition of this print was exhibited in 1933 at Sedon Galleries in Melbourne which was the major outlet for Preston's work during the early 1930s. (2)

In August 1939 the Prestons sold their house in Berowra and returned to Sydney to live in the former home of actress Nellie Stewart at 14 Thompson Street, Clifton Gardens. This is the address handwritten by Preston on the original framing label for the present lot and we can assume from this that the artwork was likely printed during the time Preston lived at this address before moving to the Hotel Mosman.

It was not unusual for Preston to print a later edition of her work; as Roger Butler notes in the catalogue raisonné: "Preston probably always printed on demand, occasionally indicating the limit of the edition […] After 1930 it is probable that only one or two impressions of each print were made." (3) Only two other editions of this print are known, one in the collection of the Newcastle Regional Art Gallery and the other in the collection of the University of Queensland Art Gallery.

Madeleine Norton / Senior Fine Art Specialist

(1) Edwards, D, Margaret Preston, Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2005, p 151
(2) Butler, R, The Prints of Margaret Preston: A Catalogue Raisonné, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 2005
(3) Butler, The Prints of Margaret Preston: A Catalogue Raisonné, p 71

RELATED WORKS:
Two other impressions of this print are known to be in existence, one in the Newcastle Regional Art Gallery and the other in the University of Queensland Art Gallery.

© Margaret Preston/Copyright Agency, 2022