Margaret Preston: Life and Artistic Career

Flashcards covering the biography, artistic shifts, and major influences on the career of Australian artist Margaret Preston.

Margaret Rose McPherson

The birth name of Margaret Preston, born in Port Adelaide, South Australia in 1875.

William Lister

A Sydney landscape painter with whom Margaret Preston trained for several months in 1888.

National Gallery of Victoria Art School

The institution where Preston enrolled in 1893 and studied for just over four years.

Adelaide School of Design

The school where Preston studied and taught in 1898 after returning to Adelaide following her father's death.

German aesthetic tradition

The influence on Preston's early artwork where subjects of the natural world were depicted in a true to life manner.

William Preston

A wealthy businessman whom Margaret married in 1919 after meeting him on a boat returning to Australia.

Mosman

The Sydney harbourside suburb where Margaret and William Preston settled in 1919.

Thea Proctor

A friend of Preston with whom she held her first major showing in Australia in 1925 in Melbourne and Sydney.

Chinese red lacquer frames

The specific type of frames used for all of Preston's prints in her 1925 exhibitions.

Berowra

A location on the upper reaches of the Hawkesbury River where Preston lived from 1932 to 1939, which sparked her interest in Aboriginal art.

Anthropological Society of New South Wales

The organization Preston joined in 1939 after returning to Sydney, reflecting her interest in Aboriginal sites and culture.

Macquarie Galleries

The Sydney gallery that hosted Preston's significant 1953 exhibition featuring 29 prints made using stenciling.

Stenciling

An ancient technique used by Preston for her most significant prints produced in 1953 at the age of 78.

Dreamtime

The creation stories of Aboriginal Australians that Preston combined with Chinese ideas in her prints during the 1950s.

Aboriginal rock engravings

The artifacts found near her property at Berowra that undoubtedly prompted Preston's lifelong interest in Aboriginal art.