• Entry type: Person
  • Entry ID: AWE0257

Preston, Margaret Rose

  • Birth name McPherson, Margaret Rose
(1875 – 1963)
  • Born 29 April 1875, Port Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
  • Died 28 May 1963, Mosman Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  • Occupation Artist

Summary

Margaret Preston was the first woman to be commissioned by the Art Gallery of New South Wales to produce a self-portrait. In 1996 one of her hand-coloured woodcuts of a Western Australian banksia from 1929 was commemorated on an Australia Day postage stamp.

Details

Margaret Rose Mcpherson studied in Melbourne and Adelaide before travelling overseas. In 1919 she married Bill Preston. As a successful teacher and exhibitor, she developed a reputation for her highly decorative and colourful paintings and woodcuts of Australian fauna and flora at a time when European flowers were still considered the norm for gardens and paintings.

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Archival resources

  • National Library of Australia, Manuscript Collection
    • Birth certificate and manuscript, 1875-[ca. 1924] [manuscript]

Published resources

  • Resource
  • Journal Article
    • Margaret Preston's Banksia Woodcut Memorialised, Butler, Roger, 1996
  • Book
    • 100 great Australians, Macklin, Robert, 1983
    • The Complete Book of Great Australian Women: Thirty-six women who changed the course of Australia, De Vries, Susanna, 2003
  • Edited Book
    • 200 Australian Women: A Redress Anthology, Radi, Heather, 1988
  • Site Exhibition

Related entries


  • Related Women
    • Bowen, Esther Gwendolyn (Stella) (1893 - 1947)
    • Rosman, Alice Trevenen (1882 - 1961)
  • Related Organisations
    • Fort Street Girls' High School (1911 - 1975)

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