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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.
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.
Sources used to compile this entry: Butler, Roger, 'Margaret Preston's Banksia Woodcut Memorialised', Australian Garden History, vol. 8, no. 3, 1996, p. 28.
Anne Heywood
Created: 30 January 2002, Last modified: 27 April 2009
http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE0257b.htm
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