A new exhibition dedicated to the artist Margaret Preston has opened at the National Gallery of Victoria, marking the first time the institution has hosted a show solely focused on her work in more than 20 years.
National Gallery of Victoria Launches Major Margaret Preston Retrospective
The retrospective features over 200 works by Preston, alongside pieces by her peers and contemporary artists who have responded to her legacy. Among the collection are three long-lost paintings that the gallery successfully tracked down through a public appeal. The exhibition takes visitors on a loosely chronological journey examining the artist’s life, career, and her lifelong ambition to define a unique national aesthetic.
Early Life, Training, and European Influences
Born Margaret Rose McPherson in Port Adelaide in 1875, Preston moved with her family to Sydney before relocating to Melbourne as a teenager so she could enrol in the National Gallery of Victoria Art School. During her student days, her self-assurance was already apparent; artist Hans Heysen later recalled her positioning herself directly in front of a model during a life-drawing class, much to the irritation of her male peers.
Preston’s career was shaped by formative trips to Europe, including visits from 1904 to 1906 and from 1912 to 1919. Exposure to cities like London and Paris introduced her to modernism, Fauvism, post-impressionism, and the Arts and Crafts movement. Upon returning to Australia, she incorporated these international techniques into her practice, became a local authority on woodblock printmaking, and published essays advocating for an Australian artistic style. Her devotion to still life painting also set her apart during an era when landscape painting was widely regarded as the pinnacle of Australian artistic achievement.
Focus on Native Flora and the Hawkesbury Region
Preston became well known for capturing local flora and urban scenes, such as her striking Sydney cityscapes. In her still lifes, she frequently depicted vases filled with native plants, including bell-shaped gumnuts, silvery eucalyptus leaves, and bristly banksias, convincing the public that Australian native flowers were equal in beauty to any exotic species.
From 1932 to 1939, Preston and her husband William lived at Berowra on the Hawkesbury River, where she was surrounded by bushland rather than purchasing flowers from local florists. While living there, she was prompted by local Aboriginal rock engravings to develop a lifelong interest in Aboriginal art. After returning to Sydney in 1939, she joined the Anthropological Society of New South Wales and visited important Aboriginal sites across Australia.
Exploring the Complex Legacy of Indigenous Appropriation
The exhibition navigates the complexities of what Preston wanted her work to be, what it ultimately became, and why her legacy remains both beloved and contested today. In her striving for a singular Australian aesthetic, she engaged in what is now her most contentious practice: the appropriation of Indigenous art.
During an era when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art was frequently dismissed as tourist curios or relegated to ethnographic museums rather than art galleries, Preston’s vocal admiration was unusual. However, as noted in the exhibition, she specifically asked people to disregard the spiritual, cultural, or ceremonial significance of the art. By divorcing Aboriginal works from their original context and inserting elements into her own paintings, she flattened and assimilated hundreds of Indigenous cultures into her nationalist project.
