Margaret Preston

Black swans, Wallis Lake, NSW 1923
woodcut, printed in black ink, from one block; undesignated impression
National Gallery of Australia
Purchased 1973

In what could be described as a form of cross-cultural reciprocity Preston also applied an Australian lens to the material culture of Japan. For example, in this work Preston takes inspiration from Japanese artist Kōyetsu’s carved wood panel depicting wild geese: a seventeenth century work reproduced in her copy of Marcus B Huish’s publication Japan and its Art, 1912.

In Preston’s black and white woodblock print, Kōyetsu’s wild geese are transformed into black swans of the north coast of New South Wales.