Margaret Preston

Aboriginal design, with Sturt's pea 1943
Masonite cut, printed in colour, hand-coloured in gouache on buff wove paper; unknown edition
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Purchased 1943

Preston’s ambition to create a national art was realised, in part, through her focus on native flora in still life paintings and prints, and through her engagement with, and appropriation of the imagery and designs of First Nations people (an engagement which existed simultaneously with her interest in diverse international cultures such as that of Japan).

Preston’s aspiration for a national art is visually expressed in works such as the early woodcut Anemones 1925, and Masonite cuts Aboriginal design, with Sturt’s pea 1943 and Waratah etc 1943. These Masonite cuts and stencil works of the late 1940s and early 1950s—materials and techniques adopted by the artist late in her career due to the physical demands of woodcutting—reveal her enduringly experimental approach to printmaking.