Margaret Preston

Bio

Margaret Rose Preston (1875–1963) was one of Australia’s most significant painters and a key figure in the development of modern art in Sydney from the 1920s to the 1950s. Preston championed a distinctly Australian style that was at times controversially based on elements of modernist, Aboriginal and Asian art. Born in Adelaide, Preston went on to study at the National Gallery of Victoria school from 1893–94 and 1896–97, and then at the Adelaide School of Design in 1898. Her first relationship was with artist Bessie Davidson, a former pupil, and the pair travelled and studied in Europe together extensively for several years before returning to Adelaide and leasing a studio together in 1907.

After their relationship ended, Preston went back to France and Brittany in 1912 with her ‘intimate companion’, the artist and potter Gladys Reynell, whom she had also taught in Adelaide. It was on her return to Australia in 1919 that she met her future husband, William George Preston, and the pair were married later the same year. Settling in Sydney, Preston worked on her now well-known still life paintings that resonate with the avant-garde art in Europe, characterised by bold geometric shapes and black outlines. Preston would go on to travel extensively throughout the Pacific, Asia, India and Africa where she gained an interest in non-European art and culture. These styles and motifs were incorporated into her paintings as she sought to create a visual language that engaged Australia’s place within the Asia Pacific region.