Title
Western Australian gum blossom
1928
Artist
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Details
- Date
- 1928
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 55.0 x 44.7 cm sight; 55.3 x 46.0 cm stretcher; 68.4 x 58.1 x 4.0 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.r., pencil "1928 Margaret Preston".
- Credit
- Purchased 1978
- Location
- South Building, ground level, 20th-century galleries
- Accession number
- 93.1978
- Copyright
- © Margaret Rose Preston Estate/Copyright Agency
- Artist information
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Margaret Preston
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
'Western Australian gum blossom' is one of a group of paintings by Margaret Preston from the late 1920s, remarkable for their simplicity of design and restrained use of colour. Preston believed that the best subjects for modern art were to be found in everyday life. This, combined with her commitment to a peculiarly 'national art', encouraged her use of Australian native flowers, whose distinctive shapes and colours could be ably expressed in her tightly structured still lifes. The dark outlines and flattened, simplified forms echo the woodcuts she was making at the time.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 9 exhibitions
Favourites: Margaret Olley and Barry Humphries choose from Australian collections (2000), S.H. Ervin Gallery, The Rocks, 15 Jan 2000–27 Feb 2000
Australian icons: twenty artists from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 04 Aug 2000–03 Dec 2000
Margaret Preston in Mosman, Mosman Art Gallery, Mosman, 07 Sep 2002–13 Oct 2002
Margaret Preston retrospective, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 29 Jul 2005–23 Oct 2005
Margaret Preston retrospective, Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Melbourne, 12 Nov 2005–29 Jan 2006
Margaret Preston retrospective, Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane, 18 Feb 2006–07 May 2006
Margaret Preston retrospective, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 26 May 2006–13 Aug 2006
Australian modern masterpieces from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Ballarat, 05 Oct 2011–27 Nov 2011
Australian modern masterpieces from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle, 10 Dec 2011–04 Mar 2012
dOCUMENTA (13), Documenta, Kassel, 09 Jun 2012–16 Sep 2012
Sydney Moderns, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 06 Jul 2013–07 Oct 2013
O'Keeffe, Preston, Cossington Smith: Making Modernism, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 12 Oct 2016–19 Feb 2017
O'Keeffe, Preston, Cossington Smith: Making Modernism, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 11 Mar 2017–11 Jun 2017
O'Keeffe, Preston, Cossington Smith: Making Modernism, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 01 Jul 2017–02 Oct 2017
20th-Century galleries, ground level (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
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Bibliography
Referenced in 26 publications
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Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales annual report 2006, Sydney, 2006, 6 (colour illus.).
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Elizabeth Butel, Margaret Preston: the art of constant rearrangement, Ringwood, 1985, 34, 39 (colour illus.), 85. cat.no. O.8
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Elizabeth Butel, Margaret Preston: the art of constant rearrangement, Ringwood, 1985, 39 (colour illus.), 85, 86. cat.no. O.8
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Katrina Cashman, Margaret Preston in Mosman, Mosman, 2002. not paginated
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Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (Curator), dOCUMENTA (13): the book of books, 'Participants, biographies, and exhibited objects and works', pg. 674-725, Ostfildern, 2012, 712.
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Chris Deutscher, Australian modern masters and 19th & 20th century Australian and International Fine Art: Fine Art auction 3 & 4 May 2000, Melbourne, 2000, 98. reference to work in association with lot 61 'Australian gum blossom' painted in 1929; colour illus. of lot 61 on pg. 99
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Rob Ditessa, Artist's palette, 'Icons on show', pg. 54-59, Sydney, 2000, 58 (colour illus.).
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Mary Eagle, Australian Modern Painting Between the Wars 1914-1939, Sydney, 1989, 84.
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Deborah Edwards, Margaret Preston, 'Transitions 1920s', pg. 61-150, Sydney, 2005, 127, 128, front dust jacket (colour illus., detail), 129 (colour illus.).
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Deborah Edwards, Art and Australia (Vol. 43, No. 1), 'Margaret Preston', pg. 103-107, Sydney, Sep 2005-Nov 2005, 104 (colour illus.), 105.
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Deborah Edwards, Australian art: in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 'Moderns', pg. 103-104, Sydney, 2000, 119 (colour illus.), 301.
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Deborah Edwards and Rose Peel, Margaret Preston: Catalogue raisonné of paintings, monotypes and ceramics, Sydney, 2005, (colour illus.). Artworks: paintings 1928.
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Bruce James, Art Gallery of New South Wales handbook, 'Australian Collection: Painting and Sculpture', pg. 102-181, Sydney, 1999, 139 (colour illus.).
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Bruce James, The Sydney Morning Herald, 'Light fantastic', pg. 11, Sydney, 02 Sep 2000, 11 (colour illus.). NOTE: page 11 of Spectrum lift-out.
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John McDonald, Australian painters of the twentieth century, 'Margaret Preston', pg. 16-27, Sydney, 2000, 23, 24 (colour illus.).
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Denise Mimmocchi, Look, 'Thoroughly modern', Sydney, Jul 2017-Aug 2017, 42 (colour illus.).
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Denise Mimmocchi, Sydney moderns: art for a new world, 'Still-life as laboratory table', pg. 198-213, Sydney, 2013, 200, 205 (colour illus.), 315, 323.
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Ian North, The art of Margaret Preston, South Australia, 1980, 38 (illus.), 48 (illus.). cat.no. O.21
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Margaret Olley and Barry Humphries, Favourites: Margaret Olley and Barry Humphries choose from public and private collections, Sydney, 2000. Catalogue entry appears in inserted list to printed catalogue
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Barry Pearce, Fifteen decades of Australian paintings, Sydney, 1981, colour illus.. not paginated; cat.no. 10
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John Saxby (Editor), Look, 'The art that made me: Reg Mombassa', Sydney, Nov 2015, 13.
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Society of Artists, Society of Artists Annual Exhibition (1928), Sydney, 1928, (illus.). cat.no. 142; note: 'Not for Sale'; not paginated
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Jill Sykes (Editor), Look, 'Cornucopia: Margaret Preston's floral art lives! and other events', pg. 38-39, Sydney, Jul 2005, 39 (colour illus.).
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Martin Terry, Masterpieces of Australian Painting, Sydney, 1984, 80, 81 (colour illus.).
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Wayne Tunnicliffe and Deborah Edwards, Look, 'New Australia', pg. 24-27, Sydney, May 2012, 25.
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Robert Whitehead (Editor), The Sydney Morning Herald, 'Margaret Preston: Art and life', Sydney, 12 Aug 2005-18 Aug 2005, 27 (illus.).
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