DENT, AILEEN ROSE (1890-1979)

**PRICE ON APPLICATION**
 
"Madam Gregor Wood" (1940)
oil on canvas
82.5 x 64.5cm
signed upper right
*Archibald Prize Finalist 1940
*Madam Gregor Wood Collection
*private collection, Sydney
 
Dent was a prominent Australian Artist & the most record-holding female Archibald Prize finalist. She studied at the National Gallery Art School between 1909 and 1916, winning prizes in 1912 & 1913. She exhibited regularly in Melbourne from 1921, often at the Athenaeum Gallery or the Lyceum Club, gaining a reputation as a portrait & figurative painter while frequently showing flower pieces & landscapes. For many years she had a studio at 504 Little Collins Street; there, in 1933, she painted a portrait of the prime minister, Joseph Lyons. A reviewer for the Age wrote in June 1945: "Miss Dent is well known, & justly so, for her flower paintings … she obtains effect from sincere use of paint & interesting treatment of light & undertone. Her portraits make pleasing pictures & are usually striking in their likeness." Madame Alice Gregor Wood (nee Mattinson) (1879-1951) was an important, influential Australian Contralto Opera Singer, who enjoyed a 5 decade career in Melbourne, and was a chief exponent of Scottish music in Australia, alongside her husband, James Gregor Wood. Dent's works are represented in most major National & Regional Galleries in Australia, but her impact as a pioneering & decorated female portrait painter has been largely forgotten. In fact, she does not appear in Joan Kerr's seminal "Heritage" (1995) publication of Australian Women Artists from 1880-1960. This work was exhibited at the Archibald Prize at the AGNSW in 1941 (no.61), but was also exhibited at the Melbourne Society of Women Painter's Exhibition (Athenaeum Gallery) & Lyceum Club in Melbourne, before being donated to Madam Gregor Wood herself on behalf of the Caledonian Society.