MacQUEEN, MARY (1912-1994)

Sunflowers" (1957) 
mixed media
32 x 45.5cm
signed upper right
*private collection, Melbourne
 
MacQueen was an important, award-winning Australian Modernist Painter & Printmaker. She studied commercial art for one year in 1927 at the Swinburne Technical College, then after a lengthy hiatus, returned to study under William Dargie in 1941. In March 1945 she held her first solo exhibition of watercolours at the Kozminsky Galleries in Melbourne. In 1946 she attended drawing sessions with George Bell. Between 1956 and 1958 Mcqueen attended printmaking classes at the Royal Melbourne Technical College, now RMIT University, where she developed a fascination for lithography. Macqueen's artistic style was typically spontaneous, expressive and gestural. She specialised in line drawing, lithography and mixed media works on paper. Her work in the exhibition shows influences of Cubism and Fauvism. MacQueen won countless art prizes, and exhibited widely across Australia, New Zealand & America. She is represented in many major Australian art galleries such as the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery and numerous regional Australian art galleries. Numerous works are also held in the Cruthers Collection of Women's Art.
 
This fascinating mixed media was completed the same year as she won the Victorian College Of The Arts Drawing Prize, and was the basis for her impressive linocut of the same year.