MCDONALD, SHEILA (1902-1971)

“Waterways” (1961)
oil on board
153 x 61cm
Signed lower left
*Fred & Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney
 
McDonald was a pioneering Australian Abstract Expressionist. She trained at East Sydney Technical College and the Julian Ashton Art School under influential artists, Sydney Long, Desiderius Orban and Lyndon Dadswell. She was a prominent member and regular exhibitor at the Royal Art Society, Contemporary Art Society, Women's Industrial Art Society and Sydney Society Of Women Painters, alongside the best Australian Mid Century artists and was represented by the esteemed Watters Gallery.Her works were included in significant Abstract Art exhibitions in London and Sao Paulo, and was featured in VOGUE Australia, Architecture In Austra lia and the seminal 'Present Day Art In Australia' publication (1969). She has works in several important National collections including the Art Gallery of NSW, National Gallery and Newcastle Regional Gallery. She won the Royal Agricultural Society and Maitland Prizes. She died tragically and prematurely in a car accident in 1971. This impressive mixed media is incredibly rare. Part of a series of paintings influenced by the Antipodean Movement, this abstract landscape is a mix of oil and hessian creating a raw, tactile surface, inspired by the scorched earth of Outback Australia.