OPPEN, MARGARET (1890-1975)

"Mixed Bunch" (c.1940)
oil on paper laid on board
68 x 55cm
signed lower right
*estate of the late Margaret Oppen
 
Margaret 'Daisy' Oppen was a forgotten Australian Painter, Printmaker, Correspondent & pioneering Embroider. She studied at Julian Rossi Ashton's school and in London she attended the Grosvenor School of Modern Art and the Slade School of Fine Art. In 1924 she was cutting blocks and one of her woodcuts appeared in Art in Australia that year. In the following year her lino-cuts were in the Younger Group of Australian Artists exhibition in Sydney. She was in Britain in 1929 when she began to write letters to her mother in Australia telling her of her new son, Conrad. She returned to Australia in 1934/5 with her husband, Hans Oppen, and their two children. During the war she assisted with occupational therapy and after it she went to work at the Ethleen Palmer's Double Bay studio of the Society of Arts and Crafts. There she created embroidery working with Ann Gilmour Rees and Dora Sweetapple. She also exhibited alongside the likes of Thea Proctor, Muriel Medworth & Amie Kingston. In 1949 she and Ethleen Palmer held a joint exhibition at Sydney's Grovesnor Galleries where Palmer showed her silk screen prints and Oppen showed her embroidery. The embroidery was unusual because it was freehand. Oppen did not sketch or fund an image, but she would create embroidery on household items such as tablecloths and aprons. Oppen went to study again in London at the Royal School of Needlework and she joined the Embroiderers Guild. When she returned to Sydney she led a group who decided to open a branch of the guild in New South Wales. With permission of the guild's patron, Queen Mary, the branch was formed in 1955. In 1967 she was teaching in evening classes as part of the Embroiderers' Guild  of N.S.W.  Summer School. The Margaret Oppen Prize is held in her honour & she was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1973. Strangely, she is not represented in any major institution!!