Margaret Preston (1875 - 1963)

WARATAHS ETC, 1949

colour stencil on black card

42.0 x 33.0 cm

signed with initials in image lower right: M.P.
dated lower right: 1949
inscribed with title lower left: Waratahs Etc / monotype

Private collection, USA

Margaret Preston Survey (Nine Paintings and Thirteen Prints by Margaret Preston), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 4 June – 16 September 1959 (another example)
Margaret Preston: The Art of Constant Rearrangement, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 27 December 1985 – 9 February 1986 (another example)
State of the Waratah, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 1 September – 8 October 2000 (another example)

Butel, E., Margaret Preston: The Art of Constant Rearrangement, Penguin Books & Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1985, cat. P.72, p. 93, as ‘Waratahs etc (c.1953 – 57)’ [sic] (another example)
Butler, R., The Prints of Margaret Preston: A Catalogue Raisonné, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1987, cat. 351, pp. 270 (illus., another example), 271

There are only two other recorded examples of this stencil: one is in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and the other, formerly in the collection of Sydney Ure Smith, Sydney sold to a private collection by Deutscher and Hackett (2 December 2015, lot 4).

“The simplicity of the stencil cuttings and the traditional way of colouring, which leaves a large section of the black background untouched, suggests that this is Preston’s earliest stencil print in this series.” – Butler, R., p. 271