Ethel Spowers is recognised as a pivotal artist in the emergence of modernism in Australia. She generously shared her knowledge of European art movements and cofounded the progressive Contemporary Art Group with Eveline Syme and George Bell. In 1930 she helped organise the first exhibition of linocut prints in Australia. Her exquisite prints, drawings and paintings capture the changing world of th…

Provenance

Joshua McClelland Print Room, Melbourne; Ken and Joan Plomley Collection of Modernist Art, Melbourne; Deutscher and Hackett, Sydney, Important Australian + International Fine Art; The Ken & Joan Plomley Collection of Modernist Art, 28 August 2019, Lot 20; Works from the late Andrée Harkness Collection, Melbourne; Gibsons Auctions, Australian & International Art, May 25, 2025 Armadale, Lot 62; Private collection, Sydney

Exhibitions

Victorian Artists Society, Melbourne, Spring 1924, no. 235 (as 'Town from the River') Exhibition of Works by Ethel Spowers, The New Gallery, Melbourne, 4 – 15 August 1925, cat. 36 (another example) Modern Australian Women: Works from a Private Collection, The Ian Potter Centre: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, October 2018 - March 2019

Literature

Art Notes. Watercolours by Miss Ethel Spowers', The Age, Melbourne, 4 August 1925, p. 9 'The Studio. Miss Spowers' Watercolours', The Australasian, Melbourne, 8 August 1925, p. 44 Coppel, S., Linocuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scolar Press, Aldershot, England, in association with the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat. ES A/7, p. 189 Andrée Harkness, Modern Australian Women Artists: The Andrée Harkness Collection, Amaled Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2020, pp. 154, 156 (illus.)