Flora Landells was a leading Western Australian artist and art teacher. She made a substantial contribution to the artistic life of the nation as an exhibitor for some seventy years, as a teacher for over forty years, and, with her husband, as the pioneer in studio pottery in Western Australia.
She is remembered as a forceful personality, singleminded in the pursuit of her goal to paint New Zealand’s indigenous flora before it was destroyed by the advance of cultivation.
Elsie Robinson was a journalist, fiction writer and poet. She was best known for her nationally syndicated column, Listen, World! which was read by more than 20 million Americans between 1921-1956. Robinson used her voice to continuously examine and challenge the status quo, especially when it came to women’s perceived roles in society.
Anne Jolliffe, Australia’s first woman animator, cannot remember a time when she wasn’t interested in her craft. Born near Launceston, Tasmania, in 1933, she was given scratch pads and pencils by her father when she was four years old and began drawing pictures in sequence.
Alma Woodsey Thomas was the first Black woman to have a show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She was also the first Black woman to have work acquired by the White House.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was a leading Indigenous Australian artist.
Cecilia May Gibbs was a leading painter, illustrator, cartoonist and author, usually known by her second name, May.
The influence of Wearing’s 1992 Signs that Say can be seen across recent contemporary popular culture and media, particularly social media, wherein a photographic portrait of a stranger holding a handwritten sign in front of them is now a recognized format for truth-telling or confession.
The destruction of spaces and objects central to her method, as well as her poetic, delicate installations, have been hugely influential for process-driven sculptural artists like Simon Starling; artists working with found objects, like Sarah Lucas; and artists refiguring architectural spaces, like Rachel Whiteread.
Most famously working through themes of love, gender, domesticity, and sexuality, Goldin used her personal experiences to visualise the political nature of these subjects, especially when subjugated by social taboos and expectations.