Mary Macqueen

Mary McCartney Macqueen (29 January 1912 – 15 September 1994) was an Australian artist who was known for her drawing, printmaking and mixed media works on paper. Her artistic style was expressive, gestural and experimental.

Life, training and influences

Macqueen was born Mary McCartney Ballantine, elder daughter of Mr and Mrs A. D. Ballantine, in Carlton, Victoria, on 29 January 1912. Her primary and secondary schooling was at the Princes Hill State School, Mount Albert Central School and the Methodist Ladies College in Melbourne. and took private drawing lessons with Catherine Hardess in 1928 at Hawthorn.

In 1930, at the age of eighteen, she married (Thomas) Allan Macqueen or McQueen, a widowed accountant and fruit exporter with two sons, Frederick and Allan. Over the ensuing ten years she did very little drawing and was instead occupied with raising those two and her own daughter and two sons, born between 1931 and 1935. but faced the prevalent prejudice against those of her gender; of her contribution to its October 1950 Spring exhibition, critic Alan Warren was slighting: "Women painters, such as Violet Mclnnes, Dora Serle, Marjorie Woolcock, Dorothy Stephen, Roma Ward, Lesley Sinclair and Mary Macqueen have produced some competent pictures in their respective spheres."

Between 1956 and 1958 Macqueen attended printmaking classes at the Royal Melbourne Technical College, now RMIT University, where she developed a fascination for lithography.

In the 1960s, Macqueen began to focus on animals as the subject matter for her work. Throughout her career she sought to draw the perfect line. A 1988 exhibition of paper works at the Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne consisted of ink, gouache and collage works on Nepalese paper, notably omitting her line drawings. Many of the works were based on scenes from countries she had visited, and they demonstrate the breadth of her experimentation with the medium.

Selected solo exhibitions

The exact number of Macqueen's solo exhibitions is uncertain. Some sources cite "about 26" 1948, 1950 Georges Gallery, Melbourne 1967, 1969, 1971, 1974 Crossley Gallery, Melbourne 1973, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1988 Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne 1976, 1978, 1980 Stuart Gerstmann Gallery, Melbourne 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982 Ray Hughes Gallery, Brisbane 1981, 1983, 1986 Tynte Gallery, Adelaide 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993 Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne

Selected group exhibitions

1943 – 1957 Victorian Artists Society