Ethel Spowers

• Birth Name — Ethel Louise Spowers • Born — 11 June 1890 • Birthplace — South Yarra, Melbourne, Australia • Died — 5 May 1947 • Education — National Gallery Art School, Melbourne Grosvenor School of Modern Art, London • Style — Grosvenor School (linocut sub-category) • Movement — Modernism • Notable Works — Wet Afternoon (1930)

Ethel Louise Spowers was born on 11 July 1890, in South Yarra, Melbourne, daughter of a New Zealand father and a London-born mother. Her father, William Spowers, owned a newspaper. Spowers trained as an artist at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School 1911-17, with some study in Paris as well (most notably with André Lhote). She was educated at Melbourne Girls Grammar School in Melbourne. Wealthy and cultured, her family owned a mansion in St Georges Road, Toorak. Ethel continued to live there as an adult and maintained a studio above the stables.

• Illustration — Wet Afternoon, linocut in four colour blocks, 1930 Spowers had her first solo exhibit in Melbourne at age 30, showing fairy-tale illustrations as those of Ethel Jackson Morris. Two further solo shows (1925 and 1927) at the New Gallery, Melbourne, confirmed her reputation as an illustrator of fairy tales, though by then she was also producing woodcuts and linocuts inspired by Japanese art and covering a broader range of subjects. Her style and artistic focus changed in 1928–29 when she studied linocut printmaking with Claude Flight at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London. She was one of several Australian women artists at the Grosvenor School, including Dorrit Black and Eveline Winifred Syme. Further classes followed in 1931, during which Spowers absorbed modernist ideas of rhythmic design and composition from the principal of Grosvenor School Iain Macnab. In the 1930s her linocuts attracted critical attention for their bold, simplified forms, rhythmic sense of movement, distinctive use of colour and humorous observation of everyday life, particularly the world of children. They were regularly shown at The Redfern Gallery, London. Spowers mounted an exhibition of Australian linocuts in Melbourne in 1930. In 1932, she became a founder of the Contemporary Art Society, promoting modern art in Australia.

• Yallourn (1933) • Bank holiday (1935) • Resting models (1933) • Wet afternoon (1930) • Gust of Wind (1931) • Bank Holiday (1935)

• Illustration — The Enchanted Birds (1927) • Illustration — The Kite Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney • Illustration — Children walking (ink & watercolour) • Illustration — The Kite Fyers (1927)

• Illustration — Ethel Spowers, The Noisy Parrot, c. 1926. • Illustration — Ethel Spowers, The plough, 1928, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (1953-0003-327) • Illustration — Ethel Spowers, Merchants, Port Said, 1932, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (1953/2/135) • Illustration — Ethel Spowers, Harvest, 1932, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (1953/2/134) • Illustration — Ethel Spowers, Swings, 1932, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (1953-0003-326) • Illustration — Ethel Spowers, The Lonely Farm, 1933, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (1953/2/137) • Illustration — Ethel Spowers, The giant stride, 1933, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (1953-0003-325) • Illustration — Ethel Spowers, Football, 1936, linocut. National Gallery of Australia • Illustration — Ethel Spowers, Children’s hoops, 1936, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (1953-0003-329)