Standing in front of this portrait by Margaret Preston, I am immediately struck by its title: Flapper. A flapper was a woman in the 1920s who wore modern-day clothing, and didn’t abide by typical ladylike traditions: like smoking in public, being sexually free, and often behaved mischievously. Yet, here, we are met with a formal stance, and a strong and serious, wide-eyed gaze.
The model for Flapper was Myra Warrell, Preston’s maid. Here we see Warrell with youthfully blushed cheeks, rouged lips (just a hair apart) and her knees exposed (I love how you can see the marks that show how high up she has pulled her socks!).
Stylistically this painting is also interesting. Preston inserts bold geometric shapes and black outlines which feel so characteristic of the European avant-garde art movement which she had seen on a trip to Europe in her youth. Expatriate Australian’s knew the value of travel to Europe and the importance of receiving modern ideas from the continent. Here, Preston shows she is part of this lineage.
But she also developed a keen focus on fostering an Australian national art. I think that her unique use of colour and her manipulation of subject achieves this. The painting feels so original, as well as challenging, marking her as a leading modernist of the early 20th century.
