“‘Is it too great a truism to repeat that the best art is always the child of its own age?” — Eveline W Syme


Dates & Venues

Canberra Museum and Gallery (CMAG), Canberra, ACT
13 August – 12 February 2022

Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo, NSW
26 February – 29 May 2022

Geelong Gallery, Geelong, VIC
16 July – 16 October 2022

S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, NSW
3 December – 12 February 2023

QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, QLD
11 March – 4 June 2023


Publication

Spowers & Syme celebrates the artistic friendship of Melbourne artists Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme. Their prints, drawings and paintings – remarkable for their expressive energy – capture the zeitgeist of the interwar years. This beautifully illustrated catalogue traces their stories as two women from rival media families who pioneered modern printmaking in Australia.

Spowers and Syme were part of a newly independent generation of women artists able to travel widely and study with avant-garde teachers in England and France during the 1920s and 1930s. They brought back to Australia the spirit and knowledge of modern European art movements and techniques, which they shared through the expanding networks of art societies and private women’s clubs in Melbourne and Sydney. These remarkable women supported each other’s aspiration to become professional artists in a changing world and are now recognised for their significance as progressive artists dedicated to producing art that was truly of its time.

PUBLISHED AUGUST 2021
96 pages
240 x 194 mm
Full Colour | Hardback
RRP A$39.99
ISBN 978 0 646 84218 9

*Members discount available for publication purchases made at the Gallery in the Art Store only.