Visual Art > Illustration Archives - Page 5 of 5

Georgina Burne Hetley

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.

Cecilia May Gibbs

Cecilia May Gibbs was a leading painter, illustrator, cartoonist and author, usually known by her second name, May.

Paula Rego

Rego is an incredibly important cultural figure in Portugal, considered to be one of the nation’s most famous and influential artists.

Leonor Fini

Leonor Fini was befriended by the whole Parisian artistic community and was one of the most photographed people of the 20th century, resulting in the legacy of “queen of the Paris art world” (expression coined by art critic Sarah Kent). Her popularity in artistic social circles made her the subject of many poems, artworks, and photographs by various artists and writers of her time.

Marie Laurencin

Laurencin’s influence can be seen across the work of a number of artists who have employed visual languages of femininity in order to explore the place of women and gender expectations in modern life. Louise Bourgeois, Laurencin’s most celebrated student, similarly used clothing and other symbols of womanhood in order to explore female relationships, using psychoanalytic ideas to consider familial relationships, the human body and emotional states.

Yayoi Kusama

More important than the impact her diverse work has on the art market is its influence on other artists and movements, which spans generations. To this day, she represents herself as a lone wolf most comfortable with being known as independently avant-garde.

Averil Margaret Lysaght

From an early age she developed an interest in natural history. At 15 she discovered a new species of a noctuid moth on Mt Egmont, which was described in 1921 by the entomologist G. V. Hudson as Melanchra averilla in her honour. In 1923 Lysaght commenced studies at Victoria University College, Wellington. She graduated BSc in 1928 and MSc in 1929 with second-class honours in zoology; her thesis in entomology was on the biology of Eucolaspis.

Winifred Lily Boys-Smith

Unlike many conservative supporters of sex-differentiated education, Boys-Smith saw the study of home science at university level as ‘a great force in the education of women’ – specifically, the higher education of women. She believed that because of changing social patterns domestic skills had increasingly come to be seen as menial. The educational programme set up by her for the School of Home Science sought to lift the status of the domestic arts by providing a strong scientific education, augmented with technical instruction. An emphasis on science, particularly chemistry, also served to silence those critics who believed that the School of Home Science belonged in a technical institute, not a university.

May Gibbs

Cecilia May Gibbs MBE was an Australian children’s book writer, illustrator, and cartoonist. She is best known for her gumnut babies (also called “bush babies” or “bush fairies”), and the book Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.