Margaret Preston Retrospective at NGV Australia Reassesses Her Legacy

The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia has opened the first major retrospective of Margaret Preston's work in two decades, critically examining her enduring quest to forge a singular Australian aesthetic. The exhibition, which hangs three of her iconic still lifes at its entrance, showcases her depictions of native flora such as gumnuts, eucalyptus leaves, and banksias, rendered in a style that Preston championed as distinctly Australian. However, the show complicates this narrative by highlighting the diverse influences in her work, including European modernism and Japanese woodblock prints, as seen in her 1928 painting 'Western Australian Gum Blossom,' which features blocky, creamy rectangles and flattened forms. The retrospective aims to explore both what Preston gained and what was flattened in her pursuit of a national style, offering a nuanced view of an artist who is both beloved and contested in Australian art history. The exhibition is on view at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, with the source article published on September 4, 2026, by The Guardian.