At the age of twelve, Margaret Woodward was given a glimpse of creative chaos in an artist's studio. A little later, an unusual friendship acquainted her with the reality of landscape, and a testing childhood passed into a conscious endeavour to become an artist. Recognised and established as a distinctly original artist, Margaret Woodward has behind her a lifelong struggle to reconcile conflicting demands: poverty and self-sufficiency; relationship and isolation; art and life. And, in her fascinating personal insights at the end of this book, the intuitive and the conscious. Winner of the Wynne Prize, the major prize for landscape and numerous other prizes, Margaret Woodward spent the early part of her life as a dedicated art teacher, first in secondary schools and later in art colleges both in Perth and Sydney. The book has an informative and sympathetic text by Gavin Fry, with over 150 colour plates and black and white illustrations and photographs covering all periods of the artist's work, from the earliest student essays in landscape, to the later imaginative compositions of figures and the haunting waterlilies series.
