Strange Women: Essays in Art and Gender

In a community where the masculine landscape tradition was considered the acme of Australian painting and one that embodied a 'true' national identity, the new Modernist painting of women was seen as marginal and accidental. Yet, Strange Women argues, it was in the work of Grace Cossington Smith, Thea Proctor, Margaret Preston and Grace Crowley that the groundwork was laid for much of Modernist practice. Strange Women also explores a number of issues concerned with the work of women painters and the representation of women in painting by men.