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Ethel Spowers (1890-1947) was an Australian artist most known for her vibrant, bold lino-cuts depicting everyday scenes of children playing and urban life. She grew up the daughter of a wealthy newspaper magnate in Melbourne and trained at the Melbourne National Gallery Art School (1911-17), where she gained a reputation for children’s fairytale illustrations. Her style and artistic focus changed in 1928–29 when she studied linocut printmaking with Claude Flight at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London. Flight was a pioneering and eccentric linocut printmaker who touted the potential of linocut as a vibrant, modern way of making art–and one that produced accessible pieces, too.
On her return to Australia in 1929, Spowers co-established the Contemporary Art Group with like-minded artists in order to promote modernist art and defend it against conservative critics. Spowers, once the student and later the phenomenon, championed her former teacher Flight’s work, acting as his agent and promoting and exhibiting his linocuts along with those of his students.
Spowers' own work was showcased in multiple exhibitions in Australia and abroad until her death in 1947. Her works are now held in major collections internationally, and she is now celebrated for her contributions of the modern linocut movement, and considered to be pivotal in the emergence of modernism in Australia.