Art and advocacy: Mary Alice Evatt in the 1930s and ’40s

On her return to Australia from Europe in 1939, Mary Alice Evatt remarked in an interview for the Australian Women’s Weekly that paintings devoted to gum trees, sheep, koalas and misty seascapes were the only Australian works selected to hang in World Fair Art Exhibitions. In addition she derided the decision makers who overlooked Australia’s modernist, experimental artists, many of whom were women: ‘if only those in authority were to select the paintings of Australian artists who prefer creation to photography, and were less overawed by official selection bodies, Australia might find a worthy place on the art map of the world’ (Evatt 1939 32).