The Bridge from North Shore by Margaret Preston circa 1932

The Bridge from North Shore by Margaret Preston, circa 1932

The work is a woodcut or relief print, printed in black ink, hand coloured with opaque watercolours on cream Japanese laid paper and measures 23 centimetres tall by 25.5 centimetres wide. The image has bold black lines depicting the scene.

From an elevated position across roof tops and the Parramatta River below is a viewpoint to the newly constructed Sydney Harbour bridge. On the left-hand side of the artwork a four storey building frames the view to the bridge, topped in Spanish red roof tiles. From top to bottom each floor has a window one on top of the other, stacking. The building is cordoned off by a wooden paling fence that extends out and moving from left to right sections off a yard to the rear of the property with a single barren tree, a clothesline, and a small outbuilding with a corrugated red tin roof.

On the far right beyond this fenced off area, towards the top of the work, is a church with a distinctive pointed steeple and an adjacent church building with a floral shaped window in the apex of the roof structure. Beyond these buildings are large established trees and vegetation leading down towards the river.

From this vantage point looking across the roof tops, in the distance we find the bridge. The curvature of the bridge arches across the skyline above the permanent settlement structures found below. The river is painted a pale blue and a thin white cloud covers the sky above the bridge.

One of Australia’s most significant artists, Margaret Preston was a key figure in the development of modern art in Sydney from the 1920s to the 1950s. Renowned for her paintings and woodcuts of local landscapes and native flora, she championed a distinctly Australian style, informed by her experience of avant-garde art in Europe and characterised by bold geometric shapes and black outlines like those shown here in The Bridge from North Shore.

The work is displayed in a light oak frame and the artist has handwritten ‘Sydney Harbour woodcut’ in the far-left hand bottom corner and signed her name, Margaret Preston in the far-right hand bottom corner. She has also initialled the work MP on the right-hand side above her signature. The date of the work has not been included.