Anne Montgomery

Anne Montgomery (1908-1991) artist, printmaker, muralist, lecturer was described in 2008 as "better known in art circles than by the general public". Yet for the first three decades of her life, she exhibited widely, received commissions and was bought by a number of public collections. She also is representative of a generation of Melbourne artists whose reputations were overshadowed by the publicity generated by the Angry Penguins and Antipodean groups for themselves. Childhood and influences Anne Montgomery grew up in the centre of Melbourne's art and design circles Her father was William Montgomery, Melbourne's leading stained glass artist from the 1880s to the 1920s, President of the Victorian Artists Society, Trustee of the National Gallery of Victoria and a keen advocate for the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement and the decor of the Montgomery home in Sandringham, Melbourne, reflected this taste until it was sold in the early 1990s. William Montgomery was a close friend of Bernard Hall, artist and gallery director, and Anne spent much time with Hall's children from his second marriage. The Montgomeries joined Bernard Hall's summer painting landscape painting camps at Rosebud. Her mother, May Rowed, was William Montgomery's younger second wife and a former student of the Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria School. Although marriage reduced her time for artwork, May Montgomery stayed in direct contact with many of the major women artists of Edwardian Melbourne, including Josephine Muntz Adams, Jessie Traill, Dora Wilson, Violet Teague, Lillian White and the Sri-Lankan Australian artist Isabel van Stavern. She also painted oriental style flowerpieces and designed costumes for amateur theatricals, fancy dress balls and tableaux, including fundraising events during World War One for the Victorian Artist Society. Mother and daughter designed and made masks for the pastoral play at the 1932 Mayoral Ball in Melbourne organised by Louise Hanson Dyer for her brother Harold Glengoult Smith, when the Melbourne Town Hall was filled with autumn leaves gathered from Melbourne's parks and gardens.