Design and Art Australia Online

Born in Melbourne in 1936, Margaret Lees studied at RMIT and Prahran Technical College. A painter, working in watercolour and pastel, and printmaker, Lees has been active over a 30 year period with both solo and group exhibitions.

After teaching for a number of years, she began illustrating children’s books; a total of six. In 1966, when she was a the mother of four children, she illustrated the first in a series of three Agapanthus books, Naughty Agapanthus, written by Barbara Macfarlane about a girl who refuses to wear her nice warm red jumper. It was the only book to be highly commended in the Picture Book of the Year section for that year’s Children’s Book Council of Australia awards and was reissued in 1975 and 1986.

In her fine art production, aside from figure studies, Lees’ visits to north-western Australia have resulted in her impressions of “a land of folded hills, gorges and rivers, creek beds, escarpments and worn down mountain ranges,” which she renders in oil pastels and linocuts. Lees developed a novel linocut printing method which softens the contours but retains saturation of hue.

Writers:

Date written:

2023

Last updated:

2023