painter and photographer, was born in 1923 on the Hermannsburg Mission Station in the Northern Territory, home of the Aranda Aboriginal painters such as Cordula Ebatarinja . Based in Alice Springs for most of her life, she has been a photographer, painter, arts administrator, housewife and caravan park proprietor. In the 1950s her photographs appeared in magazines such as Walkabout and Pix , but unfortunately much of her photographic work of this period was later damaged in a house fire.
It was after this fire that Margaret Preston encouraged Mona Byrnes to paint, which she continues to do. She has been involved with several art foundations in Central Australia and organised the Alice Prize for one of them, the Alice Springs Art Foundation. A retrospective of her work was held at the Darwin Museum and Art Gallery in 1983 and her work was included in a show of the Northern Territory’s pioneer women artists at the Araluen Art Foundation early in 1994.
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- Writers:
- Riddler, Eric
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
