Yellow Moon: He Marama Kōwhai, 28 October 2017 – 28 October 2018

Ethel Spowers’ Swings is full of vitality and enthusiasm. Strong bands of yellow on the sides of the airborne children suggest late afternoon light, filling the picture with energy and warmth. Spowers was an Australian artist who became well- known for her linocut prints in Australia and England in the 1930s. Both a painter and a printmaker, she was born into one of Melbourne’s wealthiest families (her father owned one of the city’s largest newspapers), enabling her to study art in Paris, Melbourne and London, where she first learned how to make linocuts. She was also a devoted supporter and social worker for the Melbourne Children’s Hospital. She must have really liked kids!