Born in Melbourne, Ethel Spowers attended the Grosvenor School of Modern Art between 1928 and 1929 and again in 1931. She studied linocuts under Claude Flight and participated in the British Linocut exhibitions. In 1930 Spowers organised an exhibition of Australian linocut artists in Melbourne and helped to promote the medium in Australia. This print, one of four by Spowers given to the city in 1953 by Rex Nan Kivell, shows a figure losing control of a stack of papers on a wet and windy day – a subject that must have appealed to the artist for its sense of movement and drama.

(Turn, Turn, Turn: A Year in Art, 27 July 2019 – 8 March 2020)