Spowers & Syme

Spowers & Syme celebrates the artistic friendship of Melbourne artists Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme. Their prints, drawings and paintings – remarkable for their expressive energy – capture the zeitgeist of the interwar years. This beautifully illustrated catalogue traces their stories as two women from rival media families who pioneered modern printmaking in Australia.

Spowers and Syme were part of a newly independent generation of women artists able to travel widely and study with avant-garde teachers in England and France during the 1920s and 1930s. They brought back to Australia the spirit and knowledge of modern European art movements and techniques, which they shared through the expanding networks of art societies and private women’s clubs in Melbourne and Sydney.

These remarkable women supported each other’s aspiration to become professional artists in a changing world and are now recognised for their significance as progressive artists dedicated to producing art that was truly of its time.