Margaret fills the canvas with the body of the model who moves forward from her seated position. She experiments with incorporating colour into the shading and definition of form, the background an experiment in a Godfrey Miller style of sharp coloured planes that enervate and contrast with the pink skin of the model. There is a mathematical quality to the planes, referencing Margaret’s interrogation of the process of response to the making of a picture, the creativity versus the calculation.

The figure of the nude did not persist in Margaret’s work, fleeting examples found at times, until she joined with Judy Cassab and Nora Heysen to meet regularly to draw the nude model during a period when they were all highly accomplished artists. It is, of course, the nude figure that provides the deepest puzzle for the artist, the conundrum of perception.

References 

Gavin Fry, Margaret Woodward: Paintings 1950-2002, Sydney, Beagle Press, 2002, plate 8.