Know your subject and paint your knowledge – Margaret Preston

Flannel flowers are one of my favourite flowers.

Margaret Preston seemed to liked them too as she painted quite a few still lives featuring them. Or maybe she just liked their simplicity as a decorative device?

In this painting Preston again popped in a geometric motif – the patterned table-cloth.

Along with the patterning, the spiky forms silhouetted in the background show a Japanese style composition.

And the restricted palette points to changes ahead in Preston’s work.

| Margaret Preston, Flannel flowers, 1924 |

Muriel Enderby wrote this lovely little poem about Flannel flowers in 1936:

Coy, creamy, velvet blossoms growing
On sandstone steeps, the sea wind blowing
The shadowless sky an exquisite blue,
Flannel flowers, gentle, changeless, and true:
Here, by a turquoise sea, where soft lights play

Through the swaying trees, and a myriad leaves
Move drowsily, the wonder of thy charm,
Cream tinted, fragile bloom, thy dower
Of innocence enthralls me; dainty flannel flower!

Julia Ritson