The Windsor Group
The Windsor Group were nine young Sydney artists who painted in the inner city as well as Emu Plains, Richmond and, especially, Windsor between 1935 and 1945.
Members of the Windsor Group
- Maude Burrell
- Bruce Burns
- Maud Cannon (Kemp)
- Jim Davies
- Marjorie Edwards (Manning)
- Laurie Elbourne
- Dave Horne
- Max Osborn
- Roderick Shaw
- Maurice McDonald, an apprentice to Elbourne, painted with the group occasionally
Three members of The Windsor Group on a painting trip to Avoca in 1936
Maud Cannon (Kemp), Maude Burrell and Laurie Elbourne. Painted by Fred Leist RAS
In his introduction to The Windsor Group (Edwards & Shaw, 1989), Bernard Smith writes:
"The Windsor Group may be seen as part of a significant trend in Australian painting that began to emerge in the years immeditely prior to World War II, when artists began to turn away from the dominance of pastoral landscape in a new awareness of the urban environment.
"In Windsor and Richmond what drew their attention and affection was not extensive sun-lit plains but the deeply human and historic presence evoked by old barns, bridges and farmhouses. In this they were a part of the new appreciation of the built and historic environment of the countryside."
A painting by Maurice McDonald, The Swallow House (oil on brown paper), was gifted to the Hawkesbury Art Collection by Laurie Elbourne. The artist died on a forced march while a POW in Changi during World War II.
