B. 1903-1975

Dorothea Francis was a painter and illustrator born in Melbourne in the early 19th Century. Francis was educated at the influential George Bell School. The George Bell School circle pioneered the Modernist movement in Melbourne, rejecting traditional representational techniques in favour of approaches inspired by Impressionism, Cubism, and other developments in European Modernism.

Throughout her career, Francis embraced a diversity of subject matter and style—at times creating whimsical watercolour depictions of fairy tales, including illustrating the Australian edition of Alice in Wonderland of 1937, and at other times adopting an early Australian Modernist approach in her portrayals of coastlines, still lifes, and portraits. She exhibited her work in numerous exhibitions, more-often-than-not aligned with both the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and the Melbourne Contemporary Artists society.

Her work is held in the State Library of Victoria and Heide Museum of Modern Art.

To read more in-depth information on the artists of the George Bell School, click here.