sketcher, showed two works at the Victorian Exhibition of Fine Arts, Melbourne, in November 1860: Launceston and the Tamar, from the Flagstaff Hill; a Pencil Drawing and a probable pastel sketch, View from Studley Park . The former is her major known work. This panoramic pencil view of Launceston, measuring 92 × 235 cm (La Trobe Collection, SLV), was favourably commented on by the Argus in October 1859 when it was being exhibited in the window of the shop of J.A. Campi (a looking-glass manufacturer of Russell Street, Melbourne), the artist being described as 'a lady living in Collingwood’. In 1861 the picture was offered for sale 'by lottery after the manner of the Art Union’ and displayed in the window of R. Sharpe’s music shop, Launceston. The Cornwall Chronicle of 21 September 1861 stated: 'The great beauty of the picture to us appears in the exquisite finish given by the fair and accomplished artist to the houses and buildings … The picture has evidently been sketched some years since for we looked in vain for the Gas Manufactory—Government Buildings—Mechanics’ Institute, etc., and there are many little omissions which show plainly it has been finished from memory’. View of Launceston was lithographed in Melbourne by François Cogné in 1863 and published by Julius Hamel . Each subscriber to the art union at which it was finally raffled was to receive a print.
Margaret Black was evidently the wife of Philip Black, a Victorian squatter who lived in Van Diemen’s Land from the 1830s until the late 1850s, then moved back to Victoria. In 1859 Margaret Black was described as as 'a lady living in Collingwood [Melbourne]’ when she exhibited her very large pencil View of Launceston (Tas.) with a view to selling it. She died at Philip Black’s property on the Hopkins River north of Warrnambool, Victoria. Margaret H. Black, a student at the National Gallery of Victoria Schools in 1871-75 who lived in Drummond Street, Carlton, was presumably her daughter.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2011
