Margery Pitt Withers (13 January 1890 – 1966) was an Australian artist.
Biography
Born in England to Fanny Flinn and the Australian landscape artist Walter Withers, Margery was brought to Australia aged six months to live at the Charterisville estate in East Ivanhoe, Victoria. Her father worked as an art master at various schools in Melbourne including the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Ruyton Girls' School, the Melbourne Grammar School and Emma Bartlett Cook's Private Girl's School. Margery Withers studied art at the National Gallery School and the Working Men's College. At the National Gallery School, Withers won nine prizes and was awarded a special prize of £50 by the National Gallery Trustees for her picture The Letter.
Withers was engaged to fellow student, John (Jack) Martin Paterson, who dedicated a sketch of a kitten to her while a soldier during World War 1. He was killed in action at Villers-Bretonneux in August 1918. In 1927 Withers married Richard Matthew McCann, an artist and a founding member of Twenty Melbourne Painters.
Withers painted figures and landscapes in both oil and watercolours, and taught art at Swinburne College for several years, though as a married woman she was asked to resign in 1928 and reapply for a temporary position, without benefits. Her work has been described as "finding charm in every shadow and light under her brush."
She painted at Tawonga, Diamond Creek, and Heidelberg, and exhibited with the Victorian Artists Society and the Twenty Melbourne Painters Society. She also showed with artists such as Polly Hurry, Jo Sweatman, and A.M.E. Bale.
Withers has works in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum, the University of Western Australia and the State Library Victoria. Her portrait of her husband Richard McCann was shortlisted for the Archibald Prize in 1939.
Works
Miss Margery WithersThe Herald, 1928
1910,Early Eltham looking towards Montmorency]
ca. 1913–1922,Nude study of a young woman
ca. 1913–1922,A Warrandyte Farm, near Frank Crozier's
1920,Kit Turner's Cottage, Eltham
1920,Souter's College, Eltham
1920,Studley Park
ca. 1920–1940,Christ Church, South Yarra
1924,Bridge and piers
1932,Yarra floods and North Balwyn from Ivanhoe-Boulevard
1935,Portrait of unidentified young woman
1945,Orchard country, North Eltham
Exhibitions
Walter and Margery Withers, Collins House, 1915
Catalogue of paintings by Margery Withers, 1922 [State Library Victoria]Walter and Margery Withers (watercolours), Athenaeum Hall, 1916
Solo exhibition, Athenaeum Gallery, 1919
Twenty Melbourne Painters, Athenaeum Hall, 1921
Group exhibition (Margery, Nancy & Meynell Withers), Athenaeum Hall, 1922
