Margaret Lilian Flockton (29 September 1861 Sussex – 12 August 1953 Sydney), is most commonly recognized as a botanical artist famous for her botanical illustrations of "The Forest Flora of New South Wales" (some 300 plates), "A Critical Revision of the Genus Eucalyptus", and the genus Opuntia, all by the botanist and forester, Joseph Henry Maiden. She was also a painter, commercial artist, and art teacher at different points of her life. She was the first botanical illustrator at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney. She was also the first female lithographer in Australia which gave her a high reputation at the time.
Early life
Margaret Flockton was born on September 25, 1861, into a well-to-do family in Leyton, England. However, at the age of four her father abandoned a job with a stable income to pursue his passion as an artist. As a result, her family began to struggle. Flockton admired her father's decision regardless of the price and said that it was around this time that she began to take up drawing on her own.
By the time Flockton turned ten her family was impoverished. As a result, they relocated to a cheaper area to live in New South Wales. Here, Flockton attended the Cardiff Science and Art school. The school was a branch of the South Kensington National Art Training School and was established by the British government. The teachers at who taught at the school were all graduates from the South Kensington schools and classes in drawing, sculpture, painting, engraving, and lithography.
Flockton was also a student at the Miss Gann's Life School which was also a branch of the South Kensington schools. It was here that Flockton was recognized for her artistic abilities and was sent off to the and art department's principle school to finish off her studies in London and receive an art teaching certificate in 1885.
Shortly after, Margaret and her family received an immigration opportunity and moved to Sydney, Australia in 1888. The family settled here and never returned to London. In Sydney, Flockton went through another decade of training and became the most thoroughly female trained artist living there at the time.
Early career
After Flockton's training was completed, she quickly found work as a lithographer in Sydney with printers and publishers Gibbs Shallard & Co. and S.T. Leigh. She continued her work as a commercial artist for publishers for seven years. During this time in 1892, she was also took up painting from nature and teaching art. To teach, Flockton opened up a studio in Victoria Chambers, Castlereagh Street in Sydney.
In the early 1900s, Flockton started to engage more in commercial art. Twelve of her lithographs depicting Australian wild flowers were used to promote the smoking of cigarettes as part of an intensive add campaign. Her lithographs quickly became popular and were further publicized through the printing of her lithographs as postcards. Unfortunately, Flockton never received the recognition she deserved for her work. Though she included her signature in all of her lithographs, companies who profited off of her work did not include it. Therefore, her work was extremely popular but her name did not popularize with it.
Royal Art Society
Flockton became a member of the Royal Art Society of NSW where she exhibited her watercolors and oil paintings from 1894 to 1901 alongside Sidney Long, Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, and other noteworthy artists. During this time, she exhibited 39 of her watercolor paintings which consisted of various studies and still-lifes.
In 1895, Flockton exhibited six watercolors, calling them "Australian WildFlowers". One depicts the state's official floral emblem, the Waratah, and was bought by the NSW Royal Art Gallery. Another one of her watercolor paintings was selected to be included in an Album for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. A painting of two dead parrots done by Flockton was also included in the Australian Federation Album presented to the Duke and Duchess of York in 1901. This was her last year of painting for the Royal Art Gallery.
Near the time of her recognition, Joseph Maiden, the director of the botanic gardens, was founding the National Herbarium of New South Wales. He was determined to make it a successful institution that collected, identified, documented, and stored both Australian and exotic plant life. After learning of Flockton from her watercolor Watarah, Maiden invited her to work for him at the Herbarium in 1901. It was then that Flockton decided to give up painting and instead pursue a professional career as a scientific botanical artist for the Sydney Botanic Gardens.