Kenneth Macqueen

Contour ploughing c.1945

Born in Ballarat, Victoria, in 1897, Kenneth Macqueen began to take a serious interest in watercolour painting as a 10-year-old, after watching a young friend use the medium. In 1909, Macqueen’s family moved to Sydney, where he received professional tuition in drawing from a commercial artist, Mr Beecroft.

In 1916, Macqueen enlisted with the Australian Imperial Force and was sent to France where he served with the 12th Army Brigade, Australian Field Artillery. He continued to paint, producing small watercolours in the field, and he pursued his art studies through a London-based correspondence course.

Macqueen returned to Australia in 1919 and, in 1922, he and his brother Jack settled on a property at Mount Emlyn, near Millmerran on Queensland’s Darling Downs. This area and the nearby coast provided his main subject matter from this time. He maintained a national profile, exhibiting regularly in Sydney and in other state capitals. His version of Modernism brought a fresh approach to the genre of landscape painting. His work was included in the exhibition ‘Art of Australia: 1788–1941’, which travelled to the United States and Canada in 1941. His watercolour Cabbage gums and cypress pines c.1940 was subsequently acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.