Spotlight On: Margel Hinder
Pictured: Frank and Margel Hinder (full image credits at bottom).
It’s good to have this opportunity of celebrating an Australian female sculptor, namely Margel Hinder (1916 - 1995). Margel was actually born in New York but moved to Australia in 1934 after meeting her Australian husband, the painter Frank Hinder.
As an artistic couple who had both experienced the modern trends happening internationally, both worked on an innovative, creative path which tended to set them apart from the more traditionalist establishment at work in Sydney and Australia at the time.
As a very young person, Margel developed an interest in carving. Although, at art school, she explored the process of modelling in clay and casting in plaster, ultimately her love was with carving, especially in timber. In fact, much of her early carvings were in New Guinea wood which she found less likely to split than the local Australian timber.
There are many commissions in the Sydney area and more far flung created by Margel. You can see the 1964 Free-Standing Sculpture, outside the Reserve Bank in Martin Place, Sydney (pictured above) and The Art Gallery of NSW has a number of Margel’s artworks in their collection, including the 1949 Garden Sculpture. Margel’s public sculptures can also be seen in Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Newcastle and Brisbane.
I like to think of Margel as Australia’s answer to Barbara Hepworth. I see a marked similarity of approach and outlook when comparing their abstract works.
And I fancy Margel and Tom Bass, if they ever met, would have together enjoyed many conversations about the ‘totem making’ and public sculpture.
I was interested to discover that Hinder entered an international UK competition entitled Unknown Political Prisoner at London’s Tate Gallery in 1953 (pictured above). Tom Bass AM was also one of the two other Australian entrants selected by the Art Gallery of NSW to represent Australia (Tom’s sculpture below left). Barbara Hepworth also entered this competition, being awarded second prize (pictured below right).
Research and words by Christine Crimmins
Full image credits: Very top image: Albert Tucker, Frank and Margel Hinder at a Meeting of the Contemporary Art Society, 1940, gelatin silver photograph, 30.6 x 40.4 cm, Gift of Barbara Tucker 2001, image courtesy of the collection of Heide Museum of Modern Art.
Middle images: first image: Margel Hinder, Free-Standing Sculpture, 1964, image courtesy of Wiki Media Commons. Second image: Margel Hinder, Unknown Political Prisoner, 1952, Model. Margel Hinder's entry in the 1952 Unknown Political Prisoner Competition, sponsored by the Institute of Contemporary Art, London. Image courtesy of Margel Hinder Estate.
Above left: Tom Bass, ‘Unknown, Political Prisoner’, Plaster, 1952. Above right: Dame Barbara Hepworth, Maquette for ‘The Unknown Political Prisoner’, wood and iron. Image courtesy of Tate, UK.