May Marsden

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May Marsden (6 May 1876 – 12 July 1968) was a Welsh-born Australian artist and teacher who helped change art education in Australia. She trained as an artist in England and taught and exhibited in Liverpool, Leicester, and Derby before moving to Australia in 1913. In Sydney she became an art lecturer at the Sydney Teachers’ College, where she encouraged teachers to let students be creative and to move away from strict traditional methods. She filled the college with copies of master paintings and prints to inspire students and ran a sketching club. Marsden exhibited with the Australian Watercolour Institute from 1924, and some of her drawings from 1929 are in the New South Wales Art Gallery, including Magnolias. Early students included Portia Mary Bennett and James Gleeson, whom she inspired to pursue art as a response to world events. She taught at the college until 1941 and died in Artarmon, Sydney, at age 92.