Artists statement

'High St Northcote' is part of a series of paintings and sketches that were included in Mary Hammond’s solo exhibition, Coming and Going, held at Bundoora Homestead Art Centre in 2010. The exhibition, a major retrospective of Hammond’s work from the mid-1970s-2009, focussed on her everyday depiction of people in Northcote and Preston, particularly along High Street, Northcote where she had a studio for a few years, and the Preston Market, primarily during the 1980s and 1990s.

Artist Bio
Mary Hammond (1928-2025) was born in Spearwood, Western Australia and moved to Melbourne to attend the National Gallery School from 1951 to 1955. She is associated with the Melbourne Social Realist Group, alongside Ailsa and Vic O’Connor, Noel Counihan, Jim Wigley, Dave Armfield, Peter Miller and Bernard Rust, who saw their art as a tool for social reform.

Mary Hammond held many solo and group exhibitions and is represented in public collections including the War Memorial, Canberra; State Library of Victoria; City of Melbourne collection; Melbourne and Latrobe University collections; AMIEU and ACTU collections; Artbank and many important private collections.