{{Short description|Australian 20th century watercolour painter of landscape and urban scenes, enamelist}} {{Infobox artist | honorific_prefix = | name = Madge Freeman | honorific_suffix = | image = Madge Freeman, photograph by Ruth Hollick from Youth August 1922.jpg|thumb|Madge Freeman in 1922 | image_size = | alt = | caption = Madge Freeman in 1922, photographed by Ruth Hollick for ''Youth'' | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = Frances Margot Freeman | birth_date = {{birth date text|18 February 1895}} | birth_place = Bendigo | baptised = <!-- will not display if birth_date is entered --> | death_date = {{death date and age|1977|02|02|1895|02|18|df=yes}} | death_place = Rosanna, Victoria | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = <!-- {{Coord|LAT|LONG|type:landmark|display=inline}} --> | nationality = <!-- use only when necessary per WP:INFONAT --> | education = School of Mines, National Gallery of Victoria Art School | alma_mater = National Gallery of Victoria Art School | known_for = watercolour, lacquerwork | notable_works = | style = post-impressionism, modernism | movement = | spouse = {{ubl | {{marriage|Lanfear Thompson|1926|1929|reason=his death}} | {{marriage|Basil Davies|1940|1977|reason=died}} }} | partner = Elma Roach | children = | parents = | father = George Henry Freeman | mother = Frances Maud (née Ross) Freeman | relatives = brothers George, Charles, David, and (John) Lawrence | family = | awards = <!-- {{awd|award|year|title|role|name}} (optional) --> | signature = | signature_type = | signature_size = | signature_alt = | elected = president Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors | patrons = | memorials = Madge Freeman prize administered by Bendigo Art Gallery | website = <!-- {{URL|Example.com}} --> | module = }}
'''Frances Margot ('Madge') Freeman''' (1895–1977)<ref>{{Citation | author1=Robin Brown | author2=Appleton, Richard | title=Collins milestones in Australian history, 1788 to the present /compiled by Robin Brown; edited by Richard Appleton;foreword by Manning Clark | publication-date=1986 | publisher=Boston G.K. Hall | isbn=978-0-8161-8820-8}}</ref> was an Australian painter of landscape and urban scenes working internationally who was known for her watercolour, and for her craft of lacquerwork and enamelware.
== Early life and education == Born in Bendigo to Frances Maud (née Ross) and George Henry Freeman, Freeman was the older sibling of brother George 'Ross' Freeman (who served in World War I and World War II).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Finucane |first=Paul |title=Odd Roads to be Walking |publisher=Red Barn Publishing |year=2019 |isbn=9781916187702 |location=Skibbereen, Ireland |pages=183 |language=English}}</ref> Her father was a teacher, holding the post of Principal at Saint Andrews College and then Vice Principal at Bendigo High School.<ref>Exhibition Flyer, "Madge Freeman (1895-1977): Exhibition of Paintings, Bendigo Art Gallery 16 March - 26 April 1981", Madge Freeman: Art & Artist Files, held in the National Gallery of Australia Research and Archive Collection</ref> The family lived at Barkly Place (now Terrace) and their neighbours were the family of Ola Cohn.
While aged seven at Junior school in Saint Andrew’s College, Bendigo, where her father was principal in 1902, Freeman took out prizes for writing and sewing,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article89511940 |title=SCHOOL SPEECH DAYS. ST. ANDREW'S COLLEGE AND CORPORATE HIGH SCHOOL. |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=L |issue=14,787 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=19 December 1902 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> one for sewing again in the following year<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article89494672 |title=SCHOOL SPEECH DAYS. ST. ANDREW'S COLLEGE AND CORPORATE HIGH SCHOOL. |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=LI |issue=15,098 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=19 December 1903 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and another for ‘Church Instruction’ in 1906, the year in which she and Ola Cohn played castanets in a school concert.<ref>{{cite news |date=20 December 1906 |title=GIRTON COLLEGE |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article89564199 |access-date=21 November 2024 |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |location=Victoria, Australia |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia |volume= |issue=}}</ref>
== Teaching qualification == In 1911, the Education Department issued results in which Freeman, studying under Arthur Woodward at the School of Mines,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article275250128 |title=Bendigo Cleanings |newspaper=The Sun News-pictorial |issue=1514 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=20 July 1927 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=38 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> achieved an ‘Elementary Pass for ‘drawing from a flat example’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article89546035 |title=SCHOOLS OF MINES. |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=LVIII |issue=17,025 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=1 March 1910 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> advancing to a Pass for ‘drawing from models or objects’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article227807631 |title=TECHNICAL SCHOOLS. |newspaper=The Bendigo Independent |issue=12581 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=24 April 1911 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and ‘drawing plant forms from nature<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article89843007 |title=TECHNICAL SCHOOLS. |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=LIX |issue=17,381 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=24 April 1911 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and in 1912 and 1913 passing the exam in ’drawing an ornament from a cast in outline’.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article227862807 |title=TECHNICAL SCHOOLS. |newspaper=The Bendigo Independent |issue=13148 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=5 March 1913 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90014032 |title=TECHNICAL SCHOOLS. |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=LXI |issue=17.962 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=5 March 1913 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Other tasks which she passed were ‘Elementary modelling’ and ‘modelling ornament from the cast (1913).<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90017009 |title=TECHNICAL SCHOOLS. |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=LXI |issue=17.981 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=28 March 1913 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
Freeman was employed in July 1913 as assistant art instructor at the Bendigo High School.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91012790 |title=PERSONAL. |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=LXI |issue=17,084 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=26 July 1913 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=9 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Meanwhile she continued study at the School of Mines, receiving a Pass in ‘Modelling Human Figure from Cast’ and an ‘Advanced Grade 1 Pass’ in ‘Modelled Design’.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article226854294 |title=TECHNICAL SCHOOLS. |newspaper=The Bendigo Independent |issue=13,454 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=27 February 1914 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> She received her Secondary Certificate as a Drawing Teacher in December 1914.<ref>{{cite news |date=22 December 1914 |title=ABOUT PEOPLE. |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article227641351 |access-date=21 November 2024 |newspaper=The Bendigo Independent |location=Victoria, Australia |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=13,706}}</ref>
== Socialite == In 1914, the ''Bendigo Independent'' announced her debut at the Tennis Ball<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article226844986 |title=According to Eve |newspaper=The Bendigo Independent |issue=13,526 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=23 May 1914 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> with her photograph being published in the ''Bendigonian.''<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92044657 |title=DEBUTANTES AT THE BENDIGO TENNIS CLUB ANNUAL BALL, 1914. |newspaper=Bendigonian |volume=XX |issue=1002 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=16 June 1914 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=15 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> For a fancy dress ball in March 1915 at Girton College, as an ‘old girl’ of the school, she dressed as ‘Powder and Patches’ (an 18th-century aristocrat)<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90774451 |title=OUR BENDIGO LETTER. |newspaper=Bendigonian |volume=XXI |issue=1043 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=30 March 1915 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=25 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and in May that year returned for a ‘Dickens Evening’ dressed as Dick Swiveller.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90786661 |title=OUR BENDIGO LETTER. |newspaper=Bendigonian |volume=XXI |issue=1049 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=13 May 1915 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=25 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> For Australia Day celebrations in Bendigo, and to raise funds for soldiers at the local camp, Freeman joined ‘the Keystone Moving Picture Company’ in a street performance,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90784505 |title=OUR BENDIGO LETTER. |newspaper=Bendigonian |volume=XXI |issue=1061 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=5 August 1915 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=25 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and also another fundraiser, featuring ‘The Keystone Komedy Kompany’ at Bendigo’s Princess Theatre,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article220882021 |title=FUNDS FOR THE SOLDIERS. |newspaper=The Bendigo Independent |issue=13919 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=31 August 1915 |access-date=21 November 2024 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> in both of which she appeared as the silent movie dancer 'Carmencita.’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91091132 |title=SOLDIERS' SHELTER SHEDS. |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=LXIII |issue=18,736 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=31 August 1915 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Freeman’s soldier brother Ross, a signaller, was stationed in Lemnos and newspapers noted that he was the chance recipient of some of his family's war donations.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91383658 |title=CHRISTMAS BILLIES. |newspaper=Bendigonian |volume=XXII |issue=1091 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=2 March 1916 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=30 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
== Art school == thumb|Madge Freeman (top, centre) amongst group of students from the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne. (c 1920) In February 1916, Freeman commenced her studies at the National Gallery of Victoria art schools<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91377771 |title=OUR BENDIGO LETTER. |newspaper=Bendigonian |volume=XXII |issue=1089 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=17 February 1916 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=25 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> under Bernard Hall, and where others from Bendigo, Clarice Beckett and her sister, and Elma Roach (from Shepparton), attended.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article220926586 |title=SOCIAL NOTES. |newspaper=The Bendigo Independent |issue=14064 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=19 February 1916 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> They were reported as ‘working very hard’.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article220905244 |title=According to Love |newspaper=The Bendigo Independent |issue=14070 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=26 February 1916 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> They periodically returned home to Bendigo on holidays, where on one occasion Coleman hosted a student friend Joan Lindsay.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article89087454 |title=OUR BENDIGO LETTER. |newspaper=Bendigonian |volume=XXIV |issue=1113 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=11 July 1918 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=21 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Freeman appears in a 1920 snapshot, perched at centre top of a group of the students at the base of Emmanuel Fremiet's ''Joan of Arc'' statue outside the Art School (now the State Library forecourt).<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Kerley |first1=Lucy F. |last2=National Gallery Art School |date=1920 |title=A group of students from the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne |url=http://hdl.handle.net/11343/78954 |access-date=27 November 2024 |website=University of Melbourne Archives|hdl=11343/78954 }}</ref>
Aside from her art studies, Freeman enjoyed her social life and performing; while in Melbourne she appeared at the Playhouse in a ‘moving tableau of early Melbourne’ in a dress worn at Government House in the 1850s,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article239423250 |title=MELBOURNE DOINGS. |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |issue=11699 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=8 November 1916 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and in 1920 was invited to the Lord Mayor of Melbourne’s ball in honour of Edward VIII, the Prince of Wales.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245606560 |title=Exquisite Dresses Observed |newspaper=The Herald |issue=13,796 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=31 May 1920 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> With Roach, in July 1920, she acted with other Gallery School students in an oriental romance based on Thomas Moore’s ''Lalla Rookh''.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146690644 |title=GALLERY STUDENTS' BALL |newspaper=Table Talk |issue=1822 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=1 July 1920 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=30 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> She was a member, with Norah Gurdon, Dora Wilson, Elma Roach, Isabel May Tweddle, Helen Ogilvie, Louis McCubbin, and Daryl Lindsay of a club for former students formed in 1916 and presided by the oldest, Peter Kirk, which held a number of reunions receiving wide publicity in the early 1920s.<ref>{{cite news |date=9 November 1922 |title=Artists' Bal Masque |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146457094 |access-date=22 November 2024 |newspaper=Table Talk |location=Victoria, Australia |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=1945}}</ref> In June 1923, members of the club were responsible for a fancy dress ball at St Kilda Town Hall, with Freeman, who dressed as a peacock for the event,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article274146583 |title=PROUD PEACOCK. |newspaper=The Sun News-pictorial |issue=236 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=14 June 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=11 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> contributing the huge stencilled lanterns that lit the venue.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244023934 |title=BACK TO CHILDHOOD: FAIRY TALE BALL |newspaper=The Herald |issue=14,375 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=9 June 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2012234 |title=SOCIAL EVENTS. |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=23,975 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=9 June 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=26 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article140745725 |title=FAIRY TALE BALL. |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=CXIV |issue=2,985 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=16 June 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=37 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146570774 |title=NYMPHS AND SEA SERPENTS. |newspaper=Table Talk |issue=1978 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=5 July 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=31 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> They next held an all-night dance at St Mary’s Hall in East St Kilda on 31 August 1923.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243731825 |title=A NIGHT OUT |newspaper=The Herald |issue=14,446 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=1 September 1923 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=13 (LAST RACE EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
== Artist == Freeman was invited with Joan Lindsay to the Crivelli’s at Ferrars Place, Albert Park to a dance celebrating Rene Crivielli’s Legion of Honour,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://heurist-usyd.cloud.edu.au/heurist/viewers/record/renderRecordData.php?db=ExpertNation&recID=42427 | title=HEURIST - View record }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article140260611 |title=SOCIAL NOTES. |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=CX |issue=2,881 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=18 June 1921 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=33 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and in January 1923 spent time at his family's Mount Macedon property to break from sketching in the Malmsbury district<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146458202 |title=SOCIAL |newspaper=Table Talk |issue=1954 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=18 January 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=33 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> where she, and probably Elma too,<ref>{{Cite journal |date=17 May 1923 |title=Sundry shows: Two Girls do a turn in Melbourne |journal=The Bulletin |volume=44 |issue=2257 |pages=34 |via=TROVE}}</ref> were taught watercolour techniques by Matthew James MacNally who was working there beside Harold Herbert.
thumb|Catalogue (cover) of Exhibition of Water Colour Drawings by Elma Roach and Madge Freeman, Fine Art Society's Gallery, 100 Exhibition St. May, 1923. Freeman and Elma Roach formed a close alliance and in March 1923 rented a cottage in Mooroolbark where they made paintings toward a joint exhibition that opened the following May.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243801327 |title=Says and Hearsays |newspaper=The Herald |issue=14,670 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=24 March 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article140743526 |title=SOCIAL NOTES. |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=CXIV |issue=2,980 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=12 May 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=42 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" /> The reviewer Alexander Colquhoun, though gently critical of Roach’s technical shortcomings, in Freeman’s work found ‘more technical grip and a better sense of values,’ continuing that she showed ‘a creditable disinclination to rely on a pretty water-color manner and a consistent striving after true definition.’<ref name=":5"/> Arthur Streeton in the ''Argus'', while acknowledging that this was their first exhibition so ‘rather immature’, agreed that ‘Miss Freeman reveals herself as the better craftsman [sic], and displays an interesting sense of colour to which is added free handling of pigment’.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2004420 |title=WATER-COLOURS ON VIEW. |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=23,948 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=9 May 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> The show received kind attention also from ''The Age'', whose critic made no distinction between the artists’ capabilities and remarked that their works were ‘distinctly Australian in atmosphere and subject matter’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article204062921 |title=Exhibition of Water Colors. |newspaper=The Age |issue=21,248 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=9 May 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=15 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> while ''The Australasian'' merely repeated Streeton’s commentary. George Bell, writing in the ''Sun News-Pictorial'' under a heading ‘Gums and Glimpses’ saw promise in how:<blockquote>Madge Freeman expresses the white gum in all its poetic beauty, and is tenderly sympathetic with the atmosphere of her skies. The freedom, the clear, true palette she uses, and her forthright work throughout mark her as an artist of whom more will be heard.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article274141194 |title=GUMS AND GLIMPSES |newspaper=The Sun News-pictorial |issue=205 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=9 May 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=16 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref></blockquote>Only weeks later the pair contributed to the display and sale of arts and crafts at the Melbourne Town Hall. Their artefacts, which were reported to have ‘drawn a crowd’, included ‘hair combs, umbrella handles, egg cups, serviette rings, bag handles, hat pins and quaint pendants dangling on necklets of black ribbon’ all in ‘polished, tinted and painted woods.’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244030220 |title=Art Falls in Line with Everyday Needs |newspaper=The Herald |issue=14732 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=6 June 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=12 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Another show of their 'Madgelma' branded<ref>{{Citation | author1=Kerr, Joan | author2=National Women's Art Exhibition (Australia) | author3=Kerr, Joan | title=Heritage : the national women's art book : 500 works by 500 Australian women artists from colonial times to 1955 | publication-date=1995 | publisher=Art and Australia; Roseville East, N.S.W.: distributed by Craftsman House | isbn=978-976-641-045-2}}</ref> lacquerware including powder boxes, card trays, fruit bowls and dress ornaments, was held in Jessie Traill’s Collins Street studio for Christmas shoppers,<ref name="SOCIAL NOTES">{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article140830586 |title=SOCIAL NOTES. |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=CXV |issue=3,010 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=8 December 1923 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=44 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and was noted in ''Table Talk''.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146467443 |title=LADIES' LETTER |newspaper=Table Talk |issue=2003 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=27 December 1923 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=31 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article223860211 |title=WOODCRAFT EXHIBITION |newspaper=Weekly Times |issue=2841 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=26 January 1924 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=57 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
==Europe and Africa== In 1923, numbers of former National Gallery students had left Australia to continue studying or exhibiting in Paris,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Quinlan |first=Karen |date=February 2006 |title=Fragments from France |journal=Art and Australia |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=356}}</ref> London or America, including Ethel Spowers, Edith Grieve, Nancy Lyle, and Lilian Pentland, and winners of the Gallery's travelling scholarship Marion Jones, Adelaide Perry, and Laurie Honey (a.k.a. Taylor).<ref name=":3">{{Citation |author1=Gorman |first=Clem |title=Intrpide: Australian Women Artists In Early Twentieth-Century France |publication-date=2020 |editor-last=Gorman |editor-first=Therese |chapter=24: Madge Freeman: A Steady Achiever |place=Melbourne |publisher=Monash University Publishing |isbn=9781925523928}}</ref> Freeman and Roach were saving from their craft sales for their own overseas excursion which they planned for 1924,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article140831893 |title=SOCIAL NOTES. |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=CXV |issue=3,013 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=29 December 1923 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=36 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and spent the early weeks of that year bidding farewell to friends and family,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243749382 |title=Jottings from Bendigo |newspaper=The Herald |issue=14,584 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=12 February 1924 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=13 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> then departed for London, travelling second-class on the SS ''Medic'' on 16 February that year.
In England, they settled in the Chelsea artists’ precinct. There, they briefly attended the Slade School under the tutelage of Henry Tonks.<ref name="Exhibition Flyer 1977">Exhibition Flyer, "Madge Freeman (1895-1977): Exhibition of Paintings Bendigo Art Gallery 16 March - 26 April 1981", Madge Freeman: Art & Artist Files, held in the National Gallery of Australia Research and Archive Collection</ref> On 23 June Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll opened an exhibit of Australian artists that included work by Freeman, that was hailed by Sydney’s ''The Sun'' newspaper critic as ‘Healthy Art,’ having been told that the London organisers were ‘glad to find that Australian art continues to be healthy and vigorous, rebuffing the decadence shown by the freak schools’ (by which modernism was meant).<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article223391979 |title="HEALTHY ART" |newspaper=The Sun |issue=4256 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=24 June 1924 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=1 (FINAL EXTRA) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Freeman encountered other Australian artists also in Paris.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2073481 |title=ARTISTS ABROAD. |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=24,541 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=3 April 1925 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=14 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Her assimilation was rapid; in May 1925 she had a work accepted for the Paris Salon.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2120830 |title=PERSONAL. |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=24,586 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=27 May 1925 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=21 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> The two friends shared flats in London and Paris and embarked on painting journeys across France, Italy, Spain, and North Africa. In St Ives, Cornwall, they shared a studio with Gwen Horne.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=29 April 1926 |title=Melbourne Chatter |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-68375465 |journal=The Bulletin |volume=47 |issue=2411 |pages=28}}</ref> During their time in Paris, Freeman and Roach met and were taught by Adolphe Milich (1884 - 1964), a French painter and teacher originally from Poland.<ref name="Exhibition Flyer 1977"/> Milich was associated with the School of Paris and specialised in oil and watercolour paintings of a wide range of subject matter. His artistic approach, heavily influenced by Paul Cézanne, had a profound impact on the Australian artists.
By October Freeman and Roach had arrived in Italy where they were painting in Venice and Choggia, ''The Age'' describing them as ‘good draftsmen [sic], good colorists; both understand light, shadows and mass, and both have the strong feeling for sentiment and against sentimentality, for vitality and against pictorial incident and mere anecdote’ with Roach’s approach being devoted to a ‘poetic element’ and Freeman’s ‘more detached,...making her subject speak more obviously for itself.’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155664679 |title=Australian Painters in Italy. |newspaper=The Age |issue=22,019 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=29 October 1925 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=15 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> The latter sent her ''Reflections, Choggia'' for the first exhibition of the year at the New Gallery, 107 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. Freeman returned to France in early 1926, where she endured a freezing winter.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146583558 |title=Bendigo Notes |newspaper=Table Talk |issue=3013 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=4 February 1926 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=24 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Snow scenes in Paris |url=https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/ |access-date=2025-09-24 |website=British Pathé |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=8 September 1925 |title=Cold Wave Kills Four in Paris Streets; Heat Expected to Follow 'Freak' Weather |work=New York Times}}</ref> In October ''Table Talk'' drew attention to Freeman’s Bendigo origins in announcing an exhibition at Bendigo Art Gallery that included Marion Jones and other ‘ex-Bendigonians who have made a name for themselves In the old world’.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146575631 |title=People in the News — What People are Saying and Doing —The Latest Topics TABLE TALK OF THE WEEK |newspaper=Table Talk |issue=3049 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=14 October 1926 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=9 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
Late in 1926 Freeman, then aged 31, met and married in Kensington mining engineer Lanfear Thompson from Western Australia a government contractor due to work in Africa.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Charles George Lanfear Thompson |url=https://nmrs.org.uk/resources/obituaries-of-members/obituaries-of-members-names-beginning-with-t/charles-george-lanfear-thompson/ |access-date=24 November 2024 |website=Northern Mine Research Society}}</ref> Freeman had met Thompson as a child.<ref name="Exhibition Flyer 1977"/> After a honeymoon motor tour of rural England they initially settled in Obuasi, West Africa (Ghana),<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1 October 1926 |title=Melbourne Musings |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-381666803 |journal=The Home: An Australian Quarterly |volume=7 |issue=10 |pages=40 |via=TROVE}}</ref> and despite ''The Bulletin'' report that she had 'evidently abandoned ideas of an art career',<ref>{{Cite journal |date=20 May 1926 |title=Melbourne Chatter |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-632486637 |journal=The Bulletin |volume=47 |issue=2414 |pages=28 |via=TROVE}}</ref> she resumed her painting when they visited Kumasi, Ashanti as guests of Justice and Mrs. McDowell,<ref>{{Cite journal |date=6 January 1927 |title=Melbourne Chatter |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-634769106 |journal=The Bulletin |volume=48 |issue=2447 |pages=28 |via=TROVE}}</ref> where she found the landscape reminiscent of Australia.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146468925 |title=BENDIGO CHATTER |newspaper=Table Talk |issue=3059 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=23 December 1926 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=66 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245454142 |title=WOMAN'S WORLD |newspaper=The Herald |issue=15,435 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=6 November 1926 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=14 |via=National Library of Australia}} </ref> before staying in Western Australia, and visiting Bendigo in December 1926.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article275071674 |title=Bendigo Gleanings |newspaper=The Sun News-pictorial |issue=1335 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=21 December 1926 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=34 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> She travelled to Belgium and London in August 1927 with Ruth Howell.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article275440147 |title=Bendigo Gleanings |newspaper=The Sun News-pictorial |issue=1565 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=17 September 1927 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=46 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> After working as manager of the Bibiani gold mine, Freeman's husband died of malaria aged 37 in a London nursing home on 25 March 1929.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3978782 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=25,779 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=27 March 1929 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=1 |via=National Library of Australia}} </ref><ref>{{Cite journal |date=19 March 1930 |title=Melbourne Chatter |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-606692286 |journal=The Bulletin |volume=51 |issue=2614 |pages=48 |via=TROVE}}</ref><ref name=":0" />
[[File:Madge Freeman, Helen Stewart, Dina Roach at Caudebec-en-Caux, Normandy.jpg|thumb|Madge Freeman, Helen Stewart, Dina Roach at Caudebec-en-Caux, Normandy. Photo: ''The Home: An Australian Quarterly''. 1 January 1932]] Back in Melbourne in 1930, Freeman shared a studio with Margaret McLean<ref>{{Cite web |date=16 Apr 2022 |title=Margaret McLean |url=https://www.printsandprintmaking.gov.au/artists/9334/ |archive-url= |access-date=29 November 2024 |website=Centre for Australian Art: Australian Prints + Printmaking}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |date=1 September 1930 |title=Personal and social: Melbourne |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-388098050 |journal=The Home: An Australian Quarterly |volume=11 |issue=9 |pages=18 |via=TROVE}}</ref> in Collins Street and continued exhibiting, showing her watercolours of European scenes alongside Roach’s at the Athenaeum Gallery, to a favourable review by Harold Herbert,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article141798627 |title=ART. |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=CXXVIII |issue=4,243 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=3 May 1930 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=19 (METROPOLITAN EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> before holding a one-person show at the Karrakatta Club Hall, Perth, where she stayed with Lanfear’s brother Dr Ashburton Thompson,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article79475249 |title=Woman's World |newspaper=The Daily News |volume=XLIX |issue=17,284 |location=Western Australia |date=27 September 1930 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=3 (FINAL SPORTING EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> then announced her intention to return to London for further studies.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article79474671 |title=MAINLY ABOUT PEOPLE |newspaper=The Daily News |volume=XLIX |issue=17,288 |location=Western Australia |date=2 October 1930 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=9 (HOME (FINAL) EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> In November that year she was in Paris studying with André Lhote,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cochran |first=T. H. |date=1 January 1932 |title=This, That and Them |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-386917295 |journal=The Home: An Australian Quarterly |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=57 |via=TROVE}}</ref> and staying with Elma Roach and Helen Stewart in a large flat with an attached studio amongst seven other studios.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article242767867 |title=The Woman's World |newspaper=The Herald |issue=17,005 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=17 November 1931 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=13 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Roach, a frequent correspondent to newspapers, wrote to ''The Herald'' to describe how those who, like them, studying art in Paris were: ‘progressing and getting away from the 'Victorianism' which has been such an enemy to Art […] The modern art is wonderfully interesting, and men such as Van Gogh, Cezanne, Pissarro, Matisse, etc., are very much appreciated— it is wonderful being able to see their works.’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article242818188 |title=ART IN PARIS |newspaper=The Herald |issue=17,076 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=8 February 1932 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=12 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
The pair returned to Cheyne Walk, Chelsea in February 1932, where they had befriended theatre director Molly Ick (W. R. Campbell) whose farewell Freeman hosted in June.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article242826875 |title=SOCIAL GOSSIP |newspaper=The Herald |issue=17,097 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=3 March 1932 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=22 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32634299 |title=A LONDON WOMAN'S DIARY. |newspaper=The West Australian |volume=XLVIII |issue=9,340 |location=Western Australia |date=3 June 1932 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Freeman herself left the city for Málaga, Spain to walk through and paint picturesque villages, to Ronda, during 1933,<ref name="WOMAN'S REALM">{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145238464 |title=WOMAN'S REALM |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=CXXXVII |issue=4,461 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=7 July 1934 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=11 (METROPOLITAN EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> where she was soon joined by Roach.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cochran |first=T.H. |date=1 July 1933 |title=This, That and Them |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-375854422 |journal=The Home: An Australian Quarterly |volume=14 |issue=7 |pages=66 |via=TROVE}}</ref> They returned to Paris and Milich's studio in early 1934.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cochrane |first=T.S. |date=1 March 1934 |title=London Notes |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-388230268 |journal=The Home: An Australian Quarterly |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=12 |via=TROVE}}</ref>
== Reception == thumb|Madge Freeman solo exhibition 1934, Sedon Gallery Catalogue cover Over 10–21 July 1934 Freeman, having sent work from overseas, held an exhibition at Sedon Galleries at 340 Little Collins Street which drew wide attention. The catalogue is divided into sections 'England', 'France', 'Italy', Spain', and Gold Coast' (Africa), and prices ranged from fifteen guineas (worth A$1,551.60 in 2024) for the most expensive, to four for the cheapest (A$413.80 in 2024). In their reviews Blamire Young and Arthur Streeton felt compelled to give her advice coloured by their perception of her as purely a water-colourist. Young (who specialised in that medium himself) offered that the while the watercolours were fresh, the oils lacked attention to texture.<ref name="MISS MADGE FREEMAN">{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243161118 |title=MISS MADGE FREEMAN |newspaper=The Herald |issue=17,830 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=9 July 1934 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Streeton was condescending, hinting that she was proficient but a merely aspiring artist who ‘with increased and long study [...] will give a more complete and more varied technical expression in her works.’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10967577 |title=ART EXHIBITION |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=27,423 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=10 July 1934 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Alexander Colquhoun, in ''The Age'', while appreciating more enthusiastically a number of her works in both mediums, found that Freeman is ‘more at home in the lighter medium,’ and of her later works made in Spain, remarks that ‘there is apparent what seems to be an undecided movement in the direction of modernism which misses alike the objective of the true modernist and that of the realist.’ He concludes that her difficulty lies with ‘representing the various features of the picture in their true space relationship to each other.’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205533015 |title=ART NOTES. |newspaper=The Age |issue=24,723 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=10 July 1934 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=15 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Even Harold Herbert, Freeman’s companion in Malmsbury where both painted with MacNally to whose influence on her watercolours he refers, felt compelled in his review in The Australasian, to offer that she should heed Streeton’s thick, sure treatment of highlights and shadows as an exemplar, though concluding that:<blockquote>Miss Freeman has developed a style of her own. As a whole the exhibition has much to commend it; the work is serious - too serious perhaps, lacking the verve and spontaneity that seem in separable from continental impressions of this kind. "Slap-dash, hit-or-mlss" tactics would be well worth while trying.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145239079 |title=ART |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=CXXXVII |issue=4,463 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=21 July 1934 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=16 (METROPOLITAN EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref></blockquote>In July 1935, while resident in studios in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, and just prior to her painting expedition to the South of France,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article149554307 |title=LONDON'S LATEST: Royal Ascot in a Deluge |newspaper=Table Talk |issue=3505 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=11 July 1935 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Freeman’s work in the Salon des Tuileries was received favourably by the Paris newspapers.<ref name="nla.gov.au">{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article276784995 |title=Bendigo Artist's Pictures Praised in Paris |newspaper=The Sun News-pictorial |issue=3989 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=2 July 1935 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=32 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> In 1936 when Bendigo Art Gallery purchased Freeman's work 'Still Life' it was the first time the Gallery had purchased a work of an artist born in Bendigo.<ref name="Exhibition Flyer 1977"/><ref>Finucane, Paul (2019). ''Odd Roads to be Walking''. Skibbereen, Ireland: Red Barn Publishing. p. 185. {{ISBN|978-1-9161877-0-2}}.</ref>
== Return to Australia == On 15 October 1935, Freeman arrived in Perth on the SS ''Orsova'' to stay with her former husband’s family,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58744152 |title=Social Sidelights |newspaper=Sunday Times (Perth) |issue=1969 |location=Western Australia |date=20 October 1935 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=24 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> preceded by Roach who was planning to exhibit with her in Melbourne, for which city Madge departed on 5 November on the ''Strathnaver'', with the intention of later returning to Europe. In an interview with the ''West Australian'' she allied herself to modernism: 'there is a decided swing away from the 'extraordinary,' while there is still no tendency to return to photographic art.’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32902742 |title=WOMAN'S REALM |newspaper=The West Australian |volume=51 |issue=15,404 |location=Western Australia |date=6 November 1935 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
The ''Perth Daily News'', November 1935, also recorded Freeman's comments about working in Europe where over five years she had traveled and painted in England, Spain, Italy, Holland, and Belgium, and in Paris had been studying under Milich over 1934 and 1935. Of French artists she said they 'have a soul in their paintings, and a lot of effect is gained by the fact that they do not stress detail, but concentrate on the general impression of their subject.’ She found the south of Spain ‘uncivilised’ and she and her companions found it impossible to paint without police guarding them from hostile crowds of 'peasants.’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article85735790 |title="PERTH PRETTIEST CITY IN AUSTRALIA" |newspaper=The Daily News |volume=LV |issue=18,919 |location=Western Australia |date=7 November 1935 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=8 (LATE CITY) |via=National Library of Australia}} </ref>
By November Freeman was in Melbourne preparing to hold a show there, and in ''The Argus'' she opined that realism was gaining ground over the ‘distortions’ of modernism.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11853721 |title=TRAVELLERS RETURN IN STRATHNAVER Comparison of Modern Art Galleries; Short Story Writing in London |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=27,841 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=12 November 1935 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> In her home town a committee of the Bendigo Art Gallery met in February 1936 to consider the purchase of one of Freeman’s works, ultimately deciding on a still life displayed in the Paris Salon which had been reviewed in the journal ''Beaux Arts''.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11879324 |title=BENDIGO AND DISTRICT |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=27,913 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=5 February 1936 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=12 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> It was an acquisition ''The Herald''’s art critic Basil Burdett described as ‘Bendigo's sole excursion into anything like modernity and a very creditable one, too.’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244884579 |title=ART TREASURES IN COUNTRY GALLERIES |newspaper=The Herald |issue=18,374 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=4 April 1936 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=39 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> In a review of a 1940 exhibition of the Independent Group he singled out Freeman's 'Keilor Church' saying that there was 'nothing better' in the exhibition than this work, and noting that it was 'a more formal expression of Australian landscape than we are used to but one which sacrifices nothing of characteristic light and colour.'<ref>Catalogue, Madge Freeman Exhibition of Paintings" Bendigo Art Gallery, 16 March - 26 April 1981, Madge Freeman: Art & Artist Files, held in the National Gallery of Australia Research and Archive Collection.</ref> thumb|Pegg Clarke (1936) Portrait of Madge Freeman, from ''The Bulletin'', 14 October 1936 In August that year Freeman gathered friends Pegg Clarke, Dora Wilson, Lillian White, Nell Patterson, Ola Cohn, Esther Paterson, Elma Roach, Nancy Grant, Norah Gurdon, Edith, wife of George Bell and Harriet, wife of the recently deceased Bernard Hall, Dora Serle, and several Gallery School students, in her new studio and accommodation in a former stable and loft, dubbed ‘Madge’s Mews’, in Gipps Street, East Melbourne,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11905261 |title=A studio party |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=28,081 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=20 August 1936 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> set poetically in ''The Bulletin'' as 'an example of what transformations upon a disused stable can be effected by paint and varnish, gay cushions, crochet rag rugs on the floor and the afternoon sun pouring through the windows.'<ref>{{Cite journal |date=14 Oct 1936 |title=Melbourne Chatter |journal=The Bulletin |volume=57 |issue=2957 |pages=51 |via=TROVE}}</ref> She was reported as considering exhibiting the Spanish paintings for their topicality given the ongoing Civil War in that country.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244760049 |title=While I Remember |newspaper=The Herald |issue=18,475 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=1 August 1936 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=23 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
On 30 July 1937 in Bendigo Freeman’s father died, and from 1938-1939 Madge returned to live with her 67-year-old mother at her old home in Barkly Place, Bendigo, where she held classes in her studio,<ref>{{cite news |date=18 August 1938 |title=While I Remember |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243455159 |access-date=25 November 2024 |newspaper=The Herald |location=Victoria, Australia |page=24 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=19,111}}</ref> with some of the students being children.<ref>{{cite news |date=21 November 1938 |title=CHILD ART SHOW TO OPEN TOMORROW |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243266662 |access-date=25 November 2024 |newspaper=The Herald |location=Victoria, Australia |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=19192}}</ref> Over the summer of 1937–38 she made paintings of the mines in Bendigo, intrigued by their ‘wonderful color, with golden colored earth contrasting with grey at the poppet head, and marvellous lights in the early morning and late afternoon.’<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244552118 |title=WHILE I REMEMBER |newspaper=The Herald |issue=18,773 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=17 July 1937 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=24 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> They were works Freeman hung at the 1938 Victorian Artists’ Society Autumn Exhibition, where they were favourably reviewed by George Bell<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article278068995 |title=ART WORK REVIEWED |newspaper=The Sun News-pictorial |issue=4868 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=29 April 1938 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=21 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and Basil Burdett<ref name="MODERNS PROMINENT AT AUTUMN ART S">{{cite news |date=22 April 1938 |title="MODERNS" PROMINENT AT AUTUMN ART SHOW |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244588496 |access-date=25 November 2024 |newspaper=The Herald |location=Victoria, Australia |page=9 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=19,010}}</ref> who in a survey, 'Modern Art in Melbourne', places Freeman and Elma Roach among artists 'who have brought back with them from Paris [an] aspect of contemporary European painting unfamiliar to Australian eyes.'<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |last=Burdett |first=Basil |date=November 1938 |title=Modern Art in Melbourne: The younger generation |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-354682009 |journal=Art in Australia |series=Third Series |volume=73 |pages=21–22, 66–67 |via=TROVE}}</ref> Bell and Freeman subsequently struck up a friendship.<ref name="Exhibition Flyer 1977"/> Reproductions of her works, a still life and a view of a Bendigo mine appeared, with two by Roach, in that same issue of ''Art in Australia'' between those of Murray Griffin and Rupert Bunny.<ref name=":6" /> Later that year Roach moved from her Collins street studio into one next door to Freeman's stables in Gipps Street.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=19 October 1938 |title=Melbourne Chatter |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-576506997 |journal=The Bulletin |volume=59 |issue=3062 |pages=38 |via=TROVE}}</ref> Into the loft of the latter Danila Vassilieff temporarily moved his studio before building 'Stonygrad' in Warrandyte.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1 June 1938 |title=Melbourne Chatter |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-576346087 |journal=The Bulletin |volume=59 |issue=3042 |pages=38 |via=TROVE}}</ref>
Basil Burdett continued to favour Freeman in his 1938 reviews; of the Victorian Artists’ Society spring exhibition, in which he rated her as one of the ‘progressives’; and he mentions her first in discussing the Society of Women Painters (previously named the Women's Art Club), writing that ‘individual standards are well maintained in most cases, [and] occasionally excelled, as in the case of Madge Freeman. Her "By the Wharf" (No. 32) is a first-rate sketch, swift and sure, freeiy painted and good in color.’ The conservative Harold Herbert however was dismissive of her ''Sanary''<ref>{{Cite web |date=16 March 2023 |title=Into The Light: Donor Circle Acquisitions: 2021 |url=https://sheila.org.au/news/into-the-light-donor-circle-acquisitions-2021/ |access-date=25 September 2025 |website=The Sheila Foundation}}</ref> as a’ half-baked attempt at a "modern" means of expression.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12506023 |title=ART SHOW SOME GOOD WORK |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=28,747 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=11 October 1938 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
== World War Two == In 1939, Freeman contributed work to the Bush Fire Fund art union. With the donations of 129 works by artists displayed at the Athenaeum in February, £770 was raised.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12096666 |title=ART UNION DRAWN |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=28,854 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=13 February 1939 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> In March she was elected president of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243335782 |title=While I Remember... |newspaper=The Herald |issue=19,298 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=24 March 1939 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=13 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and presented on 4 May a talk on ‘The Customs of the natives of the Gold Coast of West Africa’ at a meeting of the society at the Victoria League,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205990170 |title=Melbourne Society of Woman Painters |newspaper=The Age |issue=26,202 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=11 April 1939 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> at which event the members formed a Red Cross group to assist its work during WW2,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206334083 |title=Women Painters Form Red Cross Group |newspaper=The Age |issue=26332 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=8 September 1939 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and in October 1939 joined other artist societies in an entertainments committee of the Lord Mayors Red Cross War Appeal Fund, with a proposal for a fundraising pageant,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article277941497 |title=Artists' Plans To Aid Red Cross |newspaper=The Sun News-pictorial |issue=5332 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=25 October 1939 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=37 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and an early outcome was a bazaar selling work of women artists in a shop in the Block Arcade, Melbourne.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11288930 |title=THE LIFE OF MELBOURNE |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=29,092 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=18 November 1939 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=15 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205592512 |title=WOMAN ARTISTS GIVE OWN WORK |newspaper=The Age |issue=26393 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=18 November 1939 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=24 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> The combined artist subcommittee of the Red Cross Appeal in March 1940 assisted in selling 30,000 ‘lucky envelopes,’ all of which contained some prize, ‘big or small’.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243234503 |title=artists' Red Cross Work |newspaper=The Herald |issue=19,597 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=7 March 1940 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=26 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Freeman, in another effort, invited members of the public to assist, each paying 6d for a dab of paint,<ref>{{Cite journal |date=31 January 1940 |title=Melbourne Chatter |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-613274597 |journal=The Bulletin |volume=61 |issue=3129 |pages=61 |via=TROVE}}</ref> in finishing a painting she had begun.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243239851 |title=Artists Donate Pictures For Flag Day |newspaper=The Herald |issue=19,557 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=20 January 1940 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=22 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243241943 |title=ARTISTS SKETCH FOR FEE |newspaper=The Herald |issue=19,560 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=24 January 1940 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=14 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
In June 1939, Freeman joined the Independent Group for its support of individuals without allegiance to a specific school, though most, like her, were post-impressionists and early modernists, and together showed their paintings annually.<ref>{{Cite book | author1=Forwood, Gillian | author2=Bryans, Lina| title=Lina Bryans : rare modern, 1909-2000 | page=128|publication-date=2003 | publisher=The Miegunyah Press | isbn=978-0-522-85037-6}}</ref>
In the midst of mobilisation for WW2, and as a welcome distraction from the hostilities, came Basil Burdett’s controversial 1939 Herald Exhibition of French and British Contemporary Art in the Melbourne Town Hall. Madge Freeman joined George Bell, Arnold Shore, William Frater, Norman MacGeorge, Ola Cohn and John Reed in delivering lectures on its artists and their works to the public,<ref>{{Citation | author1=Eileen Chanin | author2=Pugh, Judith | author3=Miller, Steven| title=Degenerates and perverts the 1939 Herald exhibition of French and British contemporary art | publication-date=2004 | page=206 | publisher=Carlton, Vic Miegunyah Press | isbn=978-0-522-85104-5}}</ref> presentations which continued even after the removal of the show to Sydney.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article277940867 |title=ART SHOW ENDS TOMORROW |newspaper=The Sun News-pictorial |issue=5337 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=31 October 1939 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=31 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Freeman was one of a number of artists who promoted the value of the exhibition, for its provocative interpretations of life.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243347707 |title=ARTISTS' TRIBUTES TO EDUCATIONAL VALUE |newspaper=The Herald |issue=19,522 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=9 December 1939 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
Freeman’s work appeared in the inaugural Contemporary Art Society exhibition in Melbourne in 1939 with Dora Serle, Norman Macgeorge, Sybil Craig, Mary Finnin, Isabel Tweddle, Eric Thake, and Alan Sumner.<ref>{{Citation |author1=Forwood, Gillian |author2=Bryans, Lina|title=Lina Bryans : rare modern, 1909-2000 |publication-date=2003 |publisher=The Miegunyah Press |isbn=978-0-522-85037-6}}</ref>
In the 1940s, Freeman associated with Lina Bryans and her Darebin Bridge House ('Pink Hotel') group of the conservative modernist members of the Contemporary Art Society; Norman Macgeorge, Clive Stephen, Isobel Tweddle and Rupert Bunny and old friends including Sybil Craig, Guelda Pyke, Elma Roach, and Ola Cohn who circulated amongst the ''Meanjin'' literary and intellectual set.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Eagle |first=Mary |date=Summer 1983 |title=Lina Bryans |journal=Art and Australia |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=238}}</ref>
== Remarriage == thumb|Artists outside Madge Freeman Davis' studio in William St, South Yarra c.1940s. L to R: Nancy Grant; Madge Freeman Davis; Jean Barrett; Madeline Crump; Mary Cecil Allen (centre); our model; Guelda Pyke; George Bell; Mrs Clive Stephen (Dorothy). University of Melbourne Archives In 1940 Freeman married Basil Davies, a Gippsland farmer, and settled with him at his property ''Koongarra'' at Longwarry, but kept a studio in her grandfather's house at South Yarra.<ref name="Exhibition Flyer 1977"/><ref>Finucane, Paul (2019). ''Odd Roads to be Walking''. Skibbereen, Ireland: Red Barn Publishing. p. 184. {{ISBN|978-1-9161877-0-2}}</ref> She exhibited with the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors in their annual exhibitions until 1971, and held a solo show at Georges Gallery in May 1951 from which the Bendigo Gallery purchased the ''Flower Study'' and the National Gallery of Victoria a watercolour, ''Road to Heyfield''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Freeman |first=Madge |date=1951 |title=Road to Heyfield |url=https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/27163/ |access-date=25 November 2024 |website=National Gallery of Victoria}}</ref> The show was reviewed by the unnamed ''Age'' newspaper art critic who opined that ‘a theory is necessary to the production of art’ and that though Freeman’s formula was attached to design: <blockquote>Freeman does not […] follow a straight path; she is apparently wavering between description and a realm In which symbols are important. Although this feeling of unsureness permeates the entire display, it Is not evident in individual compositions. Her calm, clean style has ensured a fairly even standard of achievement in all branches.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article209823018 |title=ART NOTES |newspaper=The Age |issue=29,960 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=8 May 1951 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref></blockquote>The couple travelled overseas during 1952 and 1953 visiting European galleries and stud farms. On her return the Lyceum Club, where for fifteen years she was convenor of their Art Circle, showed a retrospective of her work. She and Basil moved to Lower Plenty where Madge resumed painting ''en plein air''.
== Later life == Madge’s increasing poor health caused their move in 1960 to Ivanhoe where in the early 1970s she was placed in residential care, where she died in February 1977.
In 1979, Basil Davies' estate established a Madge Freeman prize to be administered by the Bendigo Art Gallery which in 1981 staged a retrospective exhibition of Madge Freeman’s work.<ref name=":1">Freeman, Frances Margot, and Bendigo Art Gallery (Bendigo, Australia). 1981. Madge Freeman (1895-1977): Exhibition of Paintings, Bendigo Art Gallery, 16 March-26 April 1981. [Bendigo]: [The Gallery].</ref>
== Exhibitions == * 1923, from 9 May: Joint exhibition by Madge Freeman and Elma Roach. Fine Art Society's Gallery, 100 Exhibition St., Melbourne<ref name=":4">{{Citation | author1=Roach, Elma | author2=Freeman, Madge | title=Exhibition of water colour drawings by the Misses Elma Roach and Madge Freeman : held at the Fine Art Society's Gallery, 100 Exhibition Street, Melbourne, 9th May to 22nd May, 1923 | publication-date=1923 | publisher=Victorian Printing Works | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/35044150 | access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244026058 |title=NATURE IN WATER-COLORS |newspaper=The Herald |issue=14,707 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=8 May 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1923, June: Display at Melbourne Town Hall of painted woodcraft by Freeman and Roach *1923, 16 June–7 July: Bendigo Art Society's annual exhibition, with Charles Wheeler, H. Septimus Power, Charles D. Richardson, Dora L. Wilson, Allan. T. Bernaldo and Madge Freeman. Bendigo Art Gallery<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244023520 |title=BENDIGO'S ART DISPLAY OPENED |newspaper=The Herald |issue=14,381 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=16 June 1923 |access-date=22 November 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1923, from 22 August: The Women's Art Club, with Cumbrae Stewart, Dora Wilson, Norah Gurdon, Madge Freeman, Jessie Traill, and A. M. E. Bale. Athenaeum, 188 Collins Street, Melbourne<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article203628851 |title=Art Notes |newspaper=The Age |issue=21,339 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=23 August 1923 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=12 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2020622 |title=Work of Women's Art Club |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=24,039 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=23 August 1923 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=11 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article140825231 |title=The Studio |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=CXV |issue=2,996 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=1 September 1923 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=33 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1923, 11–18 December: joint exhibition of craftwork at Jessie Traill’s studio. Edwards Building, 178 Collins St., Melbourne<ref name="SOCIAL NOTES"/> *1924, from 23 June: Exhibition of Australian Art, 'Australian Artists in Europe', with Abby (Abraham) Alston, David Baker, Leslie Bowles, Penleigh Boyd, Rupert Bunny, Isaac M. Cohen, Charles Conder, George James Coates, Ethel Carrick-Fox, Bessie Davidson, Roy De Maistre, E. Phillips Fox, Madge Freeman, Bessie Gibson, Agnes Goodsir, Elioth Gruner, Clewin Harcourt, Hans Heysen, Marion Jones, W.A. Kermode, George Lambert, Fred Leis tt, Sydney Long, John Longstaff, W. Lister, Dora Meeson, Harold Parker, Adelaide Perry, H. A. Power, James Quinn, Janet Cumbrae Stewart, Arthur Streeton, and Laurence B. Tayler. Royal College of Arts gallery, London<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128148024 |title=AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS |newspaper=Sunday Times |issue=2015 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=14 September 1924 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>Catalogue, 'Australian Artists in Europe - Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture', 23 July 1924 - 12 July 1924. Madge Freeman: Art & Artist Files, held in the National Gallery of Australia Research and Archive Collection.</ref> *1924, 1–11 October: Inclusion ''in absentia'' in Women's Art Club group show. Athenaeum, 188 Collins Street, Melbourne<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155547778 |title=ART NOTES. |newspaper=The Age |issue=21,685 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=2 October 1924 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=11 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1925, from 22 August: Inclusion ''in absentia'' with Cumbrae Stewart, Marion Jones, and Olga Cohn amongst 250 other entries in Bendigo Art Society group exhibition. Bendigo Art Gallery<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243629354 |title=ART IN BENDIGO |newspaper=The Herald |issue=15,054 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=19 August 1925 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155809460 |title=Bendigo Art Society. |newspaper=The Age |issue=21,963 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=25 August 1925 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=15 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1926, January: Group exhibition, works by Blamire Young, Albert E. Newbury, Harold Herbert, Charles Wheeler, George Benson, A. M. E. Bale, H. Johnson, Vida Lahey, James Jackson, Albert Collin, Muir Auld, John Eldershaw, and Madge Freeman. The New Gallery, 107 Elizabeth St., Melbourne *1926, October: Group exhibition. Bendigo Art Gallery *1926, from 1 December: The Women's Art Club annual group show. The Athenaeum gallery.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article202196327 |title=THE Women's ART CLUB. |newspaper=The Age |issue=22359 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=2 December 1926 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=11 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article142167596 |title=THE STUDIO. |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=CXXI |issue=4,066 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=11 December 1926 |access-date=23 November 2024 |page=55 (METROPOLITAN EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1927, 2 March: Sale of the James Dyer Collection, with work by Henry Burn, Blamire Young, Norman Lindsay, Thea Proctor, Charles Sims, Penleigh Boyd, Hans Heysen, George Coates, and "Drying Sails, Chioggia," by Madge Freeman<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243611813 |title=DYER COLLECTION |newspaper=The Herald |issue=15,532 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=1 March 1927 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=16 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1927, June: 1927 Royal Academy, London<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article180112033 |title=Art in London |newspaper=The Telegraph |issue=17,017 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=18 June 1927 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=10 (SECOND EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206174366 |title=ABOUT PEOPLE. |newspaper=The Age |issue=22,548 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=13 July 1927 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=11 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1928: First One-Woman Exhibition, Bendigo Art Gallery, Memorial Hall<ref name="Exhibition Flyer 1977"/> *1928, March: Group exhibition. Sedon Gallery, 231 Elizabeth St., Melbourne<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243908170 |title=Art Of The Past And The Present |newspaper=The Herald |issue=15,869 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=28 March 1928 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=18 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1928, from 3 October: The Women's Art Club 19th Annual Exhibition. Athenaeum Gallery<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article204119717 |title=WOMAN'S INTERESTS |newspaper=The Age |issue=22,931 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=4 October 1928 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=12 |via=National Library of Australia}} </ref> *1928, from 31 October: Solo exhibition opened by Arthur Woodward. Soldiers’ Memorial Hall, Bendigo<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article204244771 |title=BENDIGO. |newspaper=The Age |issue=22955 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=1 November 1928 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1930, May: Group exhibition. Athenaeum Gallery<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article141798627 |title=ART. |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=CXXVIII |issue=4,243 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=3 May 1930 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=19 (METROPOLITAN EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1930, 12–25 August: Group show, Margaret MacLean’s studio, 125 Collins Street. *1930, 26–29 September: Solo exhibition of watercolours. Karrakatta Club Hall, Western Australia<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article79467866 |title=Advertising |newspaper=The Daily News |volume=XLIX |issue=17,283 |location=Western Australia |date=26 September 1930 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=10 (HOME (FINAL) EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia}} </ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article79475258 |title=MADGE FREEMAN'S WORK |newspaper=The Daily News |volume=XLIX |issue=17,284 |location=Western Australia |date=27 September 1930 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=3 (FINAL SPORTING EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1934, 10–21: Solo exhibition of oils and watercolours of Europe and Africa by Madge Freeman. Sedon Galleries<ref name="WOMAN'S REALM"/><ref name="MISS MADGE FREEMAN"/><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243168415 |title=MADGE FREEMAN'S EXHIBITION |newspaper=The Herald |issue=17,831 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=10 July 1934 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243168550 |title=While I Remember |newspaper=The Herald |issue=17,831 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=10 July 1934 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=14 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref name="Exhibition Flyer 1977"/> *1935, July: entrant in the Salon des Tuileries<ref name="nla.gov.au"/> *1936, to 11 November: Enamelwork by Freeman and Roach exhibited at Roach’s studio, 117 Collins Street, Melbourne, then at Freeman’s Gipps Street studio<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205944370 |title=FRENCH CRAFT WORK. |newspaper=The Age |issue=25,447 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=5 November 1936 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11933851 |title=French Enamels and Clay |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=28,148 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=6 November 1936 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1936, from 2 December: Freeman and Roach enamelwork, Klytie Schlater (Pate) hand-carved pottery, and pottery by Phillipa James. Margaret Maclean's Gallery, Kodak House, 252 Collins Street, Melbourne<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205937621 |title=From Near and Far |newspaper=The Age |issue=25,470 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=2 December 1936 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=17 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11943571 |title=Art Show |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=28,171 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=3 December 1936 |access-date=24 November 2024 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1937, 1–24 December: A Christmas sale of works by M. McChesney Mathews, Elma Roach, Madge Freeman. Guelda Pyke, Ola Cohn. Tilda McVen and Klytie Sclater. Margaret Maclean's Gallery, Kodak House, 252 Collins Street, Melbourne<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244542969 |title=Dates To Remember |newspaper=The Herald |issue=18,889 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=30 November 1937 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=18 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1938, from 26 April: Victorian Artists’ Society Autumn Exhibition.<ref name="MODERNS PROMINENT AT AUTUMN ART S"/> *1938, from 21 June–2 July: ''Fourth Exhibition of Group Twelve'', Louise Thomas, Chrisma Wahlers, C. E. Bell, Ina Morris, Marjorie North, Clive Stephen, Mr. Robert Pulleine, George Bell, Arnold Shore, Roger James, Lady Barrett, Miss Cara Barrett, Moya Dyring, with invited artists Geoff Jones, Mr. Adrian Lawlor, Elma Roach, Madge Freeman,<ref>{{Cite journal |date=29 June 1938 |title=Melbourne Chatter |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-576395777 |journal=The Bulletin |volume=59 |issue=3046 |pages=38 |via=TROVE}}</ref> Margaret Long, Albert Tucker, and Nutter Buzacott. Athenaeum Gallery<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11165133 |title=DANCES The World of Women WEDDINGS |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=28,652 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=22 June 1938 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | author1=Group Twelve | title=[Group Twelve: Australian Gallery File] | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32484634 | access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |date=29 June 1938 |title=Sundry Shows |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-576395627 |journal=The Bulletin |volume=59 |issue=3046 |pages=35 |via=TROVE}}</ref> *1938, from 27 September: Victorian Artists’ Society, Albert Street, East Melbourne<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243397709 |title=More Modernism In Art Show |newspaper=The Herald |issue=19,142 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=23 September 1938 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article278323849 |title=Art Quality Advances |newspaper=The Sun News-pictorial |issue=4995 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=24 September 1938 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=51 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1938, from 11 October: Society of Women Painters, Athenaeum Gallery *1939, 13–24 June: members of Independent Group E. Alsop, Madge Freeman, Grace Gardiner, Roger James, Margaret Pestell, Robert Pulleine, James Quinn, Elma Roach, Norman Macgeorge, Eveline Syme, Dora Serle, Louise Thomas and Dora Wilson. Athenaeum Gallery<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12138534 |title=Social Notes, Personal |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=28,956 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=13 June 1939 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205633149 |title=The Independent Group |newspaper=The Age |issue=26,256 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=13 June 1939 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=12 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1939, from 2 October: Melbourne Society of Women Painters, Athenaeum *1940, from 19 March: Exhibition of artworks donated in aid of the Red Cross. Athenaeum Gallery *1940, from 11 June: Second annual exhibition of the Independent Group. Athenaeum Gallery<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243227756 |title=Three Art Shows To Open Tomorrow |newspaper=The Herald |issue=19679 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=10 June 1940 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=12 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1940, November: Society of Women Painters, Athenaeum Gallery<ref>{{Cite journal |date=25 November 1940 |title=Art in Melbourne |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-354572900 |journal=Art in Australia |series=Third series |issue=81 |pages=64}}</ref> * 1941, 4–18 December: Forty Seven Painters. Clothilde Atyeo, Yvonne Atkinson, Edith Alsop, Frances Burke, George Bell, C.E. Bell, Mabel Crump, Jack Courier, Ola Cohn, Frances Derham, Russell Drysdale, Margaret Francis, Dorothea Francis, Madge Freeman, Grace Gardiner, Mira Gould, Genevieve Harrison, Jess Jones, Margaret MacLean, Bernard Lawson, M. Mercer, Colin MacGowan, Ina Morris, Maidie McWhirter, Marjorie North, Marjorie Rankin, Elma Roach, E.W. Syme, Constance Parkin, Dora Serle, Alan Sumner, Clive Stephen, David Strachan, Peter Purves Smith, Isabel Tweddle, Louise Thomas, Mary Torkington, Marjorie Woolcock, Joan Voyage, Joan Yonge, Chrisma Wahlers, Lowiny Wood, Sybil Craig<ref>{{Citation | author1=Forty Seven Painters | title=[Forty Seven Painters: Australian Gallery File] | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32484480 | access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref> * 1941, 7–18 October: 1941 annual exhibition Melbourne Contemporary Artists, E. Alsop, Yvonne Atkinson, Clothilde Atyeo, C.E. Bell, George Bell, Rupert Bunny, Nutter Buzacott, J. Courier, Mabel Crump, Frances Derham, G. Russell Drysdale, Dorothea Francis, Margaret Francis, Madge Freeman, Grace Gardiner, G.A. Harrison, Bernard Lawson, M. McWhirter, M. Cockburn Mercer, Marjorie North, M. Rankin, Elma Roach, Clive Stephen, Connie Stokes, D. Stoner, Eveline Syme, Alan Sumner, Louise Thomas, Isabel Tweddle, Lowiny Wood, Marjorie Woolcock, Joan Yonge, and invitee Ola Cohn. Athenaeum Gallery<ref>{{Citation | author1=Melbourne Contemporary Artists | title=[Melbourne Contemporary Artists: Australian Gallery File] | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32484525 | access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref> *1941, 22 October–22 November: The Tasmanian Group of Painters 2nd annual exhibition. Tasmanian member artists represented were Gene Ashton, Winifred Biggins, Dorothy Bradford, Eileen Brooker, Harry Buckie, Jocelyn Burrows, Lucien Dechaineux, Marie Dechaineux, Robert Campbell, Joseph Connor, Eileen Crow, Edith Holmes, Mabel Hookey, Florence Jones, Amie Kingston, R.A.V. McCulloch, Isobel MacKenzie, Robert Montgomery, Joan Pitman, Phyllis Pitman, Oliffe Richmond, Florence Rodway, J.C. Smith, Dorothy Stoner, V.P. Webb, Laurence White, Isobel Oldham; Victorian invited artists represented were George Bell, Lina Bryans, W. Bush, N. Buzzacott, Mabel Crump, William Frater, Madge Freeman, Daryl Lindsay, M.S. McWhirter, A.M. Plante, John Rowell, Ruth Shakel, Arnold Shore, John Skeaping, Alan Sumner, E.W. Syme, Eric Thake, Louis Thomas, Albert Tucker, P. Tremills, Isobel Tweddle, Marjorie Woolcock, Harley Griffiths. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery<ref>{{Citation | author1=Tasmanian Group of Painters | title=[Tasmanian Group of Painters: Australian Gallery File] | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32485670 | access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref> *1945: First annual exhibition 1945, Artists exhibiting were E. Alsop, Wallace Anderson, Clothilde Atyeo, A.M.E. Bale, E. Monette Baxter, Tom Bell, J. Bergner, Arthur Boyd, Ian Bow, Lina Bryans, Nutter Buzacott, Victor E. Cobb, Valerie Cohen, Yvonne F. Cohen, W. Coleman, Elizabeth Colquhoun, F. Lawrence Coles, Noel Counihan, Sybil Craig, Peggy Crombie, Mabel Crump, Aileen Dent, Max Dimmack, Ailsa Donaldson, Ambrose Dyson, Esme Farmer, John Farmer, Alma Figuerola, Burton Fox, Madge Freeman, W. Frater, Grace Gardiner, Ina Gregory, Nornie Gude, W.G. Gulliver, Michael Hall, John Heath, Edward Heffernan, Roy Opie, Betty Paterson, Esther Paterson, J. Perceval, A. Plante, Muriel Pornett, James Quinn, M. Rankin, Jack Sampson, Dora Serle, Bruno Simon, David Sing, Colvin L. Smith, J.T. Smith, W. Spence, N.F. Suhr, Jean P. Sutherland, Jo. Sweatman, E.W. Syme, Arnold Shore, Stephany Taylor, George H. Tichauer, Louise Thomas, Violet Teague, Francis Roy Thompson, Rollo Thomson, Albert Tucker, Kit Turner, Danila Vassilieff, J. Wentcher, Tina Wentcher, James V. Wigley, Nora Wilkie, Dora L. Wilson, Noel Wood, Marjorie Woolcock, Joan Yonge, Marguerite Mahood. Velasquez Gallery, Tye & Co., Bourke Street [Melbourne].<ref>{{Citation | author1=Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (Australia). Victorian Division | title=[Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (Australia). Victorian Division: Australian Gallery File] | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32484289 | access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref> *1949, 22 February–4 March: Exhibition of pictures by Australian artists and loan collection of Indian art, in aid of the University Women's College Building Appeal. Tye's Gallery, 100 Bourke Street, Melbourne<ref>{{Citation | author1=Tye's Gallery | title=[Tye's Gallery: Australian Gallery File] | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32485771 | access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref> *1950, from 31 July: Independent Group. Stanley Coe Gallery<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244119908 |title=Water Colors Dominate Group Art Show |newspaper=The Herald |issue=22,835 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=31 July 1950 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article279997546 |title=Lively paintings of Japan on view |newspaper=The Sun News-pictorial |issue=8691 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=1 August 1950 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=18 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1950, October: Society of Women Painters annual exhibition. Victorian Artists’ Society Galleries<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205372070 |title=Art Notes |newspaper=The Age |issue=29,788 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=17 October 1950 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1950, to 8 December: Society of Women Painters. Tye’s Gallery<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206413807 |title=Art Notes |newspaper=The Age |issue=29,830 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=5 December 1950 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1951, 1–17 May: Paintings by Madge Freeman, opened by Louis McCubbin. Georges Gallery<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206392009 |title=Advertising |newspaper=The Age |issue=29,952 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=28 April 1951 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *1951, July: Drawings and Watercolours. Victorian Artists' Society<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205345367 |title=Art Notes |newspaper=The Age |issue=30,020 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=17 July 1951 |access-date=25 November 2024 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> * 1956: ''Drawings and Prints - Melbourne contemporary artists'': Dorothy Baker, George Bell, Barbara Brash, R.A. Center, William (Bill) Coleman, Dorothea Francis, Madge Freeman, Alan Foulkes, Ann Graham, Geoff Jones, Roger Kemp, Lesley Lawson, M.E. Lormer, Harry R. Mitchell, Anne Montgomery, Marjorie North, Harry Rosengrave, Ellen Rubbo, Richard Scales, D.K. Stoner, Eveline Syme, Elvrida M Verco, Percy Watson, Marjorie Woolcock. Peter Bray Gallery<ref>{{Citation | author1=Peter Bray Gallery | author2=Peter Bray Gallery | title=[Peter Bray Gallery: Australian Gallery File] | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32482639 | access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref>
=== Posthumous === * 1981, 21–23 November: ''Art Mart''. Caulfield Arts Centre<ref>{{Citation | author1=Art Mart | title=[Art Mart: Australian Gallery File] | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32483536 | access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref> * 1981, 16 March-26 April: ''Madge Freeman (1895-1977): Exhibition of Paintings'' Bendigo Art Gallery<ref name=":1" /> * 1985, 7–30 March: ''Four Bendigo watercolourists''. Bendigo Art Gallery<ref>{{Citation | author1=Bendigo Art Gallery | title=Four Bendigo watercolourists : Arthur T. Woodward 1865-1943, R. W. Bugg 1853-1937, T. H. Bone 1901-1953, Madge Freeman 1895-1977 : Bendigo Art Gallery 7 March - 30 March 1985 | publication-date=1985 | publisher=Bendigo Art Gallery | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/34612124 | access-date=25 November 2024}}</ref><ref>Invitation, "Four Bendigo Watercolorists", Bendigo Art Gallery, 7 March 1985, Madge Freeman: Art & Artist Files, held in the National Gallery of Australia Research and Archive Collection.</ref> * 1988, 13 April: George Bell, Students and Friends, A Major Collection of Fine Australian Art of the 30s, 40s and 50s, Holland Fine Art, Double Bay, New South Wales.<ref>Flyer, "George Bell, Students and Friends, A Major Collection of Fine Australian Art of the 30s, 40s and 50s," Holland Fine Art Gallery, 13 April 1988. Madge Freeman: Art & Artist Files, held in the National Gallery of Australia Research and Archive Collection.</ref><ref>Press Release, 'George Bell, Student and Friends Exhibition' Fine Art Gallery. Madge Freeman: Art & Artist Files, held in the National Gallery of Australia Research and Archive Collection.</ref> * 1989, 9–16 October: ''Spring exhibition''. Jim Alexander Gallery, East Malvern, Vic<ref name=":2">{{Citation | author1=Alexander Gallery | author2=Jim Alexander Gallery | title=[Jim Alexander Gallery: Australian Gallery File] | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32484364 | access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref><ref>Flyer, "Spring Exhibition," Jim Alexander Gallery, 9 October to 16 October 1988. Madge Freeman: Art & Artist Files, held in the National Gallery of Australia Research and Archive Collection.</ref> * 1990, 20–27 May: ''Autumn exhibition''. Jim Alexander Gallery, East Malvern, Vic<ref name=":2" /> * 1992, 27 June–12 July: ''Ladies in Waiting.'' The Borough Galleries, 10 High Street, Eaglehawk<ref>{{Cite journal |date=June 1992 |title=Advertising |journal=Art and Australia |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=302}}</ref> * 2002, 20 March-1 May: ''Lyceum Club 90th birthday exhibition''. Marion Jones, Henrietta Gulliver, Mary Macqueen, Mrs. Alfred Deakin, May Vale, Dora Wilson, Aileen Dent, Marjorie McChesney Mathews, Janie Wilkinson Whyte, Ruby Winifred McCubbin, Pegg Clarke, Dora Meeson Coates, Ethel Carrick Fox, Edith Alsop, Josephine Muntz Adams, Dora Serle, John Mather, Jessie Traill, Ethel Spowers, Arthur Streeton, Madge Freeman, Esther Paterson, Hans Heysen, Janet Agnes Cumbrae Stewart, Anne Montgomery, Emanuel Phillips Fox, George Coates, Violet Teague, Rupert Bunny, Edith Alsop, Elsie Barlow, Bertha Merfield, Lois W. Baglin, Eveline Syme. Lyceum Club, Melbourne<ref>{{Citation | author1=Lyceum Club, Melbourne | title=[Lyceum Club (Melbourne, Vic.): Australian Gallery File] | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/251669880 | access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref> * 2018: Intrepid Women: Australian Women in Paris 1900-1950, SH Ervin Gallery, Sydney.<ref>Finucane, Paul (2019). ''Odd Roads to be Walking''. Skibbereen, Ireland: Red Barn Publishing. p. 185. {{ISBN|978-1-9161877-0-2}}</ref>
== Collections == * National Gallery of Victoria<ref>{{Cite web |title=Madge Freeman |url=https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/4220/ |access-date=25 November 2024 |website=National Gallery of Victoria}}</ref> * Bendigo Art Gallery<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024 |title=Bendigo Art Gallery Collection: FREEMAN, Madge |url=https://collection.bendigoartgallery.com.au/persons/279 |access-date=25 November 2024 |website=Bendigo Art Gallery}}</ref> * Castlemaine Art Museum<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024 |title=Madge Freeman (b.1895, d.1977) |url=https://collection.castlemaineartmuseum.org.au/persons/216/madge-freeman-b1895-d1977 |access-date=25 November 2024 |website=Castlemaine Art Museum}}</ref>
== Bibliography == * {{Citation |author1=Gorman |first=Clem |title=Intrpide: Australian Women Artists In Early Twentieth-Century France |publication-date=2020 |editor-last=Gorman |editor-first=Therese |chapter=24: Madge Freeman: A Steady Achiever |place=Melbourne |publisher=Monash University Publishing |isbn=9781925523928}} * {{Citation | author1=Kerr, Joan | author2=National Women's Art Exhibition (Australia) | author3=Kerr, Joan| title=Heritage : the national women's art book : 500 works by 500 Australian women artists from colonial times to 1955 | publication-date=1995 | publisher=Art and Australia; Roseville East, N.S.W.: distributed by Craftsman House | isbn=978-976-641-045-2}} * Peers, Juliette (1993), More than just gumtrees: a personal, social and artistic history of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors. Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors in association with Dawn Revival Press, Melbourne * {{Citation | author1=Roach, Elma | author2=Freeman, Madge| title=Exhibition of water colour drawings by the Misses Elma Roach and Madge Freeman : held at the Fine Art Society's Gallery, 100 Exhibition Street, Melbourne, 9th May to 22nd May, 1923 | page=354 | publication-date=1923 | publisher=Victorian Printing Works | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/35044150 | access-date=26 November 2024}}
== References == {{reflist}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freeman, Madge}} Category:20th-century Australian women painters Category:1895 births Category:1977 deaths Category:People from Bendigo Category:Painters from Melbourne Category:20th-century Australian painters Category:Australian art educators Category:Australian women art educators Category:National Gallery of Victoria Art School alumni