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Margaret Baskerville 'James Cuming Memorial'

Location Cnr Nicholson & Hyde Streets,, YARRAVILLE VIC 3013 - Property No B6987 File Number B6987 Level State

[1/5] B6987James Cuming Memorial [2/5] B6987 James Cuming Memorial [3/5] B6987 James Cuming Memorial [4/5] B6987 James Cuming Memorial [5/5] B6987 James Cuming Memorial

Statement of Significance

The monument is of state significance possessing historical, technical and social merit.
The work was a memorial to the notable Footscray philanthropist and former mayor of the municipality, James Cuming.
The achievement of Margaret Baskerville was described at the time as being "a world's record for a woman sculptor" because she carved and completed all the work on the bust and the putti figures herself. Baskerville was the foremost Australian female sculptor of her period. She was a founding member and secretary of the Yarra Sculptors Society (1898-1910) and a member of the Melbourne Austral Salon, the Victorian Artists Society and at various times president or vice- president of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors. Completed during the Great War, this memorial enabled Baskerville to gain several more commissions including the Edith Cavell memorial (St Kilda Road, Melbourne) and the Maryborough War Memorial.
Baskerville completed several more modern works, after the designs, and for buildings designed by Walter Burley and Marion Mahoney Griffin.
Margaret Preston has described Baskerville as one of Australia's pioneer women artists and her involvement in the 1907 Melbourne Women's Exhibition justifies this.
Classified: 13/12/1999