Autobiography of My Mother (38 page)

Meg Stewart trained as a documentary film-maker. She went on to write and direct a short feature film that won first prize in the fiction category of the Greater Union Awards of the 1982 Sydney Film Festival. She has written a number of arts documentaries for ABC Radio as well as contributing to
The National Times
,
The Sydney Morning Herald
and
Good Weekend
magazine.

Her biography of Margaret Coen,
Autobiography of My Mother
, was first published in 1985. In 1991 she was the curator of a retrospective exhibition of her mother's work at the National Trust S. H. Ervin Gallery. In 1993 she was the first Nancy Keesing Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales, as a result of which she edited
The Woman I Am
, a collection of Keesing's last poetry.

Margaret Coen: A Passion for Painting
, her book of her mother's paintings, was published by the State Library of NSW Press in 1997, while her first novel,
Modern Men Don't Shift Fridges
, came out in 1999, followed by
The Dream Life of Harry Moon
in 2001. In 2005 her biography of Margaret Olley,
Far From a Still Life
, was published, which has become a highly acclaimed bestseller.

Michael O'Dwyer, my maternal grandfather. His dreams of finding gold were washed away when the creek flooded.

Grandma Coen as a young woman (
right
), and her sisters, Lizzie and Linda.

Grandpa Coen and his family. (
Back row, left to right
): Timothy, John Joseph (who became Father Alphonsus), King. (
Front row, left to right
): Joe, Grandma (Margaret Trainor), Evangelista (in Grandma's lap), Frank, Grandpa, Barney.

Dad, King Coen, who loved theatricals of any kind.

My mother, Bessie O'Dwyer, as a young milliner, aged seventeen. She could take a handful of flowers and ribbons, twist them around and arrange them in no time.

Me at a young age, looking quite pleased with life.

Widowed Grandma Coen presiding over afternoon tea in the courtyard of The House. (
Left to right
): Lizzie, Kathleen (on pony), Frank, Evangelista, Grandma (at table), Joe, Mollie, Linda (seated), Ina, Cocky, Trix (seated), Uncle Luke, Barney.

Isabel McDonagh in a still from a film, wearing Kathleen's dress from Paris.

Godmother Trix. Kincoppal was terribly strict, but from the moment I stepped out of the cab on that rainy morning I loved being at school there.

Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo, who looked every inch an art master, taught us once a week at Kincoppal.

A family portrait from about the time I left school: Dad and Jack are in the back row; King, Margaret, Mum and Mollie are in the front row.

At the beach, taken when I stayed at the artist Alf Coffey's studio house in Wyong.