Ailsa O'Connor

From her twenties onwards, Ailsa O'Connor was deeply committed to communism, and although an artist of much talent, who presented promising works in the 1940s, often reluctantly pushed art making aside on account of many her many political and personal commitments. 

However O'Connor was a passionate advocate of the traditions of radical humanist and realist art, drawing great inspiration from the art of Kathe Kollowitz, for her example in imaging "ordinary" peoples' lives and also her example as a woman artist. 

With the coming of second wave feminism in the 1970s, O'Connor became a passionate advocate for the cause of women's art in Australia, and made contact with many women artists irrespective of whether they shared her political outlook or not. 

For O'Connor, the subject of this sculpture would have great significance. Mary Gilbert was reputedly the first white woman to settle permanently in Melbourne, she was the wife of a blacksmith and for O'Connor a sort of archetypal proletarian "founding mother".