Sybil Craig was a successful, confident and well-trained artist who made a considerable name for herself in Melbourne''s art world. A high point in a long career was her appointment as an Official War Artist, one of just three women (the others being Nora Heysen and Stella Bowen) to be commissioned in World War Two. Unlike her colleagues, Sybil Craig remained in Australia, depicting life on the Home Front. The highlight was a large group of works based around the female workers at the munitions factory at Maribyrnong in Melbourne''s West.

Fortunate in being financially able to pursue her chosen career without the need to marry, as many other women artists did, or indeed be under any pressure to sell, she w...