Dorothea Foster Black (23 December 1891 – 13 September 1951) was an Australian painter and printmaker of the Modernist school, known for being a pioneer of Modernism in Australia. In 1951, at the age of sixty, Black was killed in a car crash. Early life and training Dorrit Black was born in the Adelaide suburb of Burnside, the daughter of engineer and architect Alfred Barham Black and Jessie Howard Clark, an amateur artist and daughter of John Howard Clark, editor of the South Australian Register. She attended the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts in about 1909, working in watercolors, and attended the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney in 1915, concentrating on working in oils. In 1927, Black went by herself to London and attended the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, where she experimented with colour linocut printing while studying under Claude Flight. Black was influenced by Flight to use bold geometrical patterns and harmonious colour schemes. In 1928, she studied at André Lhote's Academy in Paris. Black was influenced by Lhote's "compostional principles of geometric order". In 1929, she briefly worked with Albert Gleizes. Black was strongly influenced by the Modernist and Cubist art movements she was exposed to in London and Paris. By the time she returned to her home country in late 1929, Black had become an active proponent of the Cubist style, and brought the styles back to Australia with her. Black then held an exhibition at Macquarie Galleries in Sydney in 1930. This was one of six one-woman shows which were to feature her work. The Modern Art Centre, Margaret Street, Sydney Dorrit Black was interested in creating an environment that would enable others to work in the new style. She established the Modern Art Centre in Margaret Street, Sydney in 1931, the first gallery in Australia to devote itself to modernism. It was also one of the first galleries in Australia to be established by a woman. Over the next few years, the Modern Art Centre became a "source of inspiration and opening to a wider vision" to artists such as Nancy Hall. It hosted small but significant exhibitions by artists who became important proponents of Australian modernism, including Roland Wakelin, Grace Crowley, Grace Cossington Smith, Ralph Balson and Rah Fizelle. Works Black created most of her linocuts in the 1930s. She worked mainly in water-colours in the late 1930s and then