Aileen Dent (1890–1979), painter, is the most-exhibited woman artist in the Archibald Prize, with 63 works hung between 1921 and 1962. Dent studied at the National Gallery Art School between 1909 and 1916, winning prizes in 1912 and 1913. She exhibited regularly in Melbourne from 1921, often at the Athenaeum Gallery or the Lyceum Club, gaining a reputation as a portrait and figurative painter while frequently showing flower pieces and landscapes. In 1929 the Geelong Art Gallery bought one of her landscapes. For many years she had a studio at 504 Little Collins Street; there, in 1933, she painted a portrait of the prime minister, Joseph Lyons. A reviewer for the Age wrote in June 1945: 'Miss Dent is well known, and justly so, for her flower paintings … she obtains effect from sincere use of paint and interesting treatment of light and undertone. Her portraits make pleasing pictures and are usually striking in their likeness.' The National Gallery of Victoria acquired one of her flower paintings in 1934 and the National Portrait Gallery holds her portrait of Dame Elizabeth Couchman.
