Joan Redshaw AM (1921–1994), medical practitioner, graduated from the University of Sydney medical school in 1944 before travelling to London to complete postgraduate studies in paediatrics at the Great Ormond Street Hospital. Returning to Australia in 1948, she became the first woman ship's surgeon to be employed by the Orient line, famously performing an appendectomy on the Red Sea. On board, she met Captain Arthur Strong, whom she married in 1949. For twenty years from 1951 Redshaw was a paediatrician and general practitioner in Nabiac, on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. A member of the Women's Advisory Board to the NSW Premier, she spent twelve years on the council of the Australian Medical Association. As president of the International Medical Women's Association, she campaigned against child marriage and female circumcision; her local community involvements included crisis accommodation for women affected by domestic violence, and alcoholism programs.
Barbara Tribe was a significant Australian sculptor and the first woman to win the New South Wales Travelling Art Scholarship. She spent most of her career in England, exhibiting with the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of British Sculptors. This terracotta bust of Redshaw aged 61 illustrates Tribe's talent for capturing expressive human qualities in her sculptural portraits.
Purchased 2016
© Estate of Barbara Tribe
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