‘Nobody’s darlings’? Edith May Fry and Australian expatriate art in the 1920s Victoria Souliman Introduction In 1924, Australian artists based in London were prevented from exhibiting in the Australian pavilion of the Empire Exhibition alongside their compatri- ots. Consequently, the display of Australian expatriate art was required to be exhibited along with British artworks. A special London representative for the Melbourne Herald newspaper explained: Te result has been that instead of a collective show of works in the Australian pavilion by Australians in Australia and Australians in England, the pictures of those in England will probably be displayed separately in the British section. … Terefore they are not recognised as English painters, while being debarred from exhibiting with the Australians. Tey may thus be considered to be nobody’s darlings. Tey would like to know, what their nationality is. (Anon., 1924a: 7) Being exhibited in the British pavillion, although placed in a separate sec- tion, refected the idea that – in the eyes of the British at least – Australian expatriate artists were considered more British than Australian. Such a situ- ation therefore led these artists in England to question their identity, as they were diferentiated from Australian artists based back home, and were yet to be fully accepted in the British artistic scene at the time. Tey may thus be considered ‘in-between’, which in Homi Bhabha’s terms refers to the state of being caught in the ‘liminal space, in-between the designations of identity’ (Bhabha, 2012: 5). To this extent, Australian expatriate artists at the time were lef having to negotiate both their identity and the cultural space in which they produced art – a position which may be described in terms of ‘situational lat- erality’ and ‘transnational attachements’ according to more recent discourses on cultural identity (Petersen, 2017: 90). During the period between the two World Wars, the approximately 20,000 Australians – including writers, intellectuals, and artists – who trav- elled to Britain reinforced the strong cultural exchange between Australia and Europe (Morton, 2009: 259). In the minds of many Australians, Britain 13 MIYAMOTO 9781526149701 PRINT.indd 211 MIYAMOTO 9781526149701 PRINT.indd 211 08/02/2021 11:58 08/02/2021 11:58