Gwendolyn Grant studied art at the Brisbane Technical College under R Godfrey Rivers and at the National Gallery School, Melbourne (1907–11). Notably, she was included in the ‘First Australian Exhibition of Women’s Work’ in Melbourne in 1907. Her teachers at the National Gallery School included Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, through whom she developed an academic style of Impressionism that she promoted in the reviews and articles she wrote for Brisbane’s Daily Mail. In one editorial, Grant encouraged artists to ‘Go out and study Nature with all your heart and mind: love her beauty, and her moods’, while separately expressing some scepticism regarding Australian Modernism.  

Described by curator Keith Bradbury as ‘liberal, fashionably bohemian . . . with an active intellect’, Grant’s vivacity is reflected in her art. Winter sunshine 1939 embodies her approach to painting, celebrating her love of sunlight and domestic subjects, which provided her with an opportunity to quietly assert her independent spirit. Following her marriage to WG (William Gregory) Grant in 1915, she continued to exhibit and for many years taught art at the Technical College.