Daphne Mayo MBE (1895–1982), sculptor, was born in Sydney and moved to Brisbane as a child. She graduated from the Brisbane Technical College in 1914 and was awarded Queensland's first publicly funded travelling art scholarship. After the war she travelled to London and studied at the Sculpture School of the Royal Academy of Arts, where she received the gold medal for sculpture in 1923 and was enabled to travel and study in Italy. On her return to Brisbane, Mayo worked tirelessly to promote appreciation of the arts, including co-founding the Queensland Art Fund. She became the first woman trustee of the Queensland Art Gallery in 1960. Mayo’s remarkably diverse works include the Brisbane City Hall tympanum and Concert Hall medallions, and the bronze entrance doors of the Mitchell Wing of the State Library of New South Wales. She also completed a number of commissioned portraits including one of Lloyd Rees, who was briefly her fiancé, now in the Art Gallery of South Australia. Mayo is represented in most major state collections.
