Maree Coote

One of the very first to identify the contemporary rise of Melbourne’s cultural and place power, Maree Coote invigorates history for locals and visitors alike, bringing the stories of the city’s past to life with colour, relevance, empathy and style. Coote reviews the accounts of ‘dead white men’ and discovers for herself the real tales that belong to us all— including all the wonder, charm, folly and humanity of both the remote and the very recent past.

Her unique understanding of her topic (Melbourne) is made accessible through her command of history, culture, art and design for a wide variety of audiences. According to Philip Adams, “Melbourne never had a more ingenious ambassador.” Coote’s first book The Melbourne Book: A History of Now of 2003 has been dubbed ‘Melbourne’s Bible’. Her award winning ‘The Art of Being Melbourne’ is a unique perspective on Melbourne’s physical, intellectual and psycho-geographical development as explored through a collection of paintings of the built city-scape.

Maree also creates children’s picture books, and books on Art and Design. Her ingenious illustrative typography has caught the attention of international design bodies with her book Spellbound: Making Pictures with the A-B-C. Shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year awards, this stunning book won the coveted Bologna Ragazzi Special Mention Prize in Italy in 2017. Coote has also won a Distinction Prize in Korea’s Nami Concours Awards, and four New York IPPY awards.