Hilda Rix Nicholas married pastoralist Edgar Wright in 1928, making her home at ‘Knockalong’ in Delegate, southern New South Wales. Here she painted many nationalistic works for which she has become synonymous, such as The Fleece 1944 and, importantly, including women in the rural landscape, such as The Fair Musterer 1935 (Queensland Art Gallery). Her studio and garden at Knockalong also feature in many of her artworks, as do her family with Edgar and her son Rix, for example appearing in The Shepherd at Knockalongc.1933 (private collection) The surrounding landscape at Knockalong is an integral element in many paintings of the 1930s and 1940s, capturing the green fields, distant hills, sense of space and magnificent trees. The title here, Guardians of the Hilltop, reveals her respect, reverence and romanticism towards the Australian landscape.