Women

On the death of her husband Charles in Hobart in 1852, Phillis Seal (1807–1877) became the first woman to own and run a whaling fleet. Buffeted by falling prices for whale oil and labour shortages due to the gold rushes, Phillis eventually sold her ships and retired to live near her eldest son at Ballarat in the Victorian goldfields.

Brisbane painter and art teacher Mary E. Jones has escaped recognition for 130 years. She would not be alone in that fate: over time, many aspiring painters and their works disappear from history. Timothy Roberts reveals some details about Miss Jones’s career and her impact as a woman artist in Brisbane between 1887 and 1891, as well as her major career achievement – organising the first exhibition of works by women artists in Queensland.

Visions of a Republic. The work of Lucien Henry, the lavishly illustrated 2001 book produced for an exhibition on the designs and art of Lucien Henry (1850–1896), devotes more words to describing a photograph of the couple’s apartment in Darlinghurst (plate 1) than it does to describing his wife Juliette. Yet Madame Henry (1839-1898) was accomplished, respected and admired in her own right, as we can now more easily discover using Trove. While Lucien Henry was a visionary French-born artist who adapted Australian flora and fauna motifs to designs in architecture and the decorative arts, mostly unrealised, Juliette spread the knowledge of French language, literature and culture among Australians. Yvonne Barber reveals the person sometimes hidden by the shadow of her three husbands.

Dr Erickson concludes her story of the professional women artists who commenced working in Western Australia before World War I. All were born in South Australia or England, coming to Western Australia later, most as young adults and often with other family members. Their careers began in the heady years of the women’s movement, when women won the right to vote, and middle-class women began to take their place working in professions other than homemaking. Some continued working well into the 20th century.

Continuing our story of the women artists working in Western Australia before World War I, we will now turn to three ‘Angels’ who came, saw and conquered, but did not stay. They were all single, peripatetic, somewhat bohemian and left their mark in several societies. Marie Anne Tuck (1866–1947); Florence Ada Fuller (1867–1946); Artist-painter-decorator Kathleen Laetitia O’Connor, known as Kate, was born in 1876 at Hokitika in New Zealand to engineer Charles Yelverton O’Connorand his wife Susan Laetitia; Daisy Walder.

The State Library of New South Wales recently purchased a rare original ornithological watercolour by Elizabeth Gould (1804–1841), formerly in the collection of the late James Fairfax AC. This adds to the collection of manuscript letters and other original materials the Library has acquired relating to this important illustrator, one closely linked to Australia through her work with her husband John, as well as through her family. David Hansen tells the story of the artist and the work.

Continuing our story of the women artists who worked in Western Australia,1 we examine the careers of those who exhibited in the Paris and Glasgow international exhibitions at the turn of the century – when Western Australia was in the midst of a Gold Rush. While Lady Forrest’s work was exhibited in a separate space, others who exhibited there together were Mrs J. S. Anderson, Dircksey Cowan, May Creeth, Annie Dorrington, Etta Finnerty, Gertrude E. Ford, May Gibbs, Mrs E. Hardey of Geraldton and Mr W. C. Thomas of Albany (plate 1). May Creeth and her sister Helen have already been covered in earlier articles2 so we will briefly mention her and concentrate on what we know of the other women who exhibited in Paris and Glasgow.

One of the first events organised by the Australiana Society’s Queensland Chapter was a visit to Miegunyah, the historic house museum owned and operated by the Queensland Women’s Historical Association in Bowen Hills, Brisbane for the past 50 years. For the visit in June 2018, local member Judith McKay acted as a guide, giving members a snapshot of the association and its extensive museum and archival collection; recently she undertook a significance assessment of the collection under the National Library’s Community Heritage Grant program.2 Here she tells the story of the association and its pioneering efforts to preserve Queensland’s heritage.

Megan Martin researches the historical background of an 1833 convict love taken, a rare example made for a female convict, and reveals a sad tale of migration and family separation that resonates today.

The works of Elizabeth Hudspeth are largely unknown, like those of many early Australian women artists. Robert Stevens remedies this, and illustrates some of her works which have been rarely or never published nor seen. Her sketches of some early Tasmanian buildings, which have since been destroyed, may be the only record of them.

Dorothy Erickson documents the life and work of Mattie Furphy (1878–1948), a Victorian who moved to Perth in 1902 to become a prominent Western Australian artist and designer.

Another of the talented women artists who came to the colony of Western Australia was Annie Purnell. She was not a professional artist, but the “Angel in the House” for her bachelor brother, the Anglican minister the Reverend Robert Purnell. As was typical of gentlewomen of the time, she would have been trained in the gentle arts of watercolour and embroidery. Unlike some other unmarried gentlewomen she had no need to become a governess to pass on the skills she would have learnt from her own governess. This is the story of a work of hers now in Government House in Western Australia.

Hilda Rix Nicholas was one of Australia’s most successful international artists. When she returned to Australia in 1918, she brought her magnificent paintings infused with post- impressionist light and colour to a generation of young Australian artists, yet her triumphant homecoming had been marred by the loss of her sister, mother and husband. Here, Julie Petersen focuses on her period of recuperation, while living in Sydney’s leafy Mosman.

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in her misogyny speech on 9 October 2012, was not the first to react to men allegedly putting down women’s activities. A century ago, English designer and artist C R Ashbee – his business damaged by low-priced competition from amateur women artists – condescendingly referred to them as “dear Emily”. Here Dr Dorothy Erickson examines the work of Western Australian women artists and shows that they were far from incompetent.