CUSACK, EDITH ELEANORA (1865-1941)

"Country Homestead" (c.1908)
Watercolour
24 x 32cm
Signed lower left
*private collection, Sydney
 
Edith was an influential, forgotten New Zealand-born Australian painter and art teacher. She attended weekly art classes at Parramatta taught by the Sydney painter Joseph Arthur Bennett (also represented at Belle Epoque). Fees being a problem, she worked for him concurrently as assistant teacher. In 1888 Edith exhibited some sketches from nature in the amateur Fine Arts section at the Women’s Industries Exhibition in Sydney. She travelled to France for professional teaching in the early 1890s, using £300 left to her by an uncle, supplemented with earnings from the sale of her paintings. The Illustrated Sydney News reported that she was staying at the 'Governesses and Artists’ Institute in Paris’ while studying at a nearby branch of the famous Académie Julian. She studied under Bouguereau, Lefebvre and Fleury and had a painting hung in the Salon. She sent works back to Sydney for the 1892 Exhibition of Women’s Work, and the 1893 NSW Art Society exhibition. When Edith returned in 1894 she continued to exhibit with the Society. Her work was enthusiastically purchased by major institutions, including the Art Gallery of NSW. She continued to exhibit with the Art Society until 1935 and was a Council member from 1898 to 1903. Her paintings were included in the 1898 Grafton Gallery exhibition, 'Australian Art in London’.