PROCTOR, THEA (1879-1966)

“Portrait of William Pfiefer” (1963)
Mixed media
49 x 37cm
Signed lower right
*commission from the artist
*private collection, Sydney (William Pfiefer)
 
Proctor was a famous Australian Modernist, Printmaker & Model. She studied at the Sydney Art School from 1896 under Julian Ashton, then at the St John's Wood School of Art in London in 1903. She worked in London 1903–21, associating with fellow Australian expatriates Charles Conder, Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts, producing pencil drawings and watercolour fans influenced by Conder and Japanese woodblock prints. She was also cousin of Australian Impressionist, John Peter Russell. She exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, and New English Art Club, later producing lithographs which were exhibited at the Senefelder Club and the London Goupil Gallery for the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers. After returning to Sydney, she exhibited with Margaret Preston and with George Lambert founded the Contemporary Group who exhibited in Grosvenor Gallery from 1926-28 with Grace Cossington Smith, Marion Hall Best, Elioth Gruner, Margaret Preston, Roland Wakelin and Roy de Maistre. She produced covers for the Ure Smith magazine The Home. Later she taught linocut printing at Julian Ashton's Sydney Art School and drawing at the Society of Arts and Crafts of New South Wales. Her works are represented in all major National Galleries in Australia, and she is regarded as one of Australia's most influential Modernists. In the early 1960s, Proctor made ends meet from her Double Bay studio through portrait commissions, particularly children. She charged 35 guineas. As a four year old, William (the sitter) recalls Proctor as a grumpy and scary old woman, who smoked relentlessly.