STEPHENS, ETHEL ANNA (1864-1944)

“Children In The Park, Orange, N.S.W.” (c.1910)
oil on canvas
25 x 30cm
Signed on verso
*exhibited in home studio, Kirketon Road, 1912
 
Stephens is a forgotten, pioneering Australian Artist, & First Female Member elected to the N.S.W. Art Society. During her lifetime, Stephens was highly respected & influential. She was a precocious artistic talent & was a teenage exhibitor of the Art Society of NSW. Her initial attention to floral painting & still lifes later gave way to portrait & landscape painting. In 1886, she received the double distinction that her work was exhibited in London, & that she was the first student to enrol in the Julian Ashton School of Art. After the sudden death of her father in 1890, Ethel established herself as an artist & drawing teacher. She built a studio in her family home Eaglesfield on Darlinghurst Road, where she taught & she held events "at home", as women exhibiting in public was heavily criticised. For several years she taught at the SCEGGS. In 1892, she became the First woman elected to the board of the Art Society of New South Wales. She later became one of the founders of the breakaway Society of Artists and helped found the Society Women artists in 1910, later serving as President. She worked as a volunteer during the First World War. When she was in her fifties, Ethel spent three years in London & Paris, studying at La Grand Chaumiere & exhibiting at the Paris Salon. Her works are incredibly rare, & few exist in major art institutions in Australia, despite her unquestionable impact on Female art & recognition in Australia. This gorgeous oil painting is reminiscent of her dear friend & mentor, Ethel Carrick Fox, whom she later lived & painted with in Paris. It was exhibited in her studio in Kirketon Road in 1912.