WINCKLER, RUBY (1886-1974)

"Night At Moulin Rouge (Homage to Lautrec)" (c.1910)
oil on canvas
90 x 60cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Sydney
 
Winckler is a forgotten, acclaimed Australian Artist & Illustrator. She was a star student at the Sydney Art School under Sydney Long & Julian Ashton, during which time she exhibited with the Sydney Society Of Artists. Here she befriended Ruby Lindsay, sister of Norman, whom in her memoirs joked how jealous she was of Winckler, that she received favouritism from instructor Julian Ashton. Over the following years she continued to exhibit with the Society, & contributed illustrations to influential periodical, The Lone Hand. Here she befriended other important illustrators such as Norman Lindsay. She exhibited two paintings at the inaugural NSW Society Of Women Painters in 1910, & exhibited with the Queensland Art Society in 1913. She left Australia at the outbreak of World War I on the back of two illustrative commissions: "The Arabian Nights Entertainment" & "Who's Who In The Land Of Nob" which were both published in Boston in 1915. Following her return to Sydney the following year, she regularly contributed illustrations to The Lone Hand, & continued to exhibit at the Society Of Artists & the Sydney Society Of Women Painters until 1918, after which her artistic career seems to have stalled. Ruby's artworks rarely appear on the secondary market, & are absent from all major National Collections, revealing her obscurity, despite her appearance in Joan Kerr's seminal "Heritage" publication of Australian Women Artists.