Dame Ethel WALKER, CBE

ARA, RBA, RP, NEAC

(1861 - 1951)

'Portrait of a Lady'

Oil on canvas, circa 1920 - 1930

Painter, especially of portraits of women, seascapes and flowers, in a style influenced by Impressionism. Born in Edinburgh, she attended the Ridley School of Art, and Putney School of Art in the early 1880's. After a private study trip through France and Spain, where she was impressed by the work of Velasquez and Manet, she studied briefly at the Westminster School of Art with Fred Brown in 1892, transferring to the Slade School of Fine Art until 1894, to which she returned several times during the period 1912-1922.

She also studied part-time at evening classes with Walter Sickert and with the sculptor James Havard Thomas.

Although she had begun exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1898, and at the NEAC two years later, she did not have her first one-man show until 1927, at the Redfern Gallery. Elected a member of the NEAC in 1900, the Royal Society of British Artists in 1932, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1933, and an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1940.

She was created CBE in 1938 and a Dame in 1943. Her work is in many public collections, Bénézit lists five paintings at the Tate Gallery while mentioning this is only part of the collection that the Tate holds of her work. She lived at Robin Hood Bay, Yorkshire, and then in London.

Literature: Bénézit and Buckmans

34" x 30" 87 cm x 77 cm

Ref. no. MB-MG 511