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Clara Southern
Clara Southern (3 October 1860 – 15 December 1940) was an Australian artist associated with the Heidelberg School, also known as Australian Impressionism. She was active between the years 1883 and her death in 1940. Physically, Southern was tall with reddish fair hair, and was nicknamed 'Panther' because of her lithe beauty.
Southern was born in Kyneton, Victoria, in 1860, the eldest of six children. She was the daughter of local timber merchant and farmer John Southern and farmer Jane Elliott. From 1883 to 1887, Southern studied at the School of Design, National Gallery of Victoria under Oswald Rose Campbell and at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School under George Folingsby and Frederick McCubbin.
During her studies she joined the Buonarotti Club, a bohemian society of writers, painters and musicians to which other members of the Heidelberg School belonged. She is credited by some as 'among the first women to be elected' to it in 1886, though several other female artists were already members, and amateur poet and painter Alice Brotherton had been the first woman elected to the Club in 1883, followed by several other important women artists such as Jane Sutherland and May Vale, who both joined in 1884.
Southern was a member of the Victorian Artists Society, the Australian Art Association, the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, the Twenty Melbourne Painters, and the Lyceum Club. Paving the way for women's involvement in the arts, Southern was the first female member of the Australian Artists' Association.
When in Melbourne Southern shared a studio at Grosvenor Chambers, 9 Collins Street, with Jane Sutherland and Tom Roberts from 1888. She taught art classes from her studio, and regularly joined her Heidelberg School colleagues on plein air painting trips to Heidelberg and Eaglemont.
By 1908 Southern had established an artistic community of younger landscape painters at Warrandyte, a township on the Yarra about 30 kilometres from Melbourne. The community included Penleigh Boyd and Harold Herbert. Her teacher and mentor Walter Withers often visited her in Warrandyte to paint the landscape. Her residence at cottage 'Blythe Bank' in Warrandyte was integral to the development of the artistic community there, with regular visits from the McCubbins and Colquhouns, and Jo Sweatman becoming her neighbour at 'Kipsy.' Many of her works capture the spirit of the area, such as 'Evensong' and 'A Cool Corner', and she encouraged many a young artist to visit her studio there. At one point she was regarded as the eminent female landscape artist in Melbourne.
On 9 November 1905, Southern married local miner John Arthur Flinn at St. John's Anglican Church in Blackburn. Together they built a cottage, and later a studio, at Blythe Bank, Warrandyte. Even after her marriage, Southern continued to exhibit under her own name.
An Old Bee Farm, held by the National Gallery of Victoria is one of her better known works. It was one of 56 paintings included in Lloyd O'Neil's Classic Australian Paintings, and was used as the cover illustration for Kay Schaffer's 1988 book Women and the Bush: Forces of Desire in the Australian Cultural Tradition.
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Clara Southern
Clara Southern (3 October 1860 – 15 December 1940) was an Australian artist associated with the Heidelberg School, also known as Australian Impressionism. She was active between the years 1883 and her death in 1940. Physically, Southern was tall with reddish fair hair, and was nicknamed 'Panther' because of her lithe beauty.
Southern was born in Kyneton, Victoria, in 1860, the eldest of six children. She was the daughter of local timber merchant and farmer John Southern and farmer Jane Elliott. From 1883 to 1887, Southern studied at the School of Design, National Gallery of Victoria under Oswald Rose Campbell and at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School under George Folingsby and Frederick McCubbin.
During her studies she joined the Buonarotti Club, a bohemian society of writers, painters and musicians to which other members of the Heidelberg School belonged. She is credited by some as 'among the first women to be elected' to it in 1886, though several other female artists were already members, and amateur poet and painter Alice Brotherton had been the first woman elected to the Club in 1883, followed by several other important women artists such as Jane Sutherland and May Vale, who both joined in 1884.
Southern was a member of the Victorian Artists Society, the Australian Art Association, the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, the Twenty Melbourne Painters, and the Lyceum Club. Paving the way for women's involvement in the arts, Southern was the first female member of the Australian Artists' Association.
When in Melbourne Southern shared a studio at Grosvenor Chambers, 9 Collins Street, with Jane Sutherland and Tom Roberts from 1888. She taught art classes from her studio, and regularly joined her Heidelberg School colleagues on plein air painting trips to Heidelberg and Eaglemont.
By 1908 Southern had established an artistic community of younger landscape painters at Warrandyte, a township on the Yarra about 30 kilometres from Melbourne. The community included Penleigh Boyd and Harold Herbert. Her teacher and mentor Walter Withers often visited her in Warrandyte to paint the landscape. Her residence at cottage 'Blythe Bank' in Warrandyte was integral to the development of the artistic community there, with regular visits from the McCubbins and Colquhouns, and Jo Sweatman becoming her neighbour at 'Kipsy.' Many of her works capture the spirit of the area, such as 'Evensong' and 'A Cool Corner', and she encouraged many a young artist to visit her studio there. At one point she was regarded as the eminent female landscape artist in Melbourne.
On 9 November 1905, Southern married local miner John Arthur Flinn at St. John's Anglican Church in Blackburn. Together they built a cottage, and later a studio, at Blythe Bank, Warrandyte. Even after her marriage, Southern continued to exhibit under her own name.
An Old Bee Farm, held by the National Gallery of Victoria is one of her better known works. It was one of 56 paintings included in Lloyd O'Neil's Classic Australian Paintings, and was used as the cover illustration for Kay Schaffer's 1988 book Women and the Bush: Forces of Desire in the Australian Cultural Tradition.
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