Beatrice Emma Parsons (1870–1955) was a British painter and is best known for her watercolours of garden subjects. Parsons, along with

George Samuel Elgood George Samuel Elgood (1851–1943) was an English artist and illustrator who became well known for his paintings of formal gardens. Biography Elgood was born in Leicester, Leicestershire on 26 February 1851, one of a family of seven boys ...

and Ernest Arthur Rowe, is considered one of the leading English painters of gardens.

Personal life

Parsons was born in Peckham, South London, England in 1870. She was sister to

Karl Parsons Karl Bergemann Parsons (23 January 1884 – 30 September 1934) was a British stained glass artist associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. Early life, 1884 – 1898 Parsons was born in Peckham in south London on 23 January 1884, the 12th a ...

, a stained-glass artist, who commemorated their family in a stained-glass window in St. Matthew's Church,

Oxhey Oxhey is a suburb of Watford, under the jurisdiction of the Watford Borough Council of the county of Hertfordshire, England. It is located at and is part of the Watford. It is in the Oxhey Ward of Watford Borough Council. Oxhey grew during th ...

. Parsons attended the

Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls Haberdashers' Girls' School is an independent day school in Elstree, Hertfordshire. It is often referred to as "Habs" (or "Habs Girls" to distinguish it from the neighbouring Haberdashers' Boys' School). The school was founded in 1875 by the Wo ...

and studied at King's College London, before attending the

Royal Academy Schools The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

, where she won three prizes. She lived in Hampstead after 1901, until she moved to

in 1907, where she had a studio until her death on 17 February 1955. During her time in Oxhey, she lived with her three sisters.

Career

Gladioli and Agapanthus by Beatrice Emma Parsons

Although known for her garden paintings, Parsons originally experimented with historical and genre paintings and also created a few portraits, landscapes, and still-life paintings. She began painting, almost exclusively, garden subject watercolours in 1900. She painted in England, but also in Europe and Africa. Parsons preferred painting gardens in their summer colours, and specialized in the gardens of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. Her work was featured on postcards and greeting cards during her time. Many of her paintings were used as illustrations in gardening books, such as ''Gardens of England'' (1908) and ''The Charm of Gardens'' (1910). Parsons' work caught the attention of royals and aristocrats. Queen Mary purchased over 30 of her paintings, and some were bought by the Duchess of Westminster and the Duchess of Harewood. She painted gardens for Lord and Lady Hillingdon at

Overstrand Hall Overstrand Hall is a country house in Overstrand, Norfolk, England, designed by Edwin Lutyens for Charles William Mills, 2nd Baron Hillingdon, a partner in Glyn, Mills & Co. Bank. It was built between 1899 and 1901 and is Grade II listed as of ...

, and was invited every year between 1921 and 1929 to

Blickling Hall Blickling Hall is a Jacobean stately home situated in 5,000 acres of parkland in a loop of the River Bure, near the village of Blickling north of Aylsham in Norfolk, England. The mansion was built on the ruins of a Tudor building for Sir Henry ...

to paint the gardens there.

Exhibitions

Parsons' first exhibition was at the Royal Academy in 1889. Her first solo exhibition, entitled 'Old English Gardens (Spring, Summer, Autumn & Winter)' was in 1904 at the Dowdeswell Gallery in London, and was a near sell-out. She exhibited regularly in London during her lifetime, having 22 solo shows between the Dowdeswell and Greatorex galleries.

References

External links

Beatrice E. Parsons
on

Art-Net Art-Net is a royalty-free communications protocol for transmitting the DMX512-A lighting control protocol and Remote Device management (RDM) protocol over the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) of the Internet protocol suite. It is used to communic ...

site
Beatrice Parsons
on MutualArt.com
Beatrice Emma Parsons-Artworks
on The Athenaeum site
List of publications
on

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

Identities {{DEFAULTSORT:Parsons, Beatrice Emma 1870 births 1955 deaths 20th-century English painters 20th-century English women artists Alumni of King's College London Alumni of the Royal Academy Schools Artists from London British watercolourists English women painters People educated at Haberdashers' Girls' School People from Peckham Sibling artists Women watercolorists