Eileen Reid (11 February 1894 – 8 April 1981) was an Irish painter and musician.

Life

Eileen Reid was born Eileen Florence Beatrice Oulton on 11 February 1894 at 19 Upper Mount Street,

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

. She was one of the two children of the Dublin barrister, George Nugent Oulton. She lived at the family home for her whole life. She attended the German High School, Wellington Place, Dublin, and then the Royal Irish Academy of Music. She won the 1910 Coulston exhibition, and the Coulston Academy scholarship in 1911. Her instrument was the

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

. She qualified as a music teacher in 1914. It was the family friend,

William Orpen Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, (27 November 1878 – 29 September 1931) was an Irish artist who worked mainly in London. Orpen was a fine draughtsman and a popular, commercially successful painter of portraits for the well-to-do in ...

, inspired her to start painting. In 1922 she entered 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 ...

in London. On 26 June 1923 she married Hugh C. Reid in

St Stephen's Church, Dublin Saint Stephen's Church, popularly known as ''The Pepper Canister'', is the formal Church of Ireland chapel-of-ease for the parish of the same name in Dublin, Ireland. The church is situated on Mount Street Upper. It was begun in 1821 by John Bo ...

. Reid was from London, and worked in the Nigerian colonial service. She had planned to join him in Africa, but he died of a fever on 14 February 1924 before she could do so. Instead, she returned to the Royal Academy, graduating in 1927. She taught music for a living, played the organ at St Stephen's church, while she painted. She painted figures, landscapes, and cityscapes. She initially worked in oils, but later moved in watercolours. She joined the

Water Colour Society of Ireland Water Colour Society of Ireland (WCSI) is a watercolour society in Ireland, founded in 1870. The Society held its first exhibition in the Courthouse, Lismore, County Waterford in May 1871. History The ''Water Colour Society of Ireland (WCSI)'' w ...

in 1934, and was the group's secretary from 1936 to 1974. She exhibited with the society in the 1930s and 1940s, but later devoted her time to the administrative and organisational activities of the society. In 1970, she oversaw the society's centenary exhibition. Reid died at home on 8 April 1981. Many of her paintings are held in a number of private Irish collections. A retrospective exhibition was held at the Cynthia O'Connor gallery in 1984.

External links

Images of some of Reid's paintings on MutualArt

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Eileen 1894 births 1981 deaths Artists from Dublin (city) 20th-century Irish women artists Irish women pianists 20th-century Irish pianists Irish women painters 21st-century Irish painters Musicians from Dublin (city) 21st-century women painters