Ethel Louise Spowers (11 July 1890 – 5 May 1947) was an Australian artist associated with the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London. She was especially known for her

linocut Linocut, also known as lino print, lino printing or linoleum art, is a printmaking technique, a variant of woodcut in which a sheet of linoleum (sometimes mounted on a wooden block) is used for a relief surface. A design is cut into the linoleum s ...

s, which are included in the collections of major Australian and British Art Galleries. She was also a founder of the

Contemporary Art Society The Contemporary Art Society (CAS) is an independent charity that champions the collecting of outstanding contemporary art and craft for UK museum collections. Since its founding in 1910 the organisation has donated over 10,000 works to museums ...

, promoting modern art in Australia.

Early life

Ethel Louise Spowers was born on 11 July 1890, in

South Yarra South Yarra is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 4 km south-east of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the Cities of City of Melbourne, Melbourne and City of Sto ...

, Melbourne, daughter of a New Zealand father and a London-born mother. Her father, William Spowers, owned a newspaper. Spowers trained as an artist at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School 1911-17, with some study in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

as well (most notably with André Lhote).Stephen Coppel, "Ethel Louise Spowers,"
''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' 16(2002). She was educated at

Melbourne Girls Grammar School , motto_translation = Without the Lord, All is in Vain , established = 1893 , type = Independent, single sex, day & boarding, Christian school. , years = ELC–12 , gender ...

in Melbourne. Wealthy and cultured, her family owned a mansion in St Georges Road, Toorak. Ethel continued to live there as an adult and maintained a studio above the stables.

Career

Spowers had her first solo exhibit in Melbourne at age 30, showing fairy-tale illustrations as those of Ethel Jackson Morris. Two further solo shows (1925 and 1927) at the New Gallery, Melbourne, confirmed her reputation as an illustrator of fairy tales, though by then she was also producing woodcuts and

s inspired by Japanese art and covering a broader range of subjects. Her style and artistic focus changed in 1928–29 when she studied linocut printmaking with

Claude Flight Walter Claude Flight (born London 16 February 1881 - died Donhead St Andrew 10 October 1955) also known as Claude Flight or W. Claude Flight was a British artist who pioneered and popularised the linoleum cut technique. He also painted, illustrated ...

at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London. She was one of several Australian women artists at the Grosvenor School, including Dorrit Black and

Eveline Winifred Syme Eveline Syme (26 October 1888 – 6 June 1961) was an Australian artist associated with the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, and an advocate for women's post-secondary education. Early life Eveline Winifred Syme was born in Thames Ditton, Surrey, ...

. Further classes followed in 1931, during which Spowers absorbed modernist ideas of rhythmic design and composition from the principal of Grosvenor School

Iain Macnab Iain Macnab of Barachastlain (21 October 1890 – 24 December 1967) was a Scottish wood-engraver and painter. As a prominent teacher he was influential in the development of the British school of wood-engraving. His pictures are noted for cl ...

. In the 1930s her linocuts attracted critical attention for their bold, simplified forms, rhythmic sense of movement, distinctive use of colour and humorous observation of everyday life, particularly the world of children. They were regularly shown at The Redfern Gallery, London. Spowers mounted an exhibition of Australian linocuts in Melbourne in 1930. In 1932, she became a founder of the

, promoting modern art in Australia.Helen Topliss, ''Modernism and Feminism: Australian Women Artists, 1900–1940''
(Sydney: Craftsman House 1996).

Selected works

* Yallourn (1933) * Bank holiday (1935) * Resting models (1933) * Wet afternoon (1930) * Gust of Wind (1931) *Bank Holiday (1935)

Death and legacy

Spowers died on 5 May 1947, after a long illness from cancer, in Melbourne, age 56. She was buried at Fawkner Memorial Park. A children's book illustrated by Spowers, ''Cuthbert and the Dogs'', was published the year after her death. Spowers apparently destroyed some of her original works late in life. In 2011, Ethel Spowers' ''Wet Afternoon'' sold in New York City for £51,650, much higher than any of her previous works had brought at auction. The next year, Spowers' ''The Gust of Wind'' more than doubled that mark, selling for £114,050 in April 2012, a record price for any Grosvenor School print up to that date.Nicholas Forrest, "Six Rare Ethel Spowers Prints Head to Auction in London,"
''Blouin ArtInfo'' (1 April 2013). The Art Gallery NSW holds several of her works, some from an early period of realistic illustrations, others showing the marked influence of her time at the Grosvenor School.Works by Ethel Spowers, Art Gallery NSW, http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/?artist_id=spowers-ethel The

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

holds 47 of her prints executed in the 1920s and 1930s. Her prints are also held in the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

and the

Ballarat Fine Art Gallery The Art Gallery of Ballarat is the oldest and largest regional art gallery in Australia. Established in 1884 as the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery by the citizens of Ballarat, both the building and part of its collection is listed on the Victorian H ...

, Victoria.

The British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docume ...

and the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

purchased a number of her linocuts.

Gallery

File:Ethel Spowers The Noisy Parrot c. 1926.jpg, Ethel Spowers, The Noisy Parrot, c. 1926. File:Ethel Spowers. The plough, 1928. Linocut.jpg, Ethel Spowers, ''The plough'', 1928, linocut. Gift of

Rex Nan Kivell Sir Rex de Charembac Nan Kivell CMG (born Reginald Nankivell, 8 April 18987 June 1977) was a New Zealand-born British art collector, who was knighted on the recommendation of the government of Australia, a country he never visited, for the gift ...

, 1953. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (1953-0003-327) File:Ethel Spowers. Wet afternoon, 1930. Linocut.jpg, Ethel Spowers, ''Wet afternoon'', 1930, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (1953-0003-328) File:Ethel Spowers. Merchants, Port Said, 1932. Linocut.jpg, Ethel Spowers, ''Merchants, Port Said'', 1932, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (1953/2/135) File:Ethel Spowers. Harvest, 1932. Linocut.jpg, Ethel Spowers, ''Harvest'', 1932, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (1953/2/134) File:Ethel Spowers. Swings, 1932. Linocut.jpg, Ethel Spowers, ''Swings'', 1932, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (1953-0003-326) File:Ethel Spowers. The Lonely Farm, 1933. Linocut.jpg, Ethel Spowers, ''The Lonely Farm'', 1933, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (1953/2/137) File:Ethel Spowers. The giant stride, 1933. Linocut.jpg, Ethel Spowers, ''The giant stride'', 1933, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (1953-0003-325) File:Ethel Spowers - Football, 1936.jpg, Ethel Spowers, ''Football'', 1936, linocut.

File:Ethel Spowers. Children’s hoops, 1936. Linocut.jpg, Ethel Spowers, ''Children’s hoops'', 1936, linocut. Gift of Rex Nan Kivell, 1953. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (1953-0003-329)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spowers, Ethel 1890 births 1947 deaths Australian women artists Alumni of the Grosvenor School of Modern Art People educated at Melbourne Girls Grammar Australian printmakers Color engravers People from South Yarra, Victoria People from Toorak, Victoria Artists from Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria Art School alumni 20th-century engravers