Florence Turner Blake (1873–1959) was an Australian artist and benefactor. She was also known professionally as Florence Turner Mofflin, Florence Turner Greaves and Florence Mofflin.

Early life

The youngest of six children she was born as Florence Turner Blake Greaves on 26 October 1873 at Armidale, New South Wales to parents William Albert Braylesford Greaves and Annie Greaves, ''née'' Mackenzie. When she was about seven the family moved to Braylesford, in Bondi Road, Bondi.

Career

Florence Greaves was one of Julian Ashton's first students at his Sydney Art School It is likely that she met

Tom Roberts Thomas William Roberts (8 March 185614 September 1931) was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism. After studying in Melbourne, he travelled to Europe i ...

through Ashton. There are two portraits of Florence by Tom Roberts, ''Portrait of Florence'' (circa 1898) and a pastel, ''Miss Florence Greaves'', drawn in 1898. In April 1902, Florence married William Edward Kugelmann Mofflin at St Luke's Anglican Church,

Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony) * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...

, Sydney. Although some of her works bear her married name, she divorced her husband in 1915. Following her father's death in 1925 she traveled to London where she studied at the

Slade School The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

, London between 1925 and 1929 under

Henry Tonks Henry Tonks, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, FRCS (9 April 1862 – 8 January 1937) was a British surgeon and later draughtsman and painter of figure subjects, chiefly interiors, and a Caricature, caricaturist. He became an influentia ...

and became friendly with Lucien Pissarro, who gave her a painting. In 1928 she dropped the name of her former husband by deed-poll and was known by the name Florence Turner Blake, in reference to her great-grandparents on her father's side, Thomas Turner and Barbara Blake. She is best known for water-colour paintings on silk fans, especially ''Frivolers'' (1916) and ''Garden of Dreams'' (1920), in the collection of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, and ''The Silver Moon'', in the National Gallery of South Australia.

Benefactor

Florence Blake died at Ryde, New South Wales on 8 April 1959 and was cremated. She left almost the whole of her estate, valued for probate at 54,214 pounds, to the

Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most importa ...

, the largest bequest it had received up until that time. Greaves Place in the Canberra suburb of Conder is named in her honour. Also, Mofflin Street, Chisholm in the

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. ...

is named after her.

Early life

Career

Benefactor

References

Further reading