Florence Fuller
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Florence Ada Fuller (1867 – 17 July 1946) was a South African-born Australian artist. Originally from
Port Elizabeth Gqeberha (), formerly Port Elizabeth and colloquially often referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, Sou ...
, Fuller migrated as a child to Melbourne with her family. There she trained with her uncle
Robert Hawker Dowling Robert Hawker Dowling (1827 – 8 July 1886) was an Australian colonial artist. Biography Dowling was born in England the youngest son of Rev. Henry Dowling and his wife Elizabeth, ''née'' Darke. He was brought to Launceston, Tasmania with hi ...
and teacher
Jane Sutherland Jane Sutherland (26 December 1853 – 25 July 1928) was an Australian landscape painter who was part of the pioneering plein-air movement in Australia, and a member of the Heidelberg School. Her advocacy to advance the professional standing of fe ...
and took classes at the
National Gallery of Victoria Art School The National Gallery of Victoria Art School, associated with the National Gallery of Victoria, was a private fine arts college founded in 1867 and was Australia's leading art school of 50 years. It is also referred to as the 'National Gallery ...
, becoming a professional artist in the late 1880s. In 1892 she left Australia, travelling first to South Africa, where she met and painted for
Cecil Rhodes Cecil John Rhodes (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his Br ...
, and then on to Europe. She lived and studied there for the subsequent decade, except for a return to South Africa in 1899 to paint a portrait of Rhodes. Between 1895 and 1904 her works were exhibited at the
Paris Salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...
and London's
Royal Academy 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 pur ...
. In 1904, Fuller returned to Australia, living in Perth. She became active in the Theosophical Society and painted some of her best-known work, including ''A Golden Hour'', described by the National Gallery of Australia as a "masterpiece" when it acquired the work in 2013. Beginning in 1908, Fuller travelled extensively, living in India and England before ultimately settling in
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
. There, she was the inaugural teacher of life drawing at the School of Fine and Applied Arts, established in 1920 by the New South Wales Society of Women Painters. She died in 1946. Highly regarded during her active career as a portrait and landscape painter, by 1914 Fuller was represented in four public galleries—three in Australia and one in South Africa—a record for a woman who was an Australian painter at that time. In 1927 she began almost twenty years of institutionalization in a mental asylum, however, and her death went without notice. After her death, information about her was frequently omitted from reference books about Australian painters and knowledge of her work became obscure despite her paintings being held in public art collections including the
Art Gallery of South Australia The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), established as the National Gallery of South Australia in 1881, is located in Adelaide. It is the most significant visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of ...
, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, 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 ...
and Australia's
National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...
.


Early life and career

Florence Fuller was born in
Port Elizabeth Gqeberha (), formerly Port Elizabeth and colloquially often referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, Sou ...
, South Africa, in 1867, a daughter of Louisa and John Hobson Fuller. She had several siblings, including sisters
Amy Amy is a female given name, sometimes short for Amanda, Amelia, Amélie, or Amita. In French, the name is spelled ''"Aimée"''. People A–E * Amy Acker (born 1976), American actress * Amy Vera Ackman, also known as Mother Giovanni (1886– ...
and Christie, both of whom subsequently became singers. The family migrated to Australia when Florence was a child. She worked as a governess while undertaking studies in art, and first took classes at the
National Gallery of Victoria Art School The National Gallery of Victoria Art School, associated with the National Gallery of Victoria, was a private fine arts college founded in 1867 and was Australia's leading art school of 50 years. It is also referred to as the 'National Gallery ...
in 1883, then again for a further term of study in 1888. During this period she was a student of
Jane Sutherland Jane Sutherland (26 December 1853 – 25 July 1928) was an Australian landscape painter who was part of the pioneering plein-air movement in Australia, and a member of the Heidelberg School. Her advocacy to advance the professional standing of fe ...
, referred to in the ''
Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...
'' as "the leading female artist in the group of Melbourne painters who broke with the nineteenth-century tradition of studio art by sketching and painting directly from nature". Fuller's uncle was
Robert Hawker Dowling Robert Hawker Dowling (1827 – 8 July 1886) was an Australian colonial artist. Biography Dowling was born in England the youngest son of Rev. Henry Dowling and his wife Elizabeth, ''née'' Darke. He was brought to Launceston, Tasmania with hi ...
, a painter of orientalist and Aboriginal subjects, as well as portraits and miniatures. British-born, he had grown up in Tasmania and made a living there as a portraitist, before returning to his native England at age thirty. For the next two decades, his works were frequently hung at the
Royal Academy 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 pur ...
. He returned to Australia in 1885, and Fuller became his pupil. In that year, aged eighteen, Fuller received a commission from Anne Fraser Bon, philanthropist and supporter of Victoria's Aboriginal people. The commission was for ''Barak–last chief of the Yarra Yarra Tribe of Aborigines'', a formal oil on canvas portrait of the
Wurundjeri The Wurundjeri people are an Australian Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the Traditional Owners of the Birrarung (Yarra River) Valley, covering much of the present location of Narrm (Melbourne ...
leader,
William Barak William Barak, named Beruk by his parents, (1823 – 15 August 1903), the "last chief of the Yarra Yarra tribe", was the last traditional ngurungaeta (elder) of the Wurundjeri-willam clan, the pre-colonial inhabitants of present-day Melbourne, A ...
. Ultimately, that painting was acquired by the
State Library of Victoria State Library Victoria (SLV) is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in the ...
. Although the painting is an important work regularly used to illustrate this significant figure in Australia's history, interpretations of Fuller's portrait are mixed: one critic noted the painting's objectivity and avoidance of romanticising Aboriginal people, while another concluded that "Fuller is painting an ideal rather than a person". In 1886, Dowling returned to his native England. Giving up her work as a governess, Fuller began to paint full-time, and had opened her own studio before she had turned twenty. Dowling had intended to return to Australia and had left behind an incomplete portrait of the Victorian governor's wife, Lady Loch. He died, however, not long after arriving in England; Fuller then completed Dowling's commission. Lady Loch became her patron. Other early portraits followed: two pictures of homeless children, entitled ''Weary'' (inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem on child labour "Weariness") and ''Desolate'', in 1888; and ''Gently Reproachful'' circa 1889. ''Weary'' was acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2015. The gallery's curator of Australian art described the depiction of billboard posters in the painting as giving it a "sense of gritty realism that was arguably unprecedented in Australian art." Also in 1889, Fuller was awarded a prize by the Victorian Artists Society for best portrait by an artist under twenty-five. By August 1891 she had a studio in her home in Pine Grove,
Malvern Malvern or Malverne may refer to: Places Australia * Malvern, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide * Malvern, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne * City of Malvern, a former local government area near Melbourne * Electoral district of Malvern, an e ...
in Melbourne.


Europe and South Africa

In 1892, Fuller travelled to the
Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...
"to convalesce", although from what illness or injury, her biographer Joan Kerr does not say. While there, she was a guest of her uncle Sir
Thomas Ekins Fuller Sir Thomas Ekins Fuller (1831–1910) was editor of the ''Cape Argus'' newspaper and a prominent Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Cape Colony. Initially a moderate follower of the "Cape Liberal Tradition", he advocated for responsib ...
, a member of the Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope, and through him she met
Cecil Rhodes Cecil John Rhodes (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his Br ...
, the Colony's Prime Minister, who commissioned her to paint a landscape showing his home. Two years later, she travelled on to England and France, where she remained for a decade. In the 1890s, Australian artists studying abroad favoured Paris over London, and Fuller was no exception. Other Australians studying in France around that time included Agnes Goodsir, Margaret Preston, James Quinn, and
Hugh Ramsay Hugh Ramsay (25 May 1877 – 5 March 1906) was an Australian artist. Early life and education Ramsay was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on 25 May 1877, the son of John Ramsay. He moved with his family to Melbourne in 1878. He was educated at Esse ...
. Fuller studied first at the
Académie Julian The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...
, where her teachers included William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and later,
Raphaël Collin Louis-Joseph-Raphaël Collin (17 June 1850 – 21 October 1916) was a French painter born and raised in Paris, where he became a prominent academic painter and a teacher. He is principally known for the links he created between French and Japa ...
, for whom she was head of studio. Many of the French art schools had only recently opened their doors to women, and those at Académie Julian experienced poor, overcrowded conditions and contempt from the (mostly male) teachers. Despite this, Fuller's skills developed, and contemporary critics commented favourably on the influence of the French training. During her time in Europe, Fuller had great success. After a pastel portrait of hers was accepted for the
Paris Salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...
in 1895, two of her paintings were shown there in 1896. That was followed by another, ''La Glaneuse'', in 1897, in which year she also had a work accepted by the
Royal Academy 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 pur ...
in London. She exhibited in many other locations: the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and
Manchester Art Gallery Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned art museum on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre. The main gallery premises were built for a learned society in 1823 and today its collection occupies three c ...
in England, as well as the Victorian Artists Society and the New South Wales Society of Artists, and at the Melbourne studio of Jane Sutherland. There was even a painting, ''Landscape'', hung in the exhibition for the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of
Bendigo Bendigo ( ) is a city in Victoria, Australia, located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. As of 2019, Bendigo had an urban population of 100,991, makin ...
. Not all her time was spent in Europe, however; in 1899 she returned to South Africa to paint Cecil Rhodes. One source suggests that she ultimately prepared five portraits of the founder of Rhodesia. A later newspaper report stated that Fuller also travelled and made sketches in Wales, Ireland, and Italy. While in Europe, Fuller painted ''Inseparables'', which portrays the figure of a girl sitting reading a book. It was acquired by the
Art Gallery of South Australia The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), established as the National Gallery of South Australia in 1881, is located in Adelaide. It is the most significant visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of ...
. When hanging the work as part of its exhibition ''The Edwardians'', the National Gallery of Australia described the painting as one suggesting a love of reading. In contrast, art historian Catherine Speck regarded the work as "subversive" because of its portrayal of a young woman "gaining knowledge". In November 1902, the Australian Federal International Exhibition was held. It was opened by the Governor of Victoria Sir George Clarke, who spoke of its goal to advance "the industrial progress of Australia". The event occupied the entire Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, and was dominated by an exhibition of art, both Australian and international. Included in this extensive survey of painting were six works by Fuller.


Perth

Further recognition came with the hanging of one of Fuller's paintings, ''Summer Breezes'', at the Royal Academy in 1904. Other Australian artists whose works were hung at the same time included
Rupert Bunny Rupert Charles Wulsten Bunny (29 September 186425 May 1947) was an Australian painter. Born and raised in Melbourne, Victoria, he achieved success and critical acclaim as an expatriate in '' fin-de-siècle'' Paris. He gained an honourable mentio ...
, E. Phillips Fox, Albert Fullwood, George Lambert, and Arthur Streeton. Fuller was the only woman painter to be represented. A critic writing in '' The West Australian'' observed:
The work ... is essentially Australian in almost every detail. Standing in a sunlit Australian paddock, a lithesome Australian blonde holds her summer hat on against the rude caresses of an Australian breeze—a subject simple but grand in its simplicity ... Next to its suggestion of breezy sunshine and the incidental portrayal of willowy grace the picture is to be admired for its colour scheme ... The details of the picture disclose untiring care.
By the time ''Summer Breezes'' was on display, Fuller had returned to Australia, not to her previous home in Melbourne but to Perth in Western Australia, where she joined her sister, Amy Fuller, who was a singer. Although only in her mid-thirties, Fuller's background made her "one of the most experienced artists in Western Australia at this time". For the next four years, she painted portraits, including one of Western Australian politician
James George Lee Steere Sir James George Lee Steere (4 July 18301 December 1903) was a Western Australian politician and a prominent member of the ''six hungry families''. Biography Early life James Steere was born on 4 July 1830 in Ockley, Surrey, England. He was t ...
, undertaken posthumously from photographs and recollections of those who had known him. It was acquired by the gallery whose board he chaired. She also took on students, including French-Australian artist Kathleen O'Connor. Fuller's paintings from this period included ''A Golden Hour'', described by the National Gallery of Australia as "a masterpiece ... giving us a gentle insight into the people, places and times that make up our history". The painting, an oil on canvas high and wide, portrays a woman and a man standing together in a rural setting in late afternoon, surrounded by grass, scattered gum trees, and '' Xanthorrhoea''. When the painting was put up for sale in 2012, the auction house catalogue stated that it had been owned by
William Ride William David Lindsay Ride (8 May 19266 November 2011), usually credited as W. D. L. Ride, was an Australian vertebrate zoologist and paleontologist who was the chair of the committee that wrote updated editions of the International Code of Zoo ...
, former director of the Western Australian Museum. It reported:
The current owners assert that Professor Ride always understood the figures in the picture were Sir John Winthrop Hackett, (then owner of ''The West Australian'' newspaper, well known business man and philanthropist, whose gift allowed the construction of the impressive University of Western Australia buildings and St. George's Residential College) and his new wife, Deborah Vernon Hackett".
In addition to appearing as the small figure of a woman in ''A Golden Hour'', Deborah Vernon Hackett was also the subject of a portrait, painted around 1908, again during Fuller's time in Perth. Anne Gray, the head of Australian art at the National Gallery of Australia, observed of Fuller's approach to the newspaperman's wife, that:
Fuller portrayed her sitter sympathetically, capturing the young woman's grace and charm. But she also conveyed the complexity of the young Mrs Hackett's character through her soft, feminine, pale-blue dress counterpoised by the dramatic black hat and direct gaze.
Fuller painted other works for the Hacketts. In a 1937 piece reflecting on early twentieth-century art in Western Australia, a reviewer recalled:
Dr. (later Sir Winthrop) Hackett was a great patron of Miss Fuller, and he was a constant visitor to her dignified studio, above his office in the old West Australian Chambers. The first portrait I saw Miss Fuller working on was of Mrs. E. Chase ... The portrait was a commission from Dr. Hackett, and was destined to hang in his gallery. Miss Fuller painted Lady Hackett both before and after her marriage, and one particularly happy picture of her is as a young girl gathering wildflowers in the Darlington hills. Her portraits of the first Hackett babies were charming studies of childhood.


Theosophy and later career

Biographer Joan Kerr speculated that it may have been Jane Sutherland who introduced Fuller to Theosophy, a spiritual and mystical philosophy that teaches the unity of existence and emphasises the search for universal wisdom. Described by art historian Jenny McFarlane as "the most important counter-cultural organisation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries", it was influential throughout Fuller's life. Fuller, one of numerous Australian artists who became theosophists, including
Violet Teague Violet Helen Evangeline Teague (21 February 1872 – 30 September 1951) was an Australian artist, noted for her painting and printmaking. Early life and training The only daughter of Melbourne homeopath James Teague and his wife Eliza Jane Mil ...
,
Vida Lahey Frances Vida Lahey MBE (1882—1968) was a prominent artist in Queensland, Australia. She exhibited widely from 1902 until 1965. Early life Frances Vida Lahey was born on 26 August 1882 at Pimpama, Queensland, the daughter of David Lahey and h ...
and Ethel Carrick, joined the society in Perth on 29 May 1905, after hearing charismatic theosophist
Charles Webster Leadbeater Charles Webster Leadbeater (; 16 February 1854 – 1 March 1934) was a member of the Theosophical Society, Co-Freemasonry, author on occult subjects and co-initiator with J. I. Wedgwood of the Liberal Catholic Church. Originally a pr ...
during his lecture tour.
Bessie Rischbieth Bessie Mabel Rischbieth, (née Earle; 16 October 187413 March 1967) was an influential and early Australian feminist and social activist. A leading or founding member of many social reform groups, such as the Women's Service Guilds, The Aus ...
was a feminist who joined at the same time, and together they influenced the movement's development in early twentieth century Perth. Fuller was variously secretary, treasurer, and librarian of the local branch of the Theosophical Society. Fuller had a studio in Perth, first at St Georges Terrace and later in the premises of '' The West Australian'', and the Society used these for their meetings. In 1906 Fuller's portrait of feminist and theosophist
Annie Besant Annie Besant ( Wood; 1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, freemason, women's rights activist, educationist, writer, orator, political party member and philanthropist. Regarded as a champion of human f ...
was among the paintings exhibited at the West Australian Art Society's annual exhibition. Around the same period, she painted other portraits of the movement's leading figures, including Henry Steel Olcott and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. These representations departed from the academic portraiture in which Fuller had trained, as she incorporated practices of intuition and visualisation "inspired by Indian aesthetics as mediated by the Theosophical Society". In 1907, Besant became the president of the Theosophical Society globally, and set to work with a major expansion of the organisation's headquarters at Adyar, in what was then
Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
. When it was announced that Besant would undertake a speaking tour of Australia in 1908, she was expected to stay with Fuller while in Perth. Some months later in 1908, Fuller left Western Australia and travelled to India, staying at Adyar. Of her time in India, Fuller wrote:
I went in search not only of beauty, and light, and colour, and the picturesqueness in general, which delight the eye and emotions of all artists—but of something deeper—something less easily expressed. I spent two and a half years in a community that is quite unique—perhaps the most cosmopolitan settlement in the world—the headquarters of the Theosophical Society ... Well, I painted there, of course, but my art was undergoing a change, and I felt that it could not satisfy me unless it became so much greater.
Fuller's time at Adyar was eventful. Leadbeater arrived around the same time as Fuller, and soon afterward he "discovered" the person he believed would become a global teacher and orator,
Jiddu Krishnamurti Jiddu Krishnamurti (; 11 May 1895 – 17 February 1986) was a philosopher, speaker and writer. In his early life, he was groomed to be the new World Teacher, an advanced spiritual position in the theosophical tradition, but later rejected thi ...
(then in his teens). Leadbetter and others tutored Krishnamurti. Fuller may have taught him photography. She also had a small studio built in the grounds, and painted. Her works from the period include a portrait of Leadbeater and ''Portrait of the Lord Buddha''. McFarlane emphasises the significance of the latter work, pointing out that it is "strikingly modern" in comparison to all of Fuller's other work, and more radical than compositions created by
Grace Cossington Smith Grace Cossington Smith (20 April 189220 December 1984) was an Visual arts of Australia, Australian artist and pioneer of Modernist art, modernist painting in Australia and was instrumental in introducing Post-Impressionism to her home country. ...
and
Roland Wakelin Roland Wakelin (17 April 1887 – 28 May 1971) was a New Zealand-born Australian painter and teacher. Early life Roland Shakespeare Wakelin was born on 17 April 1887 in Greytown, New Zealand. He studied at Wellington Technical School from 190 ...
, half a decade later. The painting owes much to theosophy's emphasis on seeing the subject "through a psychic, visionary experience". Fuller faced the challenge of reconciling her academic, European artistic training with the spiritual and philosophical priorities of theosophical thought. Her portrait of Leadbeater, painted in 1910, shows her in that transition. Fuller drew on the work of contemporary Indian artists of the
Bengal School of Art The Bengal School of Art, commonly referred as Bengal School, was an art movement and a style of Indian painting that originated in Bengal, primarily Kolkata and Shantiniketan, and flourished throughout the Indian subcontinent, during the Britis ...
, and the writings of art historian Ernest Havell and philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy to "find the formal strategies that she needed" to produce the kind of art to which she was committed. While this changed her technique at Adyar, her later works did not continue this radical stylistic departure, instead being produced "to please a market comfortable with conventional portraiture". Sources describing Fuller's movements after her time in India sometimes are ambiguous. She arrived in England in June 1911, where she marched with Besant in the
suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
protests associated with the coronation of George V. She continued to paint portraits, but found it difficult to realise the transformation in her art that she had conceptualised in India:
I have painted a great many portraits since I have been in England, and have been, I suppose, fairly successful—though I have done nothing in any way remarkable. The hidden inner life has not yet succeeded in expressing itself on canvas, and I can only write myself as one who aspires to a greater art, but who has not yet achieved.
Fuller subsequently travelled from London to India in 1914. One newspaper report described her as a "visitor" to Sydney in 1916, although McFarlane says she travelled there with Leadbeater and remained in the city. During that visit, she held an exhibition of her miniatures, all of them portraits of theosophists including Besant and Henry Olcott, co-founder of the Theosophical Society. She visited Brisbane in 1917. Fuller spent a period painting in Java (at that time part of the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
), although when this occurred is not clear: McFarlane says she was there with Leadbeater, painting while he was giving lectures. There was at least one subsequent substantial journey, as Fuller arrived again to Sydney, via Perth, from India in 1919. At some point following these travels, Fuller settled permanently in Mosman in Sydney's northern suburbs, where she continued to paint, including miniatures. In 1920, the Society of Women Painters in New South Wales established a School of Fine and Applied Arts, with Florence Fuller appointed as the inaugural teacher of life classes. At the exhibition held to mark the school's establishment, Fuller displayed a portrait of the organisation's founder, Mrs Hedley Parsons. When the society held a show in 1926, a portrait by Fuller was one of those selected for favourable comment, but the general opinion of '' The Sydney Morning Herald'' reviewer was that "the exhibitors have let their style harden into a groove". Fuller continued to be associated with the theosophical community as her health and economic circumstances deteriorated. In 1927, at the age of sixty, she was committed to Gladesville Mental Asylum (as it was then known), where she died nearly two decades later, on 17 July 1946. She was buried at Rookwood Cemetery. Florence Fuller Street in the Canberra suburb of Conder is named in her honour.


Style and legacy

Gwenda Robb and Elaine Smith, in their ''Concise Dictionary of Australian Artists'', considered Fuller's art to be created in "a free painterly style indebted to Impressionism". During the first decade of the twentieth century, reviews drew attention to her distinctively Australian style. When one of Fuller's works was included in an exhibition of colonial artists in London (including paintings from Canada and Australia), the correspondent from the '' Adelaide Advertiser'' described Fuller's contribution as "most Australian in feeling". Reviewing her work hung in the Royal Academy in 1904, a Perth critic reported: "Of the 16 or 17 Australian artists exhibiting at the Academy, Miss Fuller was the only one who chose a typically Australian scene. Her picture shows a young girl in thin white, clinging, dress, standing on a bushy piece of country ... As the London '' Observer'' says, the atmosphere that bathes the graceful figure of the girl is capitally managed with its note of subtropical heat". One reviewer thought very highly of her portraits, but was less convinced about Fuller's approach to the Australian light, writing:
She had less success with our landscapes than with her figure subjects. That was the result of her passion for toning her pictures for ultimate indoor hanging. Thereby she lost, or illuminated, the hard Australian, hard light and shade, and startling relative values. Observable too was the influence of the English school in her rendering of our foliage; never could she bring herself to see our trees as dim coloured as they usually are.
Reviewing the Western Australian Art Society's exhibition in 1906, the critic for Perth's '' Western Mail'' considered Fuller's works to be the finest on show, and that "the occasion provides another triumph for Miss Fuller". Art critic and curator Jenny McFarlane considered Fuller's work to be complex, drawing not only on European modernist academic traditions and Australian subjects, but also at times, incorporating "radical stylistic innovations" that drew on Indian artistic tradition and theosophy's ideas. Fuller's style and choice of subject were strongly influenced by the theory and practice of the theosophy movement. Compared to her earlier works, portraits painted at Adyar showed a reduced tonal range and a shift from academic portraiture to representation of the 'hidden inner life' of the subject. In ''Portrait of the Lord Buddha'', she worked with a colour palette reflecting theosophy's attribution of specific meanings to colours and used little tonal variation. In 1914, it was reported that Fuller was represented in four public galleries—three in Australia and one in South Africa—a record for an Australian woman painter at that time. Yet although she experienced considerable success during her early life, Fuller subsequently became almost invisible. No obituaries appeared in the newspapers in 1946. She is not mentioned at all in Janine Burke's ''Australian Women Artists 1840–1940'',
Max Germaine Max Germaine (1914, Melbourne, Australia – 12 July 2006, Sydney) was an Australian fine art dealer and writer about art and artists. A founding director of Sotheby's Australia, he is best known for his 650-page ''Artists & Galleries of Austra ...
's ''Dictionary of Women Artists in Australia'', nor Caroline Ambrus's ''Australian Women Artists''. However her work toured with the ''Completing the picture: women artists and the Heidelberg era'' exhibition in 1992-1993 and also was discussed in detail and illustrated in Janda Gooding's ''Western Australian art and artists, 1900-1950'' exhibition and publication. In 2013, Ann Gray described Fuller as "an important Australian woman artist and arguably Western Australia's most significant artist from the Federation period". Works by Fuller are held by the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the National Gallery of Australia, the City of Perth, the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia's
National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...
, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the State Library of Victoria. Internationally, her work is held by the
Newport Museum and Art Gallery Newport Museum and Art Gallery ( cy, Amgueddfa ac Oriel Gelf Casnewydd) (known locally as the City Museum ( cy, Amgueddfa Dinas)) is a museum, library and art gallery in the city of Newport, South Wales. It is located in Newport city centre on ...
in South Wales.


Notes


References

;Citations ;Sources *


External links


Florence Fuller
DAAO * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fuller, Florence 1867 births Date of birth missing 1946 deaths Australian women painters Heidelberg School Artists from Melbourne Artists from New South Wales Académie Julian alumni People from Port Elizabeth 19th-century Australian painters 20th-century Australian painters 19th-century Australian women artists 20th-century Australian women artists Australian Theosophists Australian portrait painters