Florence Fuller

Florence Ada Fuller ( * 1867 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, † July 17, 1946 in Gladesville, Australia) was an Australian artist of South African origin. As a child she moved with her family moved to Melbourne, where she was taught by her uncle Robert Hawker Dowling and Jane Sutherland. She attended the National Gallery of Victoria Art School and was the late 1880s professional painter. 1892 she left Australia and traveled first to South Africa, where she painted for Cecil Rhodes. Some of his last portraits come from her. She then studied in Europe. Between 1895 and 1904 her work was exhibited at the Paris Salon and at the Royal Academy in London.

In 1904 she returned to Australia and went to live in Perth. She became active in the Theosophical Society and painted some of her most famous works, including The Golden Hour. From 1908 she traveled around a lot, lived for a time in India and England, before she returned to Australia and settled until the end of their lives in Sydney. There, she taught life drawing at the School of Fine and Applied Arts, which was founded in 1920 by the New South Wales Society of Women Painters.

Fuller painted mainly portraits and landscapes. 1914 her paintings were shown in three Australian and a South African gallery, which she was one of the most awarded Australian painters of their time. Then they fell into oblivion and was often omitted in reference books about Australian artists. Today her paintings are in many Australian art collections again ( Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria and the National Portrait Gallery ).

Works

  • Inseparables (1900)
  • Summer Breezes (1904 )
  • A Golden Hour (1905 )
  • Portrait of Deborah Vernon Hackett (ca. 1908)
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