Enid Helen Gray Cambridge (10 July 1903 – 1 December 1976) was an Australian artist.

Biography

Cambridge was born in 1903 in

Mosman, New South Wales Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore (Sydney), Lower North Shore region of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative c ...

to Henry Gray Cambridge and Olga Stella Hayes Harnett. The middle of four siblings, she had an older brother Geoffrey and older sister Hilarie, and two younger brothers, Richard and Milton. She described the excitement of receiving a giant box of paints for Christmas when she was young. She studied at the Sydney Art School under

Julian Ashton Julian Rossi Ashton (27 January 185127 April 1942) was an English-born Australian artist and teacher. He is best known for founding the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney and encouraging Australian painters to capture local life and scenery ' ...

like fellow artist

Thea Proctor Alethea Mary Proctor (2 October 1879 – 29 July 1966) was an Australian painter, print maker, designer and teacher who upheld the ideas of 'taste' and 'style'. Biography Proctor was born in Armidale, New South Wales, to William Consett Pr ...

before her, and alongside fellow students

Dorrit Black Dorothea Foster Black (23 December 1891 – 13 September 1951) was an Australian painter and printmaker of the modernism, Modernist school, known for being a pioneer of Modernism in Australia. In 1951, at the age of fifty-nine, Black was killed ...

and

Grace Crowley Grace Adela Williams Crowley (pronounced as in "slowly"; 28 May 1890 – 21 April 1979) was an Australian artist and modernist painter. Early life and education Grace Crowley was born in May 1890 in Barraba, New South Wales. She was the fou ...

. In 1930 she exhibited at

Macquarie Galleries Macquarie Galleries was a Sydney art museum, private art gallery established in 1925 by John Henry Young and Basil Burdett. It was located at "Strathkyle", 19 Bligh Street Sydney then moved to 40 King Street in 1945. From 1991 to 1993 it was lo ...

alongside Black and Crowley, as well as Grace Cossington-Smith. Her canvas "George-street North" was described in the ''Sydney Mail'' as "the best" in an exhibition with her contemporary friends. While she taught for over thirty years as Senior Art Mistress at the

Sydney Church of England Girls' Grammar School SCEGGS Darlinghurst is an independent Anglican single-sex primary and secondary day and boarding school for girls, located in Darlinghurst, an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded in 1895 as the Sydney Ch ...

in Darlinghurst, this did not belay her own artistic endeavours. In 1948 she won the £25 watercolour prize at

Bendigo Art Gallery Bendigo Art Gallery is an Australian art gallery located in Bendigo, Victoria. It is one of the oldest and largest regional art galleries. History The gallery was founded in 1887. The gallery's collection was first housed in the former Bendig ...

for her piece "Bush Scene." A frequent exhibitor of her work, Cambridge's style did receive compliments among the harsh critiques of female artists of the period. "Miss Cambridge is a painter of originality extremely sensitive to mood" said the ''Sydney Morning Herald'''s critic, and the ''Daily Telegraph'' said "her watercolours have always a feminine grace of line and a precise delicacy of tonal adjustment" while in the same article saying she was capable of better. Another artist who contributed to her education was

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, Greytown, New Zealand. He studied at Wellington Te ...

, and many reviews discuss his influence on her work. Cambridge herself said "Life started when I went to Mr Wakelin." She later went overseas in 1959–1960 to study at Salzburg with

Oskar Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright and teacher, best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expre ...

As well as many solo exhibitions, Cambridge exhibited with George Bell's Contemporary Art Group from 1936 until its disbandment in 1959, from 1941 with the

Australian Watercolour Institute The Australian Watercolour Institute (AWI) is a non-profit membership organization devoted to the advancement of watercolour painting in Australia. It was founded in 1923 by six painters in Sydney, and was modeled after the Royal Watercolour Soci ...

, and in 1943 she joined the Society of Artists. Her friendship with Grace Cossington-Smith continued throughout their lives, helping her overcome the hardships of pursuing a creative life.Enid Cambridge: Art & Artists files, held in the National Gallery of Australia Research Library & Archive Collection After her death in 1976, Cossington-Smith said of Enid "Her sudden death is the ordained fulfilment of a dedicated life. Her loss to this community is a very great one, and a sorrow to us all." The works of Enid Cambridge are represented in the collections of 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 ...

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 import ...

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited art mu ...

Queensland Art Gallery The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. It complements the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) building, situated only away. The Queensland Art Galle ...

, and

Awards

* 1948 - Bendigo Art Prize * 1954 - Mosman Art Prize * 1962 - Hunters Hill Art Prize * 1962 - North Sydney Watercolour Prize * 1962 - Ashfield Art Prize

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cambridge, Enid Australian artists Australian watercolourists 1903 births 1976 deaths