Ivy Margaret Copeland (15 June 1888 – 28 August 1961) was a

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

artist and arts teacher. Born in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

on 15 June 1888, Copeland began studying with C. F. Goldie when she was 10 years old, and later studied with the English artist Dennis Seaward in

Whanganui Whanganui, also spelt Wanganui, is a city in the Manawatū-Whanganui region of New Zealand. The city is located on the west coast of the North Island at the mouth of the Whanganui River, New Zealand's longest navigable waterway. Whanganui is ...

. She went on to study at the

Elam School of Fine Arts The Elam School of Fine Arts, founded by John Edward Elam, is part of the University of Auckland Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries, Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries at the University of Auckland. It offered the first Bachelor of ...

, in Auckland. In 1933 she moved to the

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

and taught art, first at Canterbury College, and then at Dunedin Training College. After retiring from teaching in 1940, she returned to Auckland and painted full time. In November 1951 she exhibited 96 works at the Auckland Society of Arts (ASA). Copeland painted traditional subject matter, taking a particular interest in

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

, particularly the study of flowers. Copeland also painted

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

and in 1946 was awarded the Bledisloe Medal for her

oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...

''Back of Beyond''. Copeland is best remembered for her

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

paintings, she had a particular interest in

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

subjects. In 1940 her landscape painting ''Winter sunshine, Heathcote, Christchurch'' was included in the National Centennial Exhibition of New Zealand Art. Two of her works were included in the ASA exhibition ''New Zealand Women Painters 1845–1968.'' Most recently she was featured in the 1993 exhibition ''White Camelias''. Copeland died in Auckland on 28 August 1961. In her will she left her paintings to the ASA to raise funds to establish the Ivy Copeland award for portraiture, awarded to a tertiary student biannually.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Copeland, Ivy Margaret 1888 births 1961 deaths Artists from Auckland New Zealand art educators Elam Art School alumni 20th-century New Zealand women artists 20th-century New Zealand painters