Rose A. Walker (1879–1942), was an Australian painter and miniaturist. She was a founding member of the Twenty Melbourne Painters Society.

Biography

Walker was born in Walhalla in 1879. She attended the Bendigo School of Mines where she studied under Arthur T. Woodward. She then moved to Melbourne where she studied with

Max Meldrum Duncan Max Meldrum (3 December 1875 – 6 June 1955) was a Scottish-born Australian artist and art teacher, best known as the founder of Australian tonalism, a representational painting style that became popular in Melbourne during the interwa ...

. Bendigo Art Gallery displayed her narrative painting, a watercolour, ''News from the Front,'' in its Victorian Gold Jubilee exhibition of 1901-1902, and its subsequent purchase from admission fees and art union was debated in a drawn-out selection process of elimination over April–June 1902, in which it remained the only work by a woman and in competition against eight notables including

Gustave Doré Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré ( , , ; 6January 1832 – 23January 1883) was a French printmaker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor. He is best known for his prolific output of wood-engravings illustrati ...

, Rupert Bunney,

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 ' ...

and J. Ford Patterson. Ultimately the Gallery purchased the large Doré ''Joseph's Flight Into Egypt''. ''News from the Front'' was shown as a non-competitive entry in the Australian Exhibition of Women's Work and gifted by the artist to

Castlemaine Art Museum Castlemaine Art Museum is an art gallery and museum in Castlemaine, Victoria, Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1913, it is housed in a purpose-built Art Deco building, completed in 1931 and heritage-listed by the National Trust. Its ...

in 1940. Walker exhibited her work around Melbourne at the

Victorian Artists Society The Victorian Artists Society, which can trace its establishment to 1856 in Melbourne, promotes artistic education, art classes and Art museum, gallery hire art gallery, exhibition in Australia. It was formed in March 1888 when the Victorian Acad ...

, and the

Athenaeum Athenaeum may refer to: Books and periodicals * ''Athenaeum'' (German magazine), a journal of German Romanticism, established 1798 * ''Athenaeum'' (British magazine), a weekly London literary magazine 1828–1921 * ''The Athenaeum'' (Acadia U ...

Gallery. She showed her work under the name "Mrs George Hartrick" after she wed. She was a member of the Victorian Artists Society, the Twenty Melbourne Painters Society and the

Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung/ or ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second most-populous city in Australia, after Sydney. The city's name generally refers to a metropolitan area also known as ...

. She died in 1942. In 2013 Walker was included in the exhibition ''Towards Perth: Western Australian Women Artists Before 1950'' at the

Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery The Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery is an on-campus art gallery at the University of Western Australia in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley. It was established in July 1990. Description The gallery is supported by a ''friends of'' organisation. ...

in Crawley, Australia.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Rose A. 1879 births 1942 deaths 19th-century Australian women artists 20th-century Australian women artists 20th-century Australian artists Artists from Victoria (state)