Rose Simmonds (26 July 1877 – 3 July 1960) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English ...

-born Australian photographer and member of the

Pictorialism Pictorialism is an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer ha ...

movement.

Life

Rose Culpin was born in

Islington Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ...

in 1877. She was brought up in the UK by her parents Hannah Louise and Dr Millice Culpin. She and her parents emigrated to Australia around 1891 and her father established a medical practice at Taringa. She attended Brisbane Girls' Grammar School and

Brisbane Technical College Brisbane Central Technical College is a heritage-listed technical college at 2 George Street, Brisbane City, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1911 to 1956. It became the Queensland Institute of Technology (QIT) i ...

, but she did not become interested in photography until after her marriage as her new husband, John Howard Simmonds. It is presumed that she was intrigued by her new husband's darkroom as he developed his own pictures of his stone masonry commissions. Rose-simmonds-tall-and-stately-1930s1

Initially Simmonds took pictures of her sons but by 1928 she had been entering her pictures into monthly contests organised by the Queensland Camera Club and the Australasian Photo-Review. By August 1928 she was a committee member and, building on her knowledge of painting, her impressionistic photograph "Playground of the Shadows" took first place. Her work reflected her artistic training and her style has been compared to

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

. The University of Queensland compares her work to painters such as

Arthur Streeton Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton (8 April 1867 – 1 September 1943) was an Australian landscape painter and a leading member of the Heidelberg School, also known as Australian Impressionism. Early life Streeton was born in Mt Moriac, Victoria, so ...

, Elioth Grüner and

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( , , ; July 16, 1796 – February 22, 1875), or simply Camille Corot, is a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his va ...

.Rose Simmonds Queensland Pictorial Photographer
Art Museum Queensland, Retrieved 16 May 2016. Simmonds was taking photographs until the 1940s and in 1941 she had a solo exhibition of her work.Rose Simmonds
DAAO, Retrieved 16 May 2016. Simmonds died in

Auchenflower, Queensland Auchenflower is an inner suburb of the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Torwood is a neighbourhood () within Auchenflower. Geography Auchenflower is located west of the Brisbane CBD bordering the Brisbane River. History The a ...

in 1960.Keith Bradbury, 'Simmonds, Rose (1877–1960)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University
published first in hardcopy 2002, accessed online 16 May 2016

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Simmonds, Rose 1877 births 1960 deaths People from Islington (district) Australian women photographers British emigrants to Australia Australian photographers