Lot 51

Private collection, Melbourne

Jessie Lavington Evans began her artistic training at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in 1880, where she studied intermittently until 1891, with a brief return in 1903-04. During this time, Evans worked alongside many of the artists who would become leading figures in Australian art, including Tom Roberts, Emanuel Phillips Fox, Jane Sutherland, Josephine Muntz Adams, Frederick McCubbin and Arthur Streeton.

Between 1894 and 1898, Evans continued her training at the Melbourne School of Art under Emanuel Phillips Fox and Tudor St George Tucker. The school offered a more progressive approach to painting, with an emphasis on working directly from nature. Classes were held in Melbourne during the week and at Charterisville on weekends, where students worked outdoors among the gardens, bushland and surrounding landscape. At Charterisville, Evans continued to develop her landscape practice, working en plein air alongside a generation of artists increasingly drawn to painting directly from nature. She received prizes for landscape painting, while her exhibited works attracted favourable attention from contemporary critics.

By 1896, Evans had largely withdrawn from public exhibition. Her withdrawal has often been attributed to the disapproval of her father, who believed that 'ladies didn't sell artworks in public', (1) and that her doing so might suggest he was unable to support his family. Evans continued to paint, although many of her works remained unsigned and were rarely seen publicly during her lifetime. Following the death of her parents, Evans registered as a drawing and painting teacher in private practice in 1906. While many of the artists she had once studied alongside rose to prominence, Evans continued to paint largely away from public view, her occupation simply recorded as 'house duties'. (2)

For more than fifty years, Evans lived with her family at 'Clifton', 14 Dendy Road, Brighton, continuing to paint plein air landscapes around Brighton and nearby Beaumaris. The stretcher of the present work is inscribed in pencil 'Clifton, 14 Dendy Road, Brighton', providing a tangible connection to the home where Evans lived and painted for so many years. Though much of her work remained unseen during her lifetime, the paintings she left behind offer a glimpse into a practice quietly sustained over many decades.

Hannah Ryan
Senior Art Specialist

(1) Peers, J., More than just Gumtrees, The Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, Dawn Revival Press, Melbourne, 1993, pp. 150-151
(2) Braund, D., and Alexander, J., Fathers & Sons by Dorothy Braund: and Impressions, Jessie L. Evans (1860-1943), Jim Alexander Gallery, Melbourne, 1983