Clara Southern
Encyclopedia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n artist associated with the Heidelberg School
Heidelberg School
The Heidelberg School was an Australian art movement of the late 19th century. The movement has latterly been described as Australian Impressionism....
, also known as Australian Impressionism.
Southern was born in Kyneton, Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
, in 1861. She studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School
National Gallery of Victoria Art School
The National Gallery of Victoria Art School , associated with the National Gallery of Victoria, was founded in 1867. It was the leading centre for academic art training in Australia until about 1910. Among its luminaries, the school was headed by John Brack from 1962-68 and Sir William Dargie was...
under George Folingsby and Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin was an Australian painter who was prominent in the Heidelberg School, one of the more important periods in Australia's visual arts history....
. When in Melbourne she shared a studio at Grosvenor Chambers
Grosvenor Chambers
Grosvenor Chambers at number 9 Collins Street, Melbourne was Australia's first custom built complex of artist's studios.It housed many famous Australian artists studios. Some artists who held studios there include, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Clara Southern, Charles Conder, E...
, 9 Collins Street, with Jane Sutherland
Jane Sutherland
Jane Sutherland was an Australian landscape painter pioneer of the plein-air movement in Australia, she was also notable for her advocacy to advance the professional standing of women artists....
from 1888. By 1908 she had established an artistic community of younger landscape painters at Warrandyte, a township on the Yarra
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
about 30 kilometers from Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
. The community included Penleigh Boyd
Penleigh Boyd
Theodore Penleigh Boyd was an Australian artist.Penleigh Boyd was a member of the Boyd artistic dynasty: his parents Arthur Merric Boyd and Emma Minnie Boyd were well-known artists of the day, and his brothers included Merric Boyd the ceramacist and the novelist Martin Boyd...
and Harold Herbert. Although her work was admired by the artists of her time, they were not very well known. Southern married John Flinn but usually exhibited under her original name.
An Old Bee Farm, held by the National Gallery of Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
is one of her better known works. It was one of 56 paintings included in Lloyd O'Neil's Classic Australian Paintings, and was used as the cover illustration for Kay Schaffer's 1988 book Women and the Bush: Forces of Desire in the Australian Cultural Tradition.