Florence Fuller

Florence Fuller, born in 1867 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, was a remarkable artist who made her mark in Australia. At a young age, she migrated to Melbourne with her family, where she honed her artistic skills under the guidance of her uncle, Robert Hawker Dowling, and teacher Jane Sutherland. By the late 1880s, she had established herself as a professional painter, showcasing her talent in various exhibitions.

In 1892, Fuller embarked on a journey that would take her from Australia to South Africa, where she had the opportunity to paint for the influential Cecil Rhodes. Her travels continued to Europe, where she spent the next decade studying and creating art, with notable exhibitions at the Paris Salon and London's Royal Academy between 1895 and 1904. A significant moment in her career came in 1899 when she returned to South Africa to paint a portrait of Rhodes.

After returning to Australia in 1904, Fuller settled in Perth and became involved with the Theosophical Society. It was during this period that she produced some of her most celebrated works, including 'A Golden Hour,' which was later recognized as a masterpiece by the National Gallery of Australia. From 1908 onwards, she traveled extensively, living in India and England before finally settling in Sydney, where she became the inaugural teacher of life drawing at the School of Fine and Applied Arts in 1920.

Fuller's contributions to the art world were significant, as she was highly regarded for her portrait and landscape paintings. By 1914, she was represented in four public galleries, a remarkable achievement for a woman artist of her time. However, her later years were marked by nearly twenty years of institutionalization in a mental asylum, leading to her death in 1946, which went largely unnoticed. Despite her obscurity after death, her works remain in prominent public collections across Australia.