Miniature painter, china painter and gardener, was born in Melbourne, youngest child of the Scottish sawyer Alexander Paterson and his second wife, Mary Ann née Purcell, a Londoner, who were married at St Arnaud. Her father and his first wife, Margaret, had come to Melbourne in 1862 as assisted emigrants from Scotland. Not long before Agnes was born her parents and siblings settled in the Warragul district of Gippsland. Her father died there when she was five. In 1909 Agnes married the telegraphist Stanley James Davis at Warragul; Gwendoline was born in 1911 and Stanley Douglas in 1921. Agnes outlived them all.
According to Ann Mitchell, Agnes was a brilliant gardener. With the assistance of her husband, she turned their home garden at Surrey Hills into a showplace. She is also reputed to have been an excellent painter on porcelain, as well as a miniaturist. Her miniature of Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash and his lover Miss Lizette Bentwitch, a 1927 watercolour on ivory signed by Paterson (Monash University), was exhibited with the Victorian Artists’ Society in April 1927, April 1926 and April 1931. The locations of two companion pieces – separate portraits of Monash (certainly by Paterson) and Bentwitch (probably by Paterson but this is uncertain since Lizzie was said to be a miniaturist of some skill herself) – are unknown.
Known portrait miniatures by Paterson include Mrs Arthur Boyes, May Maxwell, “Varna”, Colonel George Horne VD, MA, MD, Ch.B, an artist and child (identities unknown), Esther Paterson (Mrs G.H. Gill) – perhaps a distant relative – Kenneth, Mrs W. Mortill (known only in reproduction), William Patrick Melville Esq., Miss Gwendoline Davis (the artist’s daughter, known only in reproduction). She also painted a series of images of her daughter from infancy onwards.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2011
