Painter and teacher, was born on the Macleay River, Northern NSW. Her Departure of the First Queensland Contingent for South Africa 1899, oil on board, 47 × 62.1 cm (Australian War Memorial) is an almost identical image to Oscar Fristrom’s Embarkation of the first Queensland Contingent leaving Pinkenba, Brisbane for South Africa 1900 (oil on canvas, Royal Queensland Historical Society, on view Newstead House drawing room), who may have been her teacher at Brisbane Tech. Both probably derived from the (unpeopled) photograph Cornwall at Berth 1899 (John Oxley Library), yet why should the putative student’s image predate the teacher’s, asks Glenn Cooke, who suggests that a personal reason for the painting was that her brother Stephen joined the second contingent of the Qld Mounted Infantry, which departed for South Africa on 28 December 1899, two months after the first contingent had gone.
Anne Midgely exhibited with the Queensland Art Society in 1901-5 – flower studies and landscapes to judge by their titles. In about 1905 she established the private school St Clair and ceased exhibiting her work. She died in Brisbane in 1943.
This entry is a stub. You can help DAAO by submitting a biography.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2011
