Elizabeth Ann Owtram was born in Nottinghamshire, England, the daughter of Henry Owtram and his wife Elizabeth Champion. After the family migrated to the Hunter Vallery in NSW she began to paint mainly landscapes – she is recorded by the Maitland Mercury as having exhibited a landscape plaque in the Hunter River Agriculture and Horticulture Society Show of 1891.
She appears to have moved to Western Australia by the following year, living with her brother William Carey Owtram who was a partner in the estate and insurance agency, Owtram & Purkis in Claremont. As well as exhibiting her own work she tutored private students and taught art classes at Perth College, Hale School and Miss Best’s. Her students included Frances Cecil Ross, Rena Bell, Montague Marks and Marion St Clair Layman.
Her work was sufficiently noticed to have been reproduced in an edition of the Western Mail in 1898. In 1907 she exhibited in the Women’s Work Exhibition at the Perth Town Hall before being forwarded to the national exhibition in Melbourne.
The social notes in Western Australian newspapers record both Elizabeth and her sister Kate as leading an active social life, largely connected with the parish of Christ Church Claremont.
In 1919, with her sister, she returned to England. Although they were noted as being on the WA electoral roll in 1925, neither returned to Australia. Both died at Palmerston North, New Zealand, in 1925
- Writers:
- Dr Dorothy Erickson
Joanna Mendelssohn
- Date written:
- 2010
- Last updated:
- 2020
