painter and teacher, was a daughter of William Blyth and Elizabeth, née Crowther . She is probably the young Blyth daughter who was returning from England to Van Diemen’s Land in 1848 on board the Himalaya in the care of Francis Russell Nixon , Bishop of Tasmania. Miss Blyth noted in her shipboard journal on 25 February: 'After lunch I drew by myself, but the Bishop presently came into the cuddy and, seeing that I needed help, very kindly sat down and drew my copy for me, in order that I might see how it was done, and now today I am going to draw from his copy’.
Miss E. Blyth kept a school in Macquarie Street, Hobart Town, from about 1855 to 1875. In 1868 she advertised lessons in perspective, watercolour drawing and sketching from Mrs Searl’s school, Claremont House, Hobart Town. In 1876 her appointment as principal of the ladies’ department of Ballarat College (Victoria) was announced but, if filled, this was short-lived. She was in Hobart Town by December 1878 when she was holding an exhibition of her own and her pupils’ work at rooms in Murray Street, including a pair of marine oil paintings and a bunch of flowers and ferns by Miss Marsh, another marine painting by Emilie Crowther, as well as painted wooden 'tables, etc.’ by Misses Swan, Dowdell and Crowther. Despite being primarily known as a flower painter in watercolours, she obviously had a normal teaching range of subjects and media (although marine subjects were less common for young ladies). Miss Blyth showed watercolour drawings of Tasmanian Flowers in the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition that were awarded a medal. She sent flower paintings and a view of Mount Wellington to the 1875 Victorian Intercolonial Exhibition. When she exhibited flower paintings with the New South Wales Agricultural Society in 1875 and with the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1875-76, the first collection was highly commended and she won the academy’s certificate of merit in 1876. Her 1875 exhibits also included Oakhampton, the Seat of the late F. Aubin, Esq. and an original view of Merrylee Bridge, Renfrewshire, Scotland , but her views were never as successful as her flowers. Most of the latter were for sale at prices ranging from 3 to 10 guineas each.
She was probably the Miss Blyth who exhibited non-competitively with the South Australian Society of Arts in 1863. Two flower paintings in the Allport Collection (State Library of Tasmania) have been attributed to her. Both are of English flowers painted in a meticulous Regency watercolour style. Their contemporary frames were made in Hobart Town by Robin Lloyd Hood.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
pfreund
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2012
