painter and wood-carver, was born at Westbury, Tasmania, second youngest of the nine daughters of Thomas and Elizabeth Field of Westfield, a grazing property west of the town. After spending her childhood there, Ellen Field married Charles Alexander Payne, a medical practitioner of New Town near Hobart, on 6 January 1887. The wedding was held in St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Westbury, a church which now contains some of the finest examples of Payne’s work, her first major donation being a pulpit she had carved in England in 1905. She had become interested in wood carving when she moved from Hobart to Melbourne in 1891 and studied under the Art Nouveau carver, Robert Prenzel .
A trip to England with her husband and children in 1899 to meet Charles’ family resulted in a stay abroad lasting until 1908, with return trips to Tasmania in 1900 and 1906-7. For Ellen it was a period of great creativity and improvement of her skills. She studied woodcarving and design at the University of London and at the South Kensington School of Art took courses in clay modelling, leatherwork, beaten copper work and classical embroidery. She also improved the oil and watercolour painting skills practised from youth.
At the 1907 Women’s Work Exhibition in Melbourne, Payne won three prizes and a medal for her woodcarvings. Returning to Australia permanently in 1908, she lived the rest of her long life in Hobart, first in a house in upper Elizabeth Street, then in Antill Street. Her most productive years as a woodcarver were in Hobart and she developed a wide reputation as one of Tasmania’s leading practitioners. She worked on well into her late eighties, her last work being some carving for the restoration of All Hallows-by-the-Tower, London, in her eighty-ninth year. Her husband had died at Hobart in 1925 and she lost a son in a drowning accident the same year. Outliving all her sisters, Ellen Nora Payne died in Hobart in her ninety-eighth year, on 31 January 1962.
Ellen Payne was a speedy worker. Her output was prodigious, but not commercially orientated. She did crests for Royalty, decorative work for various Anglican churches and public schools throughout Tasmania, numerous honour rolls – particularly after both World Wars – and various other requests and commissions. These included the decorating of no less than thirty-four dower chests, many as gifts for relatives and friends. A sister, Ethelwyn Field, was also a wood-carver but had nowhere near Ellen’s output.
- Writers:
- Mercer, Peter
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
