watercolour painter, was born in England, eldest daughter of James Routledge of Manor Road, Forest Hill, London. She exhibited as 'Miss Emily Routledge’ in 1871 and again in 1874-5 at the Royal Society of British Artists, Suffolk Street, London. She was living in Melbourne by 9 December 1873, when she married the widower Adam Steele Park, manager of the Geelong branch of the Colonial Bank of Australasia, at Christ Church, St Kilda. The marriage was conducted by the Lord Bishop of Melbourne assisted by Rev. J. Stanley Low. Although little is known of Emily Park herself, her husband was a well-known business and community identity in Geelong. He had migrated from London in 1853 and joined the London Chartered Bank of Australia at Melbourne in 1855. The following year he joined the Colonial Bank of Australasia at their Sandhurst (Bendigo) branch, then was manager at Ballarat for some years until transferred to Geelong in mid-1864, where he remained until his retirement. His first wife, Margaret, died in Geelong on 16 June 1871 aged forty-seven; two years later he married Emily Phoebe Routledge.
As a subscriber member of the Victorian Academy of Arts, Emily Park entered ten watercolour paintings in the 1876-78 annual exhibitions. They were primarily local landscapes but European subjects were also included. The Academy had been formed in January 1870, the direct ancestor of today’s Victorian Artists’ Society. Four years later it acquired a gallery in Albert Street, Eastern Hill, which Governor Sir George Bowen opened on 30 July 1874. Emily Park did not renew her subscription with the Academy after 1878 and does not appear to have exhibited elsewhere.
Adam Park retired from the bank and public life in October 1885 due to ill health. He and Emily left Australia for England on the steamer Shannon later that year. Although intended as a temporary repose for Mr Park to 'obtain a fresh lease of health’, the move proved permanent. Many of Emily’s paintings of colonial scenery accompanied her to England where they would have served as nostalgic reminders of her artistic life in Australia. Four of her watercolours – Corio Bay, Geelong ; Mount Macedon Seen from the Geelong Train ; Warren Hills, Lake Colac ; Mount Gellibrand from Lake Colac (all c.1875-77) – featured in the Geelong Art Gallery’s 1991 exhibition, Painters of the Past , curated by Veronica Filmer.
- Writers:
- Hutchinson, Darvell M.
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
