Helen Hudson (nee Hughes), an amateur Victorian artist born in 1915, purchased “The Studio”, King Road, Harkaway in Victoria in the 1960s from the Estate of Jessie Traill. Hudson spent almost every week there painting, entertaining fellow artists and teaching old friends. At the time of her death (10th February 2005) she had owned “The Studio” for around 40 years. Having known Jessie Traill, she respected the integrity of the building and retained it very much in the manner of “Jessie’s Studio” but with her own stamp on the property.
Whilst she exhibited in various art shows and at the Victorian Artists and Lyceum Club in Melbourne, she did not sell many works. After her death, over 200 works retained in “The Studio” were photographed and many more are being held by the family for future cataloguing.
Most of her works are landscapes, with the subjects taken from various trips overseas and through Australia. She particularly loved travel in the inland of Australia and did many paintings of trips to the Outback. Helen Hudson also painted and drew a number of portraits of family and friends. The number of works, created over a period of around 60 years, that remained in “The Studio” at her death provided a comprehensive record of the lifetime’s work of this amateur artist.
“The Studio” was also unique in that it had been built as a artist’s studio in the 1930s and had been continually used for that purpose until 2004 – a period of about 70 years. A number of Miss Traill’s works and artefacts were at the property at the time of Mrs Hudson’s death.
- Writers:
- Geoff Hudson
- Date written:
- 2011
- Last updated:
- 2011
