Painter of wildflowers who was born in South Australia, the daughter of James Houston Craig (1846-1915) and Alma Janet Foster Laurie (1847-1946). She was one of four children and had flaming red hair. Her aunt married Albany Bell of the successful Western Australian teashop chain. It is probable that Craig studied art in South Australia before she came to Western Australia with her family. She joined the West Australia Society of Arts and in 1902 was listed in the catalogue of the annual exhibition held 19-31 May in the Hamburg Chambers as a 'Working Member’ and a committee member. Working members were those who had had work accepted for exhibition. Honorary members were those who joined as such or had failed to exhibit in two consecutive exhibitions.
Austral Press, located at 9 Wellington Street, Perth (1902-1910) published Janie Craig’s paintings as a booklet of eight colour plates of grouped wildflowers, numbered 1-6 and 9, including a front cover of a picture of an old Aboriginal man in shirt, trousers and humpy flanked by kangaroo and emu within a frame of wildflowers. It bore the legend “The Austral Series of West Australian Wildflowers as painted from Nature by Miss Janie Craig.” In 1903 her studio was at 79 Adelaide Street, Fremantle where she taught painting.
Craig left Western Australia but returned in 1905 to marry William Stanley Webster, son of William Schneider Webster, the Chief Warder at the Prison in Fremantle. They were both thirty. He was an accountant of The Terrace Fremantle. In 1906 Craig studied Art Needlework at Perth Technical School under South Australian Loui Benham. In October 1906 she gave birth to a son, Arnold Tennyson Stewart Stanley Webster. Craig died four weeks later.
When the Tourist Bureau was started in Western Australia, c.1910, it obtained the rights to publish some or all of her ten paintings. Seven were in a Tourist Bureau Booklet and printed on cards. One at least was printed in England. The Government Printer also published them to attract visitors to Western Australia. There is an example in the collection of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society (No 1). On the verso is printed, “[i]ssued by Government Tourist Bureau, 62 Barrack Street, for the Tourist, advertising Holiday and Health Resorts Unlimited. Government Printer Perth “Western Australian Products that have won Universal Admiration. Westralian Wildflowers, Plaistowes Chocolates and Confectionery & Metters.”
- Writers:
- Dr Dorothy Erickson
- Date written:
- 2010
- Last updated:
- 2011
