Kate Streeter b. 1842

Also known as Catherine Elizabeth Streeter, Kate Sheppard, Catherine Elizabeth Sheppard
  • Artist (Draughtsman),
  • Artist (Painter)
Painter and teacher, was born in Cork, Ireland and came to Victoria with her parents. The myth of Sheppard as a prodigy persisted throughout her long career, driven by the early mistaken belief that she painted her first acclaimed portrait at the age of 16. Although mainly a portrait painter, she also painted altar pieces and landscapes.

painter and teacher, was born in Cork, Ireland. Always known as Kate, she came to Victoria with her parents, Mr and Mrs Ambrose Jennings Sheppard, in about 1852. By 1858 the family were living in Geelong and Kate was working as an assistant teacher with the Education Department. She taught at Ashby in 1860 and at St Mary’s, Geelong from 1861. Instructed in drawing and painting by Edmund Sasse of Geelong, she was a licensed drawing teacher by 1867.

Kate Sheppard gained public recognition in 1869 for her portrait in oils of the Very Rev. Dean Hayes, commissioned for St Augustine’s orphanage. It was greatly admired when exhibited at the Geelong Mechanics Institute Exhibition. The Geelong Advertiser noted on 26 February 1869 that 'this latest effort of this talented young lady entitled her to rank high among our colonial artists’. Having singled her out on 4 March as 'the only lady artist’ represented, it magnanimously acknowledged that 'the painting does not suffer in comparison with others as a work of art’. The portrait was also exhibited at the 1869 Ballarat Mechanics Institute Exhibition and was still 'pronounced by connoisseurs to be of a high order’ in 1885, long after she had left Geelong. By this time the artist’s age was given as a precocious 16 (rather than the realistic 26) and the myth of Sheppard as a prodigy persisted throughout her long career. Other major portrait commissions followed: Portrait of Mother Xavier Maguire (Sacred Heart College, Geelong) and a portrait of Father Power, raffled in an art union in 1872.

In 1874 Sheppard moved to Ballarat as senior assistant teacher at the Redan public school. She was appointed head of Scarsdale school in 1878. In that year she was awarded an honourable mention for her painting of Byron’s Manfred shown at the Paris Universal Exhibition; she also married Dr J. Streeter in Ballarat and changed her name. Kate Streeter was teaching art at Bendigo schools in 1883, then at Melbourne schools from 1884 to 1894. She also conducted private drawing lessons from her studio in the Grand Hotel, Melbourne. In 1888 she exhibited her portrait of Dr Brownlees (later Sir Anthony Brownlees, Chancellor of the University of Melbourne) at the Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition (now University of Melbourne [MU]). Her portrait of Rev. W.A. Quick, President of Queen’s College (1888-1909), was commissioned in 1907 (MU).

Because of ill health, Streeter moved to Brisbane in 1921. Two years later, aged 81 with health quite restored, she held an exhibition at 363 Queen Street, Brisbane, showing work ranging from a recent life-size portrait commission, Dr Wallis Hoare , to her 1878 Paris success, Manfred . In reviewing the exhibition the Queenslander repeated the apocryphal tale that she was only 16 when she painted Dean Hayes . Although mainly a portrait painter, she also painted altar pieces ( The Sacred Heart 1870 and Assumption of the Virgin 1877) and landscapes (a view of the You-Yangs was exhibited in 1891). She died in Brisbane on 7 January 1930. A manuscript autobiography dating from the 1850s is mentioned by William Moore.

Writers:
Kerr, Joan
Date written:
1995
Last updated:
2011