sketcher, was born 13 January 1837 Launceston the third daughter of Robert Cowie and Julianna nee Luthman. Mary came from an artistic family and participated in their enthusiasm for sketching, though no extant work is known. Her father and her sisters Emily Bowring and Julia Cowie drew and painted; so did her paternal aunts, Emma von Stieglitz in particular.
She married Charles Nichols, a recent partner in the Launceston firm of Du Croz, Nichols & Co., in 1858 at Longford, Tasmania, and in about 1869 they moved to Dunedin, New Zealand, on behalf of Dalgetys, where Charles was killed in a carriage accident in 1878.
Mary Nichols moved to Europe with nine children. She made a number of visits back to Australia and New Zealand.
Mary Nichols was a prolific painter in water colours so far nearly 100 paintings have been found in family collections, they are mainly of scenes in New Zealand and Europe but in 1910 she painted various scenes of New Guinea and down the East Coast of Australia.
She also had portraits of herself, her sister Emily Bowring and her three daughters, Mary Beatrice Fell White, Emily Maud Blair White and Ada Marion MacGeough Bond, painted by James Jebusa Shannon which she then copied.
Mary Nichols died in London in 1928.
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- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
