Mary Troy a still life, landscape and figurative painter, was born in Ireland. She studied art at the Sorbonne, Paris, and in London where she exhibited five paintings of flowers or genre/figure scenes at the Royal Academy between 1937 and 1942. She also exhibited 48 times with Cooling and Sons Gallery, London (no longer extant). She taught art in NSW from about 1935 (or 1943?) to 1953. Her oil on board work Country Town, New South Wales c.1940s was offered at Sotheby’s on 14 August 1990 and there is some speculation that the town in question might be Bathurst.
A finalist in the 1951 NSW Jubilee Art competition, Troy’s Caroline Chisholm Pioneering New Australians was described as 'all theatre – a comedy in one act, and very charming at that’ ( Sun 16 July 1951). Her entry in the 1952 Wynne Prize, the 'dark and dramatic’ Winter Morning near Blackheath 'seems to derive more from the reds and dark swirling shadows of the Vlaminck in another part of the Gallery than from a winter morning near Blackheath’, the Bulletin commented (30 January 1952: article headed 'Archibald Prize’). The Goldfish 1957 (oil on hardboard 55.9 × 76.8 cm) is in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW (see Art Gallery of New South Wales Acquisitions 1958, 15). Troy is said to have had her first solo show in Sydney in 1958, at David Jones Art Gallery. (Craig states that she exhibited in Sydney from 1958, but she obviously showed work competitively before this.)
Home after Shopping n.d. (oil on board, 107.5 × 68 cm) was offered at Christie’s Melbourne on 30 July 1990. Craig lists five undated oils sold at Lawson’s in 1991-92, including Artist and Model Relaxing (64 × 76 cm) – possibly the Sotheby’s self-portrait – while Poppies and Fruit was sold at Gregson’s, Perth in November 1992.
She died in 1973
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
MuchAdo
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2021
