Design and Art Australia Online

Painter, china painter, teacher, photographer and pyrographer was the daughter of Margaret Grubb Beale from Mountmellick in county Laois, Ireland and her husband William James Creeth. Margaret was apparently skilled in china painting. William and Margaret migrated to Victoria in 1853 where her parents, Joseph and Margaret Beale, were by this time established.

May, Helen and her brother Richard were born in Victoria where the family became successful merchants and mining entrepreneurs. The women had Beale cousins in New South Wales, New Zealand, South Australia and Tasmania as May’s paintings later depict as well as a Creeth cousin in Perth, Western Australia.

May trained in art at the South Kensington Schools (now Royal College of Art) in London as did her younger sister Helen. This was at a time when many of the graduates became teachers of art setting up in opposition to their former lecturers. May advertised in Western Australia that she was a prize medallist. She may have come to Western Australia in mid-1898 to join her brother Richard who arrived about 1896. She opened a studio in St Georges Chambers but confusingly a month later advertised “Hillcrest Ladies College, Emerald Hill Terrace. Classes will reassemble as usual Monday September 12. M. E. Creeth.” So perhaps she had arrived earlier and taught there before.

May was soon exhibiting work. She had a display at the 'Western Australian Wildflowers Seventh Annual Exhibition’ held in the Perth Town Hall in August 1898. An article in the West Australian (24 August 1898), stated:

Miss Creeth must indeed have been industrious as well as much travelled to produce so much and so varied work. There are scenes from Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and New Zealand and Great Britain, France and Italy. Miss Creeth mentioned that she hoped soon to have some local views of the Swan, Guildford and other surrounding beauty spots which she much admires.

The article goes on to discuss, “A new branch of art is the modelling and painting which must be seen to be admired. There are also figurines and animals which demand attention.” Suggesting that perhaps she had some painted 'slip-cast wares’, completed elsewhere, on display.

A reviewer of the 1898 exhibition held by the West Australian Society of Arts stated that “Violets by Miss M. E. Creeth was a most natural looking group of violets, just plucked, seemingly, and thrown carelessly on to the panel they adorned. 'Wildflowers’ by the same author, was also very beautiful.”

Creeth was one of a number of award winners at the 'Coolgardie Exhibition’ of 1899, exhibited with the West Australian Society of Arts and with others in Bickfords Furniture Warehouse. By February 1899, advertisements in The West Australian read, “Drawing and Painting. Miss Creeth’s classes meet daily at the studio. West Australian Chambers, St George’s Terrace. Outdoor classes for Sketching. Terms at Wigg & Sons. Commissions for Painting executed.” And the local press recorded:

I was very much struck with the beautifully painted panels of the wild flowers of the colony. Each flower is painted on a separate panel, and thus its beauties of flower and foliage are seen to a much better advantage than if a number of different sorts are grouped together. Over a hundred different specimens which Miss Creeth has collected, and of which she has made paintings so true to nature that it is very easy to imagine that the flower itself is flung carelessly on the canvas. Miss Creeth gives lessons in painting, not only of flowers but of landscapes, of which she has several cleverly executed ones in her studio. She is in her studio every day and all day, except Monday mornings and Saturday afternoons.

Author Peter Cowan tells us she “painted a collection said to number some six hundred varieties of native flowers. She was assisted in naming them by the Government botanist Dr Morrison. In 1900 fourteen of her paintings were shown at the Paris exhibition, and later sent to the Glasgow Exhibition.” Cowan continues, “[t]he native flowers even got onto ceramics, when Miss Creeth imported what was said to be the first studio kiln. The china was popular and distributed widely. Perth did have considerable activity and enthusiasm in the arts in those years, perhaps more widespread than could be found later.” Miss Creeth met Dr Morrison at the Royal Society where she was a councillor at a later date.

In 1902 she imported a kiln to be able to fire china painting and commenced decorating china with images of native flowers. In 1905 Creeth exhibited in the 'Chamber of Manufactures Exhibition’ in Adelaide as did William Howitt. By 1906 she had moved down the Terrace to the Colonial Mutual Chambers advertising that she taught oils, watercolours, china painting, pyrography and photography. Creeth exhibited china painting as well as oil paintings of wildflowers in the West Australian Society of Arts exhibition that year. Known china-painting students include Deborah Hackett, May Walker, Marion Holmes, Eugene Menz and almost certainly Flora Landells. Marion Holmes probably learnt her pyrography skills here too. In 1910 Creeth’s studio is listed as 897 Hay Street, Perth, Western Australia.

About 1910 she was joined by her sister Helen from Sydney. They lived in Subiaco and then West Perth in what is now Parliament Place in 1924. May was a councillor of the Royal Society in 1920-22 and gave one of the speeches at the tribute to Edith Cowan when she lost her seat in Parliament in 1924 – which arena of Cowan’s she had been part of is not known possibly saving Kings Park from the hospital proposal but as they lived close by it could have been more of a friendship. She was a donor to charities such as the Perth Charity Fete in 1899. May rarely exhibited with the West Australian Society of Arts, however she exhibited china painting as well as oil paintings of wildflowers in 1926.

Their students included: Debra Brockman – later Lady Hackett then Dr Buller Murphy, a young lady married to a much older influential citizen who was the owner of the West Australian newspaper and patron of the West Australian Society of Arts, Marion Holmes wife of the Manager of the Western Australian Bank, Flora Le Cornu – Mrs Landells, Eugene M. Menz who came to Western Australia after her marriage and Rose Carey – Mrs Walker a prominent solicitor’s wife of Bunbury, Western Australia. Of these only Flora was a professional artist.

By 1935 the Misses Creeth were semi retired in Outram Street, West Perth and the studio and artists’ supply shop was taken over by Helen Walker from Sydney to become the Haidi Studio. Helen and May moved to Churchhill Avenue, Subiaco, Western Australia where they owned other property. Helen died on 8 April 1940. May died in Subiaco on 22 September 1947 aged eighty-seven. They have been virtually forgotten as neither of the women or their brother married so there has been no one to promote their legacy.

Writers:

Dr Dorothy Erickson

Date written:

2010

Last updated:

2011