Toby Rene Williamson b. 1898

Also known as Gladys Irene Williamson
  • Artist (Painter)
Rene Williamson was typical of many female artists during the inter war years of the twentieth century who hade a career out of painting floral studies. However, her method of execution was much looser and freer than many other practitioners.

Gladys Irene Williamson was born at Mackay, Queensland 1898. Her sister Alma Gainford Williamson (1887-1971) was a potter in Brisbane’s Harvey School. Her father died in 1904 but three years later her mother remarried Captain Herbert Graham Shaw, a nautical surveyor, and the family travelled to Sydney and Cooktown before settling in Brisbane. She attended the commercial art course at the Central Technical College from about 1917 (She was awarded honours for 'Drawing, Stage 11’ in 1918) and later worked for retail firms such as A. B. C. Drapery, Fortitude Valley, and T. C. Bernie’s and Barry & Roberts on Queen Street, Brisbane, illustrating their clothing catalogues. She travelled to Europe in 1927 studying with a Countess Lillie in Florence and visiting galleries in Rome and Paris before returning to Brisbane the following year. Williamson took further lessons with the prominent Brisbane watercolour artist, Vida Lahey. She exhibited with the Royal/Queensland Art Society from 1928 to 1939.

She moved to Sydney in 1936 where she enrolled in classes given by Datillo Rubbo where she shared a studio with former Vida Lahey student, Muriel Shaw. She exhibited her watercolours at the English Speaking Union from 6 September 1936 (or 37) and included three watercolours in an exhibition at the Macquarie Galleries in 1938, which also showed the work of Margaret Preston, Rah Fizelle, Hans Heysen and Lloyd Rees. She sketched behind the scenes when the Russian Ballet performed in Sydney during 1939. Her sketching outdoor scenes around Sydney city was described in several press reports but her floral watercolours, which were much more freely executed than the typical flower paintings of the period, are those which survive. Such works were included in displays at the Watercolour Institute of Australia (Sydney) and in the Australian Academy (Melbourne). Air-force officer and architect Gilbert Noel Hughes helped her design a studio/home 'The Cranes’ on Sailors Bay Road, Mona Vale, which featured in an article in The Australian Home Beautiful in 1941. Williamson married Hughes on 6 December that year but died in November, 1943 after giving birth to her son, Gilbert.

Writers:
Cooke, Glenn R
Date written:
2009
Last updated:
2011