Painter, was born in Nottingham, England, eldest of the six children of Rev James Greenwood, the Nottingham Baptist minister, and Mary, née Ward. Her father developed lung problems and was advised to move to a warmer climate so accepted the ministry at the Baptist Church, Bathurst Street, Sydney, in 1870. A Freethinker and a strong advocate of free, universal education, he later worked for the Public Schools’ League and was MLA for East Sydney in the NSW Parliament where he was chief instigator of the radical 1880 NSW Education Act; he was also a strong advocate of equal opportunity for women. Sadly, he died in 1882, aged 44, when Lou was 16 and the youngest of her three surviving siblings only 2. Her mother took in boarders. Lou and her sister Pollie established a school for young ladies in 1886 by converting the family dining room into a classroom where music, drawing and painting were taught along with the standard curriculum. Lou was an accomplished pianist and Pollie an excellent mezzo-soprano; their brother Walter became a violinist with the Philharmonic Society’s Orchestra. In 1895 Lou married the businessman William Baily Green and the school was sold.
As a girl, Lou had visited the annual exhibitions of the Art Society of NSW (later RAS) and in about 1893 began to paint in oils and watercolours by copying paintings at the AGNSW in Saturday morning classes with her friend Daisy Bozon. 'For much of her life Lou’s copy of Desolation hung in the rooms of the Sydney Feminist Club’ (Power, p.28). She worked at her painting each morning before school and whenever else she could. Later she began sketching from nature and sometimes went on sketching expeditions during the holidays. She eventually joined an art class conducted by a regular Art Society exhibitor, one Mr Thomas ( Edmond Thomas? ), in the old School of Arts building in Pitt Street. Then she attended Art Society classes held by Julian Ashton – 'And there I found out how little I knew about art and life’. Later she studied with A.H. Fullwood where she is said to have became friendly with Madge Derby and Bernice Edwell . Edwell not only painted Lou, but did 'charming miniatures’ of her daughter Alison Rehfisch as a young girl and Alison’s younger sister Betty (1905-6) done from a photograph and memory after Betty died, aged 20 months – an event that doubtless increased Lou and Alison’s commitment to Theosophy.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2011
