Design and Art Australia Online

painter and political activist, was born in Bathurst (NSW), daughter of Edward Henry Mutton. Emily studied art at Julian Ashton 's Sydney Art School with Thea Proctor ; her watercolour Flower piece was included in the School’s 1933 Retrospective Exhibition. She married Alfred Paul in 1886; their son was the cartoonist Mick Paul , who drew his mother’s portrait for the Bulletin c.1912

Emily Paul exhibited with the Art Society of NSW (later Royal Art Society of NSW) in 1892-94, showing decorative panels in 1892. From the inaugural exhibition in 1895 onwards, she showed regularly with the NSW Society of Artists. Her Roses and other 'excellent flower paintings’ in oil in the 1896 exhibition were mentioned alongside a Sketch 'abounding in sunny color’. Two of her paintings were included in the Society of Artists’ contribution to the 1898 Grafton Gallery 'Exhibition of Australian Art in London’ (cats 195, 196). She had work in the Commonwealth Exhibition organised by the Society of Artists in 1901, for which she was also a committee member. In 1902-3 Emily Paul travelled to Europe and studied art in London, at the Académie Julien in Paris and in the US. Her impressions of London, sent back to the Sydney Morning Herald , were published on 11 October 1904.

Influenced by US Socialists, she later abandoned art and became a leading public speaker for the Socialist Party. In 1914 she contested the Federal seat of Cook as a socialist, predictably unsuccessfully. She died in Sydney on 26 January 1917.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007