painter and miniaturist, was born at Walhalla, one of the eight children of Arthur and Mary Walker. Her father, Chief Government Mining Engineer for Victoria, was based at Walhalla and Bendigo. Walker studied art under Arthur T. Woodward at the Bendigo School of Mines before undertaking further studies in Melbourne under the tonal realist painter, Max Meldrum (c.1918).
From 1903 Rose exhibited with the Victorian Artists’ Society; in 1914 she showed two watercolours, Primroses and A Sunset (each for sale at a guinea), with the Queensland Art Society in Brisbane. After her Melbourne studies, she exhibited with the Meldrum School for the next few years. In 1919 she was a foundation member of 'Twenty Melbourne Painters’ and exhibited with it until 1940. [Her painting of a bowl of roses, Sweet Eighteen 1929, was offered at Sotheby’s Melbourne on 28 November 2000, lot 166 (ill.).]
Walker worked as an art teacher at private and public schools, including the Melbourne University High School. She was also a member of the Victorian Artists’ Society and the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors. During the 1920s she exhibited regularly at the Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne; reviewers praised her delicate sense of colour and her knowledge of values. After her marriage, she exhibited as Mrs George Hartrick.
- Writers:
- Perry, Peter
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
