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Quaife was a Painter who was a student of Alfred R. Coffey in Sydney (1903), and later attended the Sydney Art School under Julian Ashton and Sydney Long (c1908-10) where she was in the same student cohort as Nelle Rodd, Elioth Gruner, Isabel McWhannell, Ruby Winckler, Cecil Humprey Percival, and others.
The sixth of eight children of Dr Frederic Harrison Quaife and Esther nee Davy. Quaife attended Riviere College Woollahra (1898). Her sister Winifred Ethelwyn Quaife married Charles Lloyd Jones in 1900.
In April 1907 Quaife travelled to Europe with two of her other sisters Aldyth Ettie and Alma Hester Quaife, and brother, Walter Quaife, but left her pictures behind for August Society of Artists exhibition. Her painting appeared on the cover of The Lone hand. Vol. 1 No. 6 (1 October 1907). At the October 1908 exhibition of the Society of Artists, “Miss Viola Quaife is showing nine splendid little water colours, mostly of the eastern type” including ‘Arab Market’ (Watercolour & pencil), ‘Arabs’ No.164, ‘Neapolitan Orange Seller’ & ‘Egyptian Pot Sellers’, all influenced by her travels. V. A. Quaife’s artwork appeared in The Lone hand. Vol. 3 No. 18 (1 October 1908) accompanying Hugh McCrae’s ‘Song of the Witless Boy’.
On May 6, 1909, she married Sydney George Ure Smith. They had no children and the marriage ended c1920 when Syd took a new partner.
The special edition of Art in Australia titled 'Society of Artists Pictures’, 1920, feature two of Quaife’s Paintings:
colour plate, 'The Coral Necklace’ 1918 and black and white plate 'The Striped Petticoat’. https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/digital/GA7OQbmWWPovo
Sydney art patron Howard Hinton, championed Viola’s work and three of Viola Quaife’s paintings are part of the Howard Hinton Collection at the New England Regional Art Museum in Armidale NSW – ‘The Brown Coat’, 1919, ‘Interior’ 1933 and ‘Maid of Islington’, no date but possibly c1908.
He sent two of her 1918 paintings to his brother Les Hinton in Johannesburg in 1922, watercolors. ‘The Chinese Coat’ and ‘The Blue Pen’ purchased at the October 1918 Society of Artists Spring Exhibition.
Quaife exhibited with the Society of Artists, (19-19), Water Colour Institute, and the Women’s Exhibition in Sydney in 1934.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
artwomen
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2024
