Thea proctor prints
- •
painter, printmaker, designer and teacher, was born on 2 October 1879 at Armidale, NSW, elder child of William Consett Proctor, a solicitor, and Kathleen Janet Louisa, née Roberts. Her parents separated in 1892 and divorced in 1897. Thea, her mother and brother lived with her maternal grandparents at Bowral. From 1896 she attended Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School. Fellow students included Sydney Long , to whom she became briefly engaged in 1898. Romantic medieval paintings were shown with the Society of Artists and she made poster designs, bookplates and illustrations for the Australian Magazine (1899). In 1903 she went to London, studied briefly at St John’s Wood School then privately with George Lambert . Proctor’s friendship with George and Amy Lambert was lifelong and intimate. She believed he was Australia’s greatest contemporary artist and would have thought it a compliment when Lambert (not known for his modesty) called her 'the second finest draughtsman in Australia’.
Charles Conder inspired her to focus on fan painting in London. Ot
- •
ALTHEA MARY (THEA) PROCTOR (1879-1966)
Thea Proctor was born in 1879 to a well established family in Armidale, New South Wales. In 1894 she attended Lynthorpe Ladies' College where she won her first prize at the Bowral Amateur Art Society's exhibition.
Encouraged by her apparent skill and the influence of her grandparents, Proctor enrolled in Julian Ashton's Art School in 1896 where fellow pupils included Elioth Gruner, George Lambert and Sydney Long. In 1903 Thea Proctor travelled to London where she studied at St John's Wood Art School with her what was to become lifelong friend, Lambert. The London art scene allowed Proctor to associate with other Australian expatriates including Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts and Charles Conder. Conder's fan-designs would prove to be a strong influence on Proctor's art making as well as Japanese prints, Ingres drawings and the Ballet Russe. When Proctor exhibited her own watercolour on silk fans at the Royal Academy of Arts she received a warm reception from the arts establishment and critics.
In 1912 Thea Proctor returned to Australia t
- •
Thea Proctor
Thea Proctor (1879–1966), artist and stylesetter, trained at the Julian Ashton School before leaving Australia for London in 1903. She was to remain there, apart from a visit home in 1912–1914, until after World War One. In her early years in London, she was a friend and model for her fellow Ashton School student, George Lambert, and encountered many of the major figures of the Edwardian art world. When she returned permanently to Sydney in 1921, her art and ideas were at the forefront of contemporary art and design in Australia; her authoritative opinions on decoration, colour, interior design, flower arrangement, ballet and fashion were widely published in new journals such as The Home (for which she designed many covers) and Art in Australia. An exhibitor in the watershed Burdekin House exhibition in 1929, she was a mentor and champion for young interior designers including Marion Hall Best. Although she maintained a large and varied circle of friends (and adversaries), she was a lifelong singleton, living very frugally in rented accommodation, making a slender li
Copyright ©soybeck.pages.dev 2025