Name Gwen Barringer | ||
Gwen Barringer (29 July 1882 – 26 August 1960) was a South Australian artist, known for her watercolours.
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Gwen was born Gwendoline L'Avance Adamson, a daughter of Adam and Kate E. Adamson (1861 – 27 December 1941) in the inner Adelaide suburb of Harrowville, Adelaide. Her grandfather was a brother of James Hazel Adamson, a prominent artist of early South Australia. She studied at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts under H. P. Gill, Archibald Collins and Hans Heysen. She was a council member of the South Australian Society of Arts for over 30 years, and was also well known as a teacher.
She was noted for watercolours of flowers and landscapes, to which she invested a fairyland-like glamour and remained immune to trends and changing fashions. In 1928 following an extensive sketching tour of Europe she held a solo exhibition in Adelaide which achieved a near record sale (over £1000) for an Australian woman. She died in Adelaide on 26 August 1960 after a long illness. She is represented in the State galleries of South Australia and Victoria, and the National Gallery, Canberra.
Selected works
Family
Gwen married Herbert Barringer (also a watercolourist) on 18 November 1810. In 1930, she sought unsuccessfully to divorce him on grounds of cruelty. Herbert's sister Ethel Barringer was an artist of some note.