Amalie Colquhoun

Two artists, one preparing a painting and another cooking in an art studio, surrounded by framed portraits.

unknown photographer, Archibald and Amalie Colquhoun (detail) c 1945, unknown collection.

Born
1894
Died
1974
Portrait painting of a woman wearing a dark hat, glasses, and a dark ornate collar, set against a muted olive green background.

Amalie Colquhoun, Mrs E. Phillips Fox c 1942, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Victoria, Naarm/Melbourne © the estate of the artist.

Amalie Colquhoun (née Field) (1894–1974) worked across a range of artistic media including painting, pottery and stained glass. Among the key aspects of her training were the classes she took for around a year with Max Meldrum before he left for Europe in 1926, informed by his tonalist approach to painting, and set out in his theory of perception, The Scientific Order of Impressions. After Meldrum, she took lessons with her future husband A.D. Colquhoun at his art school in Collins Street in Naarm/Melbourne. The couple married in 1931, and Amalie became a teacher herself, noting in 1933:

‘I am convinced that everyone must benefit from the study of art. All adults should take some course, even if they do not start until they are 40 … Every teacher… should be a student, or the habit of experiment will be lost. It is only by experiment that art can keep on developing.’ 1

Along with landscapes and seascapes, Colquhoun was also renowned for her portraits of women and children, which demonstrate keen observation, directness and fluency. She painted several portraits of women artists, including Ida Rentoul Outhwaite and Ellen Christine Rubbo. Despite the twenty-two-year age gap, she developed a close friendship with Ethel Carrick during the 1940s when Carrick stayed at the Colquhouns’ studio in the Salisbury Buildings in Naarm/Melbourne. Colquhoun’s portrait of Ethel Carrick, titled Mrs E. Phillips Fox, was included in the Archibald Prize in 1945, and following its inclusion in the Colquhoun’s joint exhibition at the Athenaeum Gallery, it was acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria in 1949. The Australian artist and art critic Harold Herbert described Amalie Colquhoun as ‘one of the most brilliant students who ever passed through the school’ and ‘in the ranks of our best portrait painters’. 2

For more on Amalie Colquhoun, view Into the Light: Recovering Australia’s lost women artists 1870–1960 (PDF).

Rebecca Blake, Curatorial Assistant, Australian Art
Deborah Hart, Head Curator, Australian Art