What's in a name?

The Know My Name initiative celebrates women artists — inviting people to see their art, hear their stories, and know their names — but how do we approach this when an artist was known by more than one name?

Such is the case with Ethel Carrick (1872–1952), whose married name was Phillips Fox, and who signed her works Carrick or Carrick Fox. While all are accurate, we've chosen to use her maiden name for the new exhibition at the National Gallery and in our collection — here's why.

Ethel Carrick (1872–1952) was a pioneering artist who forged new ground in the early twentieth century with her bold and vibrant post-impressionist works. Carrick studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. In 1905 she married Australian artist Emanuel Phillips Fox after meeting at the plein air artists’ colony in St Ives, Cornwall. They settled in Paris and spent time together in Australia, sharing a life of painting expeditions through France, Italy and North Africa until his death in Melbourne in 1915, after which she continued to travel widely. When questioned regarding the impact of marriage on her artmaking, Carrick was adamant in her response:

'My marriage has never made any difference to my work, and instead of losing my individuality I have developed it … I think one reason why we work so well together is that we always put our art before everything else. That comes first, anything else, after.'¹

As a large number of catalogues from her solo shows and reports of the day in the press reveal, she mostly chose to exhibit under Ethel Carrick from the time of her early career following her marriage. This was a bold statement at the time.

On Carrick’s initial visit to Australia with her husband, Emanuel Phillips Fox, it was noted in The Age on 4 August 1908 that ‘Mrs Fox exhibits under the name of Miss Ethel Carrick… and includes in this exhibition works which have been shown lately at the Royal Academy, Salon and other European exhibitions’.²

Another example is in The Lone Hand, 1 November 1913, which states: ‘Under her maiden name as Ethel Carrick, the subject of the sketch has exhibited every year at the Autumn Salon (Paris), and had the unique distinction of having been chosen last year to sit on the jury of that august body.’

This reflected a pattern across Ethel Carrick’s solo exhibitions in her lifetime, including in France in 1928 with her Exposition Ethel Carrick, Galerie de la Palette Française, Paris, 5–19 June, through to one of her last exhibitions in 1949 including Exhibition of Pictures by Ethel Carrick (Mrs E Philips Fox), John Martin’s Art Gallery, Tarndanya/Adelaide, 4 – 18 October.

To honour the artist’s decision to primarily exhibit under her maiden name, Ethel Carrick was chosen as the title of the show, and is reflected across the national collection.

Ethel Carrick is on display at the National Gallery from 7 Dec 2024 – 27 Apr 2025.