Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/vera-lindsay-whitesides

Birth Place

Oatlands, TAS, Australia

Biography

painter, photographer, wood-carver, silversmith, craftworker and designer, was born in Oatlands, Tasmania, where her father, Edward Joshua Cooper Whitesides was a bank manager. Her mother, Sara Jane Field, was a sister of the wood-carver Ellen Nora Payne . Vera was one of three children and inherited a family trait which resulted in her becoming deaf at the age of seven; so she was educated at home by governesses, one of whom, a Miss Glover, may have been the first to interest her in art. In 1896 the family moved permanently to Hobart. Whitesides studied art at Hobart Technical School in 1906-09 under Benjamin Shepherd and Lucien Dechaineux, and metalwork with the Hobart architect and silversmith Alan Walker, who had trained in England. Both Dechaineux and Walker were proponents of an Arts and Crafts philosophy and were prominent in forming the Arts and Crafts Society of Tasmania in 1903. Vera’s brother Charles was in the family cabinet-making business and this connection, together with the influence of her aunt, may have interested her in woodcarving. She first came to public attention in 1901, however, when she won a competition to design an advertisement for a local department store from over a hundred entrants. Vera Whitesides was a very versatile artist who was proficient in a wide range of art and craft media, although best known in her own time as a successful miniaturist and portrait painter. She executed at least thirty-five miniatures, many of them commissions, including those for two State Governors, Sir Francis Newdegate and Sir William Allardyce. Her larger paintings were mainly portraits and flower subjects, which she exhibited regularly with the Tasmanian Art Society from 1910 to 1930, usually carrying off first prize in the portrait section. Her miniatures were painted in an upstairs room from which all visitors were barred except her fox terrier; larger paintings were executed in her downstairs studio. Her craft work was very varied, comprising woodcarving, china painting, raffia and leatherwork and metal work. Her earliest known woodcarvings were the panels shown at the Arts and Crafts Society’s inaugural exhibition in 1903. Later she executed large carved chests somewhat in the manner of her aunt. She exhibited a range of craftwork with the Arts and Craft Society for over twenty years, winning numerous prizes. In 1907 she contributed to the Women’s Work Exhibition in four disparate classes: woodcarving, photography, china painting and oil painting. Her china painting and leather and raffia work are beautifully executed and designed if somewhat conventional in style and manner; her metalwork, which was influenced by the principles imbibed from her teacher Alan Walker, shows her talent at its most original. She apparently produced photographs commercially from her darkroom in the family home, 'Birralee’ at Sandy Bay; Chris Long notes that 'Vera’ appears as a mark on photographs of the Pedder family. Vera Whitesides was a woman of charm and character whose main recreation was golf and who courageously refused to be limited by her disability. She began to lose her sight in the late 1930s and died in Hobart in 1941. Writers: Miley, Caroline Note: Heritage biography. stokel Date written: 1995 Last updated: 1992

Born

b. 1886

Summary

Described as a women of charm, Vera was a versatile artist proficient in a wide range of art and craft media. Best known in her own time as a successful miniaturist and portrait painter. Her family ran a cabinet-making firm and she was also active in furniture design and making.

Gender

Female

Died

1941

Age at death

55