Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/florence-claxton

Birth Place

Florence, Italy

Biography

painter, illustrator, engraver and feminist, a daughter of the English painter, Marshall Claxton , and his wife Sophia, née Hargrave, was apparently born during her parents’ residence in Italy and named after her place of birth. Her younger sister Adelaide was christened in London in 1841, while her four-month-old brother Richard died in May 1852 in Sydney where the Claxtons had arrived in the Waterloo on 16 November 1850. Marshall Claxton had brought a large collection of his paintings with him and set up a studio in Sydney College, but disillusioned with the prospects for art in Australia departed for Calcutta on 22 September 1854. The family settled in India then travelled via Egypt and the Holy Land back to England in 1859. Florence’s sketches of Ceylon and India were later published, and she may have worked professionally in India. Although always painting in oil and watercolour and aiming to be a 'Fine Artist’, Florence was forced by economic circumstances to embark upon a career as an illustrator. She provided drawings and engravings for books, newspapers and journals including London Society and Churchman’s Family Magazine . In 1876 Ellen Clayton claimed: “Florence had done what no female artist in all the world had attempted before – made a drawing on wood for a weekly illustrated paper. There were ladies who engraved, though not for newspapers, which involves a very unpleasant amount of hurry, bother, downright drudgery, and “night work.” The names of Isabel Thompson and Miss Kelly were familiar to wood-draughtsmen, but as yet no woman had thought of trying to solve the mysteries of preparing and executing a wood-block. Florence Claxton’s first essay was a full-page “cut” in the Illustrated Times , entitled “Miserable Sinners,” 1859: fashionably dressed ladies and a crowd of conceited young collegians emerging from church. She continued to illustrated books and magazines. Some of her cleverest sketches were contributed to London Society , when under the genial editorship of Mr. James Hogg. One story-book for young girls, by the present author, was charmingly illustrated by her facile pencil. She also made water-colour drawings, very bright and attractive, chiefly large-sized heads of beautiful girls” (Clayton, pp.45-46). In 1860 Florence exhibited a satire on Pre-Raphaelitism, The Choice of Paris: An Idyll , which was engraved for the Illustrated London News [Victoria & Albert Museum copy reproduced Marsh and Nunn]. At times she worked in tandem with her sister Adelaide (who was first published in London Society in 1862 and later became a leading artist on Judy ), e.g. The Hours a.m. and p.m. in London , an important series published in the Illustrated Times in 1864 with 'two subjects on each page, showing scenes in the kaleidoscopic life of the ever restless metropolis (Clayton, 329). Their styles were similar and both had a satiric eye for the foibles of contemporary society, although Adelaide tended to be more acerbic. Both at times combine naturalistic and caricatured types in the same work or play off a straightforward documentary illustration with a pendant that is wholly or partially satirical. Frequently the protagonist is a woman. In 1858 Florence exhibited Scenes from the Life of a Female Artist with the Society of Women Artists in London; the following year she showed Scenes in the Life of an Old Maid . Her oil painting Woman’s Work, a Medley [painting sold Sotheby’s 1980s?] was exhibited at the Institute of Fine Arts in 1861. She exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1859 and 1867 and at Suffolk Street, with the Society of Watercolour Artists and elsewhere in 1860-76. After her marriage to Dr Farrington in 1868, she largely abandoned professional work and mainly exhibited with the Society of Women Artists. In 1871 she published The Adventures of a Woman in Search of Her Rights , illustrated with about 100 of her own drawings [one ill. Juliet Peers]. A sketchbook in the Mitchell Library [V*CART 37 A-B] contains undated pencil studies for Wanted a Governess , one of three pairs of engravings she did in the series England versus Australia for the London Illustrated Times in 1863. All play on the theme of antipodean inversion, a common literary and artistic trope in both the colonies and Britain. The first, Daughters Here , published 25 April, showed five sisters in attitudes of languor in an English drawing room, while its pendant, Sons There , depicted six equally middle-class men assiduously apply themselves to domestic tasks in a rude bush hut. The governess pair entitled in the sketchbook “Wanted, a Governess” in England and “Wanted, a Governess” in Australia (14 × 19.6 cm and 14 × 18.8 cm, signed l.r. 'F. Claxton’) were engraved, with some compositional alterations, for publication in the Illustrated Times on 6 June 1863 as Governesses Here and Want of Governesses There . The first shows the rooms of a fashionable upper middle-class home in London filled to overflowing with applicants for the position. The second may have been partly a wry response to a letter by Maria Rye to the London Times published on 5 September 1862. Rye, founder of the Female Middle Class Emigration Society, which financed educated emigrants to the colonies, cited the Melbourne Herald’s request that she 'favour’ the colony by sending candidates of the type of 'well-educated, handy, thoroughly useful young lady, who would aid the overworked housewife in her multifarious labours, who would keep the young ones in the nursery in order, teach the four-year-old the rudiments of learning, be an intelligent companion for an elder daughter’. Claxton’s 'overworked housewife’ tests her daughter’s spelling ability against a basic primer while nursing the youngest of her vast brood of children; the 'four-year-old’ squabbles and the 'elder daughter’ runs wild outside. “A.M.”'s text, which accompanied Claxton’s engravings, mentioned Rye’s promotion of emigration. Despite the mother’s bitter words ('Distressed Governesses indeed-oh don’t tell me. I’d find plenty for 'em to do’), the artist’s sympathy is with the overwhelmed Australian wife and the family are tolerantly depicted. It is unclear to what extent the latter scene reflects Florence’s own colonial experience as she was only about twelve when she came to Australia with her parents, sister and female servant, but she certainly always held a favourable view of the advantages of emigration for Englishwomen in later years. As well as A.M.'s text drawing attention to the colonies as a escape from the prospect of being exploited for £12 a year, Claxton’s Woman’s Work, A Medley (1861) includes three governesses vying for the attention of a single male child, blind to the allegorical figure of Emigration who stands behind them affecting a breach 'in the ancient wall of Custom and Prejudice’. The four ages of man are represented as 'equally the objects of devotion from surrounding females’, Claxton noted in the catalogue. Nevertheless, although 'Law’, 'Theology’ and 'Medicine’ continue to bar their doors and laugh at the impotence of women’s attempts to gain access, in 'Art’ Rosa Bonheur 'has attained the top of the wall (upon which the rank weeds of Misrepresentation and Ridicule flourish) and others are following. The blossom of the “forbidden fruit” appears in the distance.’ Migration to the colonies represented another escape route from male domination. The final pair in the Illustrated Times series, Needlewomen Here and A Modiste There , published 13 June 1862, compares exhausted English sempstresses working late at night with a colonial milliner finishing a hat while dismayed clients read a notice stating 'No Further Orders Can Be Taken As Miss Snips Is Engaged On Her Own Trousseau’. In contrast to the serious social documentary approach of the first works, the smug Miss Snips and several of her entourage are caricatures. The first pair of Claxton’s engravings appeared in the Illustrated Times with no text, but commentaries by 'A.M.’ and an anonymous writer – both evidently male – accompanied the Governess and Needlewomen pairs. A.M’s text proceeded from a digression on the charms of young Englishwomen to predict that any governess employed would soon marry the bearded Australian son. Worse, the other author suggested that it was 'infinitely better for a girl … to become the wife of some honest Englishman who has to toil for his bread, but counts the labour no great hardship, after all, as long as the brave wife by his side cheers his progress’ than to sustain 'a good income in Melbourne as a fashionable modiste’. Neither had any affinity with Claxton’s view of emigration as a possible means of woman attaining financial independence. In 1868 Florence Claxton married Mr. Farrington of Romsey, England, and withdrew from the profession. Clayton noted in 1876 that she 'now makes no claim to be considered to belonging to the artistic world, though occasionally exhibiting.’ “Miss Florence Claxton’s water-colour drawings have been chiefly exhibited at the Dudley and the British Artists, occasionally at the Academy. The principal works have been:- “Games” (pen and ink sketches), 1865. “Broken Off;” “The Beatitudes,” done in conjunction with her sister, 1866. “The Ritualist;” “A Wayfaring Man,” 1867. “Symbolism,” 1869. “Lady Godiva;” “L’Institutrice,” 1870. Four companion drawings called, “Rank”, “Wealth,” “Beauty,” “Talent,” 1873” (Clayton, 45-46). Writers: Lennon, Jane Note: primary biographer (Heritage)Staff Writer Note: Additional information about black and white work Date written: 1995 Last updated: 1992

Born

b. c.1838

Summary

19th century English painter, illustrator, engraver and feminist. Lived briefly Sydney in the 1850s and occasionally used Australian themes in her English newspaper illustrations. She had a satiric eye for the foibles of contemporary society.

Gender

Female

Died

None listed

Age at death

None listed