Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/rebecca-martens

Birth Place

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Biography

painter and sketcher, was born in Sydney, elder daughter of the painter Conrad Martens and Jane, née Carter. Taught by her father, her work is a pallid reflection of his. Few of the drawings in the three albums attributed to her (DL) are signed or dated, but most appear to be youthful works or undeveloped sketches. Several can be attributed on stylistic grounds either partially or completely to her father and some are exact copies of his originals. She exhibited sporadically with the NSW Academy of Art in the 1870s ( Bowenfels , for sale at 4 guineas, was shown in 1877) and with the Art Society of NSW in the 1880s ( View at the North Shore in 1883) and enjoyed mildly favourable reviews. She showed two watercolours, Sawpit Gully, near Rydal and View on the Parramatta River at the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879. Mostly she painted Sydney seascapes or landscapes in watercolour, occasionally in oils, but she also did plant studies, sketches of the family home, Rockleigh Grange at St Leonards, and other Sydney houses, views in the Bathurst and Lithgow areas and copies of Conrad Martens’s Beagle drawings. She also made copies of works by other artists, presenting her oil copy of a head of a girl after Greuze to the National Gallery of New South Wales (now AGNSW) in 1904. Active between 1851 and about 1890, she died on 9 July 1909 at Rockleigh Grange. Writers: Jones, Shar Date written: 1992 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. 1838

Summary

Sydney-born female artist who used watercolour, pencil and ink to depict a variety of subjects in her work from landscapes, houses, plant studies and even copies of her father's drawings.

Gender

Female

Died

9-Jul-09

Age at death

71