Many of Australia’s most important and innovative women artists were born and/or grew up in the Bayside suburbs of Melbourne. Foremost in this group were - Jessie Traill, Janet Cumbrae Stewart, Norah Gurdon, Clarice Beckett, Jean P. Sutherland, Jessie Evans and Margaret Baskerville.
Jessie Traill, Janet Cumbrae Stewart and Norah Gurdon’s lives were linked. They were all born into wealthy families in the early 1880s and lived near each other – Jessie at Westra in South Road, Janet at Montrose in Were Street and Norah at Elmhurst in Church Street, Brighton. They attended the National Gallery of Victoria Art School and studied under the same teachers – Bernard Hall, John Mather and Frederick McCubbin, who lived for a time in nearby New Street. They were active members of the same clubs and organizations, and Jessie and Janet worked together on mural panels for the children’s ward of the Homeopathic Hospital, later Prince Henry’s. All remained unmarried and travelled extensively overseas. During the First World War, Norah and Jessie served as nurses in France, Jessie for three and a half years. Her portrait in a nurse’s uniform, painted by Janet Cumbrae Stewart, is in the NGV Australia. Norah Gurdon, who was a technically accomplished artist, acted as a bridge to the Australian modernists of the post-war era.
While Melbourne-based, Norah Gurdon’s extensive work in Europe engendered an international outlook and in this respect she emulates artists such as Ethel Carrick Fox.
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