Dora Serle

Dora Beatrice Serle (1875–1968), was an Australian painter. She was the president of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors from 1933 to 1934.

Biography Serle was born on 2 September 1875 in Melbourne, Australia.

She studied at the National Gallery school where she was taught by Phillips Fox, Jane Sutherland, and Walter Withers. She attended the Gallery School with her sister Elsie Barlow.

In 1902 Serle travelled to Paris, France, where she was exposed to the Impressionists, which influenced her subsequent work.

Hacke Place in the Canberra suburb of Conder is named in her honour and that of her younger sister Elsie Barlow, a founder of Castlemaine Art Museum, the misspelling of their maiden name being gazetted in 1988.

Exhibitions Dora exhibited with the Victorian Artists Society, but faced the prevalent prejudice against those of her gender; of her contribution to its October 1950 Spring exhibition, critic Alan Warren offered a passing mention: "Women painters, such as Violet Mclnnes, Dora Serle, Marjorie Woolcock, Dorothy Stephen, Roma Ward, Lesley Sinclair and Mary Macqueen have produced some competent pictures in their respective spheres." 1943, from 1 December; Inclusion in a group show of ninety-one paintings and etchings with Arnold Shore, Max Meldrum, John Rowell, Jas. Quinn, John Farmer, Mary Hurry, Allan Jordan, Margaret Pestell, Dora Wilson, Isabel Tweddle, Aileen Dent, Murray Griffin, Geo. Colville, and Victor Cog. Hawthorn Library.

Legacy Serle's paintings are in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria.