Mildred Lovett

Mildred Esther Lovett (13 September 1880 – 23 March 1955) was a figure in the early 20th century Tasmanian and Australian art scene, known as a teacher and as an artist.

Artistic career Lovett studied at Mrs H. Barnard's Ladies School, Hobart, Tasmania from 1887 to 1893, where her art teacher was William Henry Charpentier. After that she five years at Hobart Technical College studying painting, modelling, life drawing and china painting under Ethel Nicholls and Benjamin Sheppard.

In 1901, Lovett moved to Sydney to study under Julian Ashton at Sydney Art School, where she became his assistant teacher. In 1904 she returned to Hobart and began teaching in the Art Department of the Technical College, where she gained a full-time post with a salary of £50 a year, By 1925 she had been appointed an art instructor there. Many of her students became noted artists, including Edith Holmes and Dorothy Stoner. Work of hers appears also in the National Gallery of Australia and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

Personal life Born in Hobart, Tasmania on 13 September 1880, Lovett lived primarily in Tasmania and Sydney. She was the eldest of four children (two girls and two boys) of Edward Frederick Lovett, and Alice Edith, née Gibson. They were a middle-class family, with her father working as a railway clerk.

At the age of 33 (in 1913), Lovett married Stanley Livingstone Paterson and became the family's major breadwinner for the 40 years of their marriage, supplementing her teaching wage with the sale of her work. Lovett and Stanley had no children. She retired from the Hobart Technical College in 1940 and returned to Sydney with Stanley, where they lived until his death in 1952.

Lovett died in Hobart in 1955 at the age of 75.