Sydney Strickland Tully

Sydney Strickland Tully (March 10, 1860 – July 18, 1911) was a Canadian painter. She is known for her pastel and oil portraits, landscapes and genre pictures, and for her success in a number of exhibitions. Tully's sister, Louise Beresford Tully, was also a Toronto-based artist who operated a Yonge Street Arcade-based teaching studio. Tully's early studies took place at the Central Ontario School of Art (later OCAD University), Toronto, with Charlotte Schreiber In 1884, she went to London to continue her education at the Slade School of Art, where she studied with Alphonse Legros. Further studies took place in Paris at the Académie Julian (with Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Tony Robert-Fleury) and the Académie Colarossi (with Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois). Later studies took place at the Long Island Art School with William Merritt Chase. Sydney Strickland Tully died on July 18, 1911, in Toronto, of pernicious anemia.

Career Tully began her career colouring photographs and designing Christmas cards, and she worked with a variety of mediums including oil and pastel. She later became well known for her landscapes, genre-scenes and portraits. Tully kept a studio in Toronto (from 1888 to 1890), where she taught regular classes, and participated steadily in the artistic life of the city. She also travelled internationally to paint and to participate in exhibitions, including sojourns in London (1895), the Netherlands (1906–1908) and the Jersey Channel Islands (1906–1908). National Gallery of Canada, Museum London, and Government of Ontario.

Works The Twilight of Life, 1894 Flower Market, Paris, 1907 Knalhaven, Dordrecht, 1907 Washing Day, c.1910

Major exhibitions Tully exhibited regularly with the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. She participated in numerous other exhibitions, including the Art Association of Montreal (precursor to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), 1892–1909; the Toronto Industrial Exhibition (precursor to the Canadian National Exhibition, 1890–1910; the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago; the Salon (Paris), 1888; and the Royal Academy of Arts, 1896–1897. A Memorial Exhibition of Tully's Paintings and Drawings was held in the Art Metropole Galleries in Toronto in 1911. She was elected a member of the Ontario Society of Artists in 1889, and became an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts the same year.

Legacy Tully bequeathed her award-winning painting, The Twilight of Life, to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). It became the first painting by a Canadian artist acquired by the gallery (1911). A second work, Evening on the Vaal, was acquired by the AGO by subscription in 1912. The AGO owns a third work, of a young woman painter working from a dressed female model.