Violet Teague

Violet Helen Evangeline Teague (21 February 1872 – 30 September 1951) was an Australian artist, noted for her painting, printmaking and her critical writings on art.

Early life and training The only daughter of Melbourne homeopath James Teague and his wife Eliza Jane Miller, Teague was born on 21 February 1872 in Melbourne. Her mother died while she was an infant, and she was raised by her father and his second wife, Sybella, along with Sybella's two children. Teague was taught by a governess at home, and her education included French and the classics. She completed college at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne.

Violet travelled to Europe to study painting, from 1893-96 with French artist Ernest Blanc-Garin in his Brussels studio then 1896-97 at Hubert von Herkomer's school, Bushey, Hertfordshire. Returning to Melbourne she enrolled at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School 1897-1900, while also studying with E. Phillips Fox and Tudor St George Tucker at their Melbourne School of Art which ran 1893-99, and which taught in the manner of French Impressionist schools which the two teachers attended, and with more liberal methods than the academy-style instruction of the National Gallery of Victoria art schools. A summer school was offered at Charterisville that Fox and Tucker had established in the old mansion above the Yarra River in East Ivanhoe, the lease of which they had taken over from Walter Withers in 1893. It was Australia's first recognised summer school of art. The women, including Ina Gregory, Mary Meyer, Bertha Merfield, Henrietta Irving, Ursula Foster and Helen Peters were accommodated in rooms of the stone house and a chaperon and housekeeper looked after them and Violet may have been their tutor.

Teague travelled with her family in Europe as a young woman. She toured widely, and visited galleries in Germany, France, Belgium the Netherlands and England. In 1901, she recalled visiting Spanish galleries during her childhood, and commented "never shall I forget the Velazquez, with their beautiful horses and exquisite colouring, or the lovely Raphaels".

Career

Teague exhibited regularly at the Paris Salons, and her portrait of a Colonel Rede in 1897 at the Société des Artistes Français brought her accolades.

In 1902 she was appointed to the council of the Victorian Artists Society which published her poem 'A Cloud Fantasy in its journal. The 32-page Haiku-style text tells the story of the simple life of bushland rabbits with 16 coloured woodblock illustrations.

One of the most unusual aspects of Teague's oeuvre, one that lacks almost any precedents in Australian art, was the creation of altar paintings and banners for Protestant churches. The first was a 1910 commission (now in the Hamilton art gallery) for a church in Wannon, Victoria, where her brother worshipped. The frame for the work was designed by her friend, artist Jessie Traill.

In 1933 Teague, her sister Una and their friend Jessie Traill, travelled across the outback by car to visit the Hermannsburg Mission. Teague befriended famed Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira, who named one of his children after her The pipeline was laid in 1935 from Kaporilja Springs to the Mission. on the 'Latest Felton Bequest Purchases' in The quarterly journal: members newsletter of the Victorian Artists Society of 1 July 1911, and 'Some Thoughts on Art' in The Advance Australia. by colonialism, thus defying the eugenicist justification that they were an innately inferior 'dying race'.

14 July 1905 – 19 August 1905, Winter Exhibition, Victorian Artists' Society Galleries 10 November 1905 – 2 December 1905, Eight Federal Art Exhibition, Society of Artists' Royal South Australian Society of Arts Gallery 1906, Annual Exhibition, Victorian Artists' Society Galleries 23 October 1907 – 30 November 1907, First Australian Exhibition of Women's Work, Multiple venues 1908, Exhibition, Bradley's Rooms 2 December 1908 – 12 December 1908, Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria exhibition, Guild Hall 1909, Winter Exhibition, Victorian Artists' Society Galleries 1911, Annual Exhibition, Victorian Artists' Society Galleries 1911, The Boy with the palette, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 12 July 1912 – 10 August 1912, Annual Exhibition, Victorian Artists' Society Galleries 29 April 1914 – 23 May 1914, Annual Exhibition, Victorian Artists' Society Galleries 1915, Australian Artists' War Fund exhibition, Vickery's Chambers. Foreword by Ethel Phillips Fox mentions that Sydney artists contributed works of art valued £1500 to £2000, which was distributed as prizes to subscribers. 6 July - 20 July 1918, Salon des Poilus, Exhibition of Pictures for Sale, Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne 12 – 26 November 1919, Arts and Crafts Society Exhibition, Federal Court House 1925, Loan Exhibition of Australian Paintings, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 16-26 November 1934, Heidelberg Art Exhibition, Catalogue of the Heidelberg and District Art Exhibition, Ivanhoe Hall, Heidelberg, Germany 1 November 1940 – 1 December 1940, Representative collection of Australian art, Margaret Maclean's Gallery 18 August - 3 September 1978, A Selection of Woodcuts and Linocuts by Napier Waller and other Melbourne Artists 4 March - 3 April 1980, Melbourne/Monash Exchange Exhibition, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne 19 September - 8 October 1986, Australian Women Artists, Paintings, Watercolours & Prints, Bridget McDonnell Gallery, Melbourne 17 - 24 September 1989, Spring exhibition, Jim Alexander Gallery, Melbourne 11 - 23 July 1995, Violet Teague Portrait Prize, The Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors and the Victorian Artists Society, Melbourne 17 July - 29 August 1999, The art of Violet Teague, touring exhibition by The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Geelong Art Gallery, Geelong, Victoria 10 September - 31 October 1999, The art of Violet Teague, touring exhibition by The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria 9 November - 12 December 1999, The art of Violet Teague, touring exhibition by The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Hamilton Art Gallery, Hamilton 18 Mart - 23 April 2000, The art of Violet Teague, touring exhibition by The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo 13 May - 11 June 2000, The art of Violet Teague, touring exhibition by The Ian Potter Museum of Art, National Trust Centre, Sydney 17 December - 12 March 2000, The art of Violet Teague, touring exhibition by The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne 28 November - 31 December 2015, PROGRESSION Women in Australian Art, Day Fine Art 24 May - 7 September 2025, Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940, Art Gallery of South Australia

Published works Birds of the sunny south, with Australian flowers / produced entirely by Australians (V. Teague, G. Rede, I. Gregory, A. Ashley) [Melbourne] 1915(?) : Pater's Printery

Night fall in the ti-tree / woodcuts by Geraldine Rede and Violet Teague, [Melbourne] 1905 : Sign of the Rabbit

Legacy Teague has been reckoned among the best portraitists Australia has produced.

Teague Street in the Canberra suburb of Cook is named in her honour.