Bessie Davidson
| Bessie Davidson | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Bessie Ellen Davidson 22 May 1879 Adelaide, South Australia, Australia |
| Died | 22 February 1965 (aged 85) Montparnasse, Paris, France |
| Resting place | Saint-Saëns, Seine-Maritime, France |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Education | Künstlerinner Verein Académie de la Grande Chaumière |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Impressionism |
| Elected | Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (1922) |
Bessie Ellen Davidson (1879–1965) was an Australian painter known for her impressionist, light-filled landscapes and interiors.
Bessie Ellen Davidson was born on 22 May 1879 in Adelaide, Australia, to a family of Scottish and English origin. She was the second child of David Davidson, who was in the mining industry, and Ellen Johnson Davidson. Her great-grandfather William Gowan was a sculptor, and her grandmother Frances Gowan was a painter. She was educated at the Advanced School for Girls (which had an strong drawing strand), and studied art with the painter Rose McPherson (better known as Margaret Preston). She began exhibiting with the South Australian Society of Arts as early as 1901; in this period, her work clearly showed Preston's influence.
In 1904, after her mother's death, she went to Europe to study art in company with Preston. They spent the first few months in Munich, where Davidson studied briefly at the Künstlerinner Verein, before moving on to Paris. There she studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, under René-Xavier Prinet, where she met and began a lifelong friendship with Philippe Besnard's future wife, Germaine Desgranges. She also took classes with Raphael Collin, Richard Miller, and Gustave Courtois. A year after her arrival in France, she was exhibiting at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français, and the year after that at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. In 1922 she would become the first Australian woman elected a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and she would later serve as its secretary. She was a founding member of the Salon des Tuileries, at which she would exhibit almost every year between 1923 and 1951.
Returning to Australia in 1907, Davidson rented a studio with Preston and continued painting and exhibiting for several years. In 1908, the National Gallery of South Australia bought her portrait of the potter Gladys Reynell. In 1910, she went back to Paris and set up a workshop in Monparnasse on Boissonade Street next door to Raymond Legueult and across the street from the Dutch painter Conrad Kickert. She became the godmother of Kickert's daughter as well as of Philippe Besnard's daughter. She made many other friends in Parisian art circles, including the painter Anders Osterlind.
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