Eveline Winifred Syme Explained

Eveline Syme (26 October 1888 – 6 June 1961) was an Australian artist associated with the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, and an advocate for women's post-secondary education.

Early life

Eveline Winifred Syme was born in Thames Ditton, Surrey, England, daughter of Joseph Cowen Syme and Laura Blair Syme. She was raised in Melbourne, where she was an early student of Melbourne Girls Grammar. Her father was a newspaper publisher in that city, as were her grandfather Ebenezer Syme (proprietor of The Age), and William Spowers, the father of her friend and colleague, Ethel Spowers. Eveline Syme returned to England to study classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, but women were not granted degrees from Cambridge in her time, so she went back to Melbourne to earn an education degree.^[1]

Career

Syme studied art in Paris with M. Denis at La Grand Chaumiere in 1922/1923^[2] and Melbourne, often in the company of Spowers.^[3] She had her first solo show in Melbourne in 1925, and another in 1928, showing works in various media, many of them watercolor landscape studies, though she also painted in oils and drew in pencil. She and Spowers enrolled at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in 1929, to learn more about linocuts.^[4] They were joined here by Dorrit Black, studying linocut printing with Claude Flight.^[5]

By the following year Syme was back in Melbourne, exhibiting and speaking about modern printmaking.^[6] Along with Spowers she was associated with George Bell's "Contemporary Art Group." Late in life, she was on the executive committee of the National Gallery Society of Victoria.^[7]

Syme was also involved in efforts during the 1930s to build a women's college at the University of Melbourne, and served as president of the University Women's College council in the 1940s.^[8]

Syme died in 1961, age 72. She was buried at Brighton Cemetery.^[9] Eveline was a founding member of the University Women's College at the University of Melbourne.^[10] She left much of her estate to the University Women's College.

External links

Eveline Winifred Syme [Australian art and artists file], State Library Victoria

Notes and References

1. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/syme-eveline-winifred-11814 Stephen Coppel, "Syme, Eveline Winifred (1888–1961)", Australian Dictionary of Biography(2002).
2. Book: Robb, Gwenda . Concise Dictionary of Australian Artists . Melbourne University Press . 1993 . 0-522-84478-2 . 250.
3. https://books.google.com/books?id=nx84SWfUhmgC&dq=Eveline+Syme&pg=PA107 Felicity St. John Moore, "Eveline Syme, 'Tennis and Tea,'"
4. https://books.google.com/books?id=RBlYAAAAMAAJ&q=Eveline+Syme Stephen Coppel, Linocuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School
5. Book: Edwards, Deborah . Sydney Moderns. Art For a New World. . Art Gallery of NSW . 2013 . 9781741740974 . Sydney, NSW, Australia . 79.
6. http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/?artist_id=syme-eveline Art Gallery NSW, "Works by Eveline Syme"
7. J ane Hyltton, Modern Australian Women: Paintings and Prints, 1925-1945 (Art Gallery of South Australia 2000).
8. http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/41764983 E. I. Lothian and Eveline Syme, University Women's College, University of Melbourne: A Brief History
9. "Eveline Winifred Syme," Brighton Cemetery Historic Interments, http://brightoncemetery.com/HistoricInterments/150Names/symee.htm
10. "Women Artists. Works From the Permanent Collection" catalogue, University Gallery, The University of Melbourne, July 26 - August 30 1983. Page 13. Art and Artists Files, held in the National Gallery of Australia Research and Archive Collection.