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Winifred Marie Louise Austen
Born at Ramsgate, Kent on 12 July 1876, Winifred Austen only daughter of Josiah Austin, a Cornish naval surgeon, and his wife Fanny, née Mann. She amended the spelling of her surname from Austin to Austen from the time that she began to exhibit.
In 1892 the family moved to Hornsey, London from where Austin attended the London County Council School of Arts and Crafts, studying under Cuthbert Swan, an animal painter. I n 1899 Austen exhibited a picture of a lion at the Royal Academy and in all exhibited more than seventy pictures at the Academy, the last in 1961.
She worked in both oils and watercolours but Austen is most highly regarded as an etcher. In all she made some two hundred etched plates, beginning in 1906 with a series entitled The White Heron. She had particular feeling for birds and small mammals, and the naturalist Sir Peter Scott said 'she was certainly the best bird-etcher of this century'.
In 1902 Austen was elected to the Society of Women Artists followed in 1907 to the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, and in 1933 to the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours. S he was also a fellow of the Royal Zoological Society from 1903. Her first commissioned work was in 1898 for E. Nesbit's Book of Dogs.
Such was Austen's success that she required an agent when she employed Oliver O'Donnell Frick (1868/9-1923), an American from Maryland, and married him on 22 October 1917. After her home in Ealing, Austen and her husband lived briefly in both Yeovil, Somerset and Dorking, Surrey, before moving to Suffolk in 1922 where Oliver Frick died from pneumonia the following year. T here were no children.
Subsequently Austen lived at 'Wayside' a Suffolk cottage at Orford, which she shared with her housekeeper a Mrs. Field until the latter's death in 1959. Innumerable pets became subjects for her work and a printing press was kept in the kitchen. Although reclusive, Austen was involved with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Havergate Island bird sanctuary in Suffolk.
Early in her life she took an interest in psychical research and was also an enthusiastic photographer.
Winifred Austen died at 38 Southborough Road, Bickley, Kent, on 1 November 1964. A large quanity of her etchings were sold at Bonham's on 17 September 1992.
Submitted by Tony Copsey
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for Winifred Austen
Winifred Austen
United Kingdom, 1876 - 1964
Winifred Marie Louise Austen
Born at Ramsgate, Kent on 12 July 1876, Winifred Austen only daughter of Josiah Austin, a Cornish naval surgeon, and his wife Fanny, née Mann. She amended the spelling of her surname from Austin to Austen from the time that she began to exhibit.
In 1892 the family moved to Hornsey, London from where Austin attended the London County Council School of Arts and Crafts, studying under Cuthbert Swan, an animal painter. I n 1899 Austen exhibited a picture of a lion at the Royal Academy and in all exhibited more than seventy pictures at the Academy, the last in 1961.
She worked in both oils and watercolours but Austen is most highly regarded as an etcher. In all she made some two hundred etched plates, beginning in 1906 with a series entitled The White Heron. She had particular feeling for birds and small mammals, and the naturalist Sir Peter Scott said 'she was certainly the best bird-etcher of this century'.
In 1902 Austen was elected to the Society of Women Artists followed in 1907 to the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, and in 1933 to the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours. S he was also a fellow of the Royal Zoological Society from 1903. Her first commissioned work was in 1898 for E. Nesbit's Book of Dogs.
Such was Austen's success that she required an agent when she employed Oliver O'Donnell Frick (1868/9-1923), an American from Maryland, and married him on 22 October 1917. After her home in Ealing, Austen and her husband lived briefly in both Yeovil, Somerset and Dorking, Surrey, before moving to Suffolk in 1922 where Oliver Frick died from pneumonia the following year. T here were no children.
Subsequently Austen lived at 'Wayside' a Suffolk cottage at Orford, which she shared with her housekeeper a Mrs. Field until the latter's death in 1959. Innumerable pets became subjects for her work and a printing press was kept in the kitchen. Although reclusive, Austen was involved with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Havergate Island bird sanctuary in Suffolk.
Early in her life she took an interest in psychical research and was also an enthusiastic photographer.
Winifred Austen died at 38 Southborough Road, Bickley, Kent, on 1 November 1964. A large quanity of her etchings were sold at Bonham's on 17 September 1992.
Submitted by Tony Copsey
Person TypeIndividual
United States, 1865 - 1937
United States, 1876 - 1973