1. Bessie Ellen Davidson was an Australian painter known for her impressionist, light-filled landscapes and interiors.
19 Facts About Bessie Davidson
1. 2.
Bessie Ellen Davidson was born on 22 May 1879 in North Adelaide, South Australia, to a family of Scottish and English origin.
3.
Bessie Davidson was the second child of David Davidson, who was in the mining industry, and Ellen Johnson Davidson.
4.
Bessie Davidson's great-grandfather William Gowan was a sculptor, and her grandmother Frances Gowan was a painter.
5.
Bessie Davidson was educated at the Advanced School for Girls, and studied art with the painter Rose McPherson.
6.
Bessie Davidson began exhibiting with the South Australian Society of Arts as early as 1901; in this period, her work clearly showed Preston's influence.
7.
Bessie Davidson took classes with Raphael Collin, Richard Miller, and Gustave Courtois.
8.
Bessie Davidson was a founding member of the Salon des Tuileries, at which she would exhibit almost every year between 1923 and 1951.
9.
Bessie Davidson became the godmother of Kickert's daughter as well as of Philippe Besnard's daughter.
10.
Bessie Davidson made many other friends in Parisian art circles, including the painter Anders Osterlind.
11.
Bessie Davidson travelled to Australia to visit family in 1914 and was there when World War I began.
12.
Bessie Davidson returned to France immediately, where she joined the French Red Cross and served in various military hospitals.
13.
Bessie Davidson's style evolved in a more vigorous direction in the 1920s and 1930s, with rich, vibrant, often dramatic colours laid on with a palette knife.
14.
Bessie Davidson travelled around Europe, Russia, and Morocco making outdoor sketches that she used as the basis for paintings later produced in her studio.
15.
Bessie Davidson's landscapes are notable for their quality of light and sense of atmosphere.
16.
In 1930 Bessie Davidson was a founding vice-president of La Societe Femmes Artistes Modernes.
17.
Bessie Davidson was a founding member of the Societe Nationale Independentes and a member of the Salon d'Automne.
18.
Bessie Davidson exhibited widely with such artists as Mary Cassatt, Tamara de Lempicka, Camille Claudel, and Suzanne Valadon.
19.
Bessie Davidson lived with friends in Grenoble, and some sources say that she was a member of the French Resistance.