17 Facts About Thea Proctor

Alethea Mary Proctor was an Australian painter, print maker, designer and teacher who upheld the ideas of 'taste' and 'style'.

Proctor was born in Armidale, New South Wales, to William Consett Proctor who was a solicitor and a politician and Kathleen Jane Louisa Proctor.

Thea Proctor studied at the Sydney Art School from 1896 under Julian Ashton, then at the St John's Wood School of Art in London in 1903.

Thea Proctor produced pencil drawings, decorative watercolours and fans influenced by Conder and Japanese woodblock prints.

Thea Proctor exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and the New English Art Club, later producing lithographs which were exhibited at the Senefelder Club and at the London Goupil Gallery for the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers.

Thea Proctor was inspired by a performance of the Ballets Russes which she saw in 1911.

In 1912, Thea Proctor became the first female Australian artist to exhibit at the Venice Biennale.

Thea Proctor was known for her interest in fashion, and designed her own clothing, expressing her individuality.

Thea Proctor derided the poor availability of the sort of luxury fabrics she had been used to seeing in London and Paris, and particularly the way Australian women wore what she considered shapeless hats.

Thea Proctor regarded herself as one of the first 'moderns' to exhibit in Australia, regularly attending art openings, always impeccably dressed in lavender or violet.

In 1937 Thea Proctor became a foundation member of, and exhibited with, Robert Menzies' anti-modernist organisation, the Australian Academy of Art.

Thea Proctor remained unmarried but was briefly engaged to Sidney Long in 1898, whom she had met and studied with in London.

Thea Proctor was still creating and exhibiting drawings of sure and subtle draughtsmanship until late in life, with her work showing at the Macquarie Galleries in Sydney.

Thea Proctor died in the Sydney suburb of Potts Point on 29 July 1966.

Thea Proctor's cousin was Emmie Russell who was an orthoptist and she gained a large collection of paintings by Proctor and her uncle John Peter Russell.

Thea Proctor had a large collection of art that she donated to Australian galleries.

Two of several portraits by Lambert of Thea Proctor hang in the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Portrait Gallery in Australia has a portrait in charcoal, by Lambert.