17 Facts About Violet Teague

Violet Helen Evangeline Teague was an Australian artist, noted for her painting, printmaking and her critical writings on art.

The only daughter of Melbourne homeopath James Teague and his wife Eliza Jane Miller, Teague was born on 21 February 1872 in Melbourne.

Violet Teague's mother died while she was an infant, and she was raised by her father and his second wife, Sybella, along with Sybella's two children.

Violet Teague was taught by a governess at home, and her education included French and the classics.

Violet Teague completed college at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne.

Violet Teague travelled with her family in Europe as a young woman.

Violet Teague toured widely, and visited galleries in Germany, France, Belgium the Netherlands and England.

Violet Teague exhibited regularly at the Paris Salons, and her portrait of a Colonel Rede in 1897 at the Societe des Artistes Francais brought her accolades.

Violet Teague was "the first Australian to demonstrate a sustained interest in, and an understanding of Japanese woodblock printmaking".

Violet Teague collaborated in woodcuts with her friend Geraldine Rede, publishing Night Fall in the Ti-Tree together from her Collins Street studio in 1905.

Violet Teague's painting Boy with a Palette won a silver prize from the Old Salon, Paris when exhibited in 1920, and was later hung at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

In 1921, Teague exhibited an altar piece for a new church at Kinglake, Victoria, built as a memorial to soldiers who died in World War I Inscriptions to accompany the picture were again prepared by Traill, and placed on the base of the work.

Violet Teague befriended famed Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira, who named one of his children after her and accompanied the group on their painting excursions.

Juliette Peers, in a number of her papers, identifies Violet Teague's writing as an overlooked aspect of the artist's career.

Violet Teague was an outlier, in letters to The Argus, The Age, and The Herald, announcing Hermannsburg group exhibition, in taking a position that Aboriginal people had survived '100 years of our occupation,' cheated of their inheritance by colonialism, thus defying the eugenicist justification that they were an innately inferior 'dying race'.

Violet Teague has been reckoned among the best portraitists Australia has produced.

Violet Teague has been identified as one of Australia's first female art critics.