Hilda Rix Nicholas

Hilda Rix Nicholas was an Australian artist. Hilda Rix was born in the Victorian city of Ballarat. Her father was an education administrator and poet, her mother a musician and artist. She studied under a leading member of the Heidelberg School, Frederick McCubbin, at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1902 to 1905 and was an early member of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors. Following the death of her father in 1907, Hilda Rix, her only sibling Elsie and her mother travelled to Europe where she undertook further study in London and then in Paris. Her teachers during the period included John Hassall, Richard Emil Miller and Thophile Steinlen.

In 1926, Rix Nicholas returned to Australia, and in 1928 she married Edgar Wright, whom she had met during her travels in the early 1920s. The couple settled at Delegate, New South Wales their only child, a son named Rix Wright, was born in 1930. Though she continued to paint significant works including The Summer House and The Fair Musterer, Rix Nicholas, a staunch critic of modernism who was disdainful of the works of emerging major artists such as Russell Drysdale and William Dobell, grew out of step with trends in Australian art. Her pictures remained didactic, portraying an Australian pastoral ideal, and reviews of her exhibitions grew more uneven. She held her last solo show in 1947. Rix Nicholas remained at Delegate until her death in 1961. Her works are held in most major Australian collections, including the Art Gallery of South Australia, Australian War Memorial, National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, and the Queensland Art Gallery.

Source: Wikipedia