Ethel Kirkpatrick
{{Infobox artist
| death_date = 28 December 1966
| birth_date = 30 November 1869
| birth_place = Clerkenwell, London, England
| birth_name = Ethel Alice Kirkpatrick
| death_place = Middlesex, England
| style = marine and landscape painter
| alma_mater = Royal Academy School, Central School of Arts and Crafts, Académie Julien
}}
{{Short description|British artist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}{{Use British English|date=April 2025}}
Ethel Alice Kirkpatrick (30 November 1869 – 28 December 1966) was a British painter, printmaker and jeweller.{{Cite web |title=Miss Ethel Kirkpatrick - Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951 |url=https://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib2_1203533497 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190621025353/https://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib2_1203533497 |archive-date=2019-06-21 |access-date=2019-05-19 |website=University of Glasgow}}{{Cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=byVHAQAAIAAJ&q=Ethel+Kirkpatrick&pg=PA156 |title = The Studio|year = 1906}} She was a marine and landscape painter, mainly working in oil and watercolour but also producing woodcuts.{{cite book |author=Waters |first=Grant M. |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofbrit0000gran |title=Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900–1950 |publisher=Eastbourne Fine Art |year=1975}}{{cite book |author=Garton |first=Robin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MJbrAAAAMAAJ |title=British Printmakers 1855-1955 A Century of Printmaking from the Etching Revival to St Ives |publisher=Garton & Co / Scolar Press |year=1992 |isbn=0-85967-968-3}}
Early life and training
Ethel Alice Kirkpatrick, was the second daughter of Mary Ann Rosa Kirkpatrick ({{Nee|Marriott}}) and Thomas Sutton Kirkpatrick. She was born on 30 November 1869 in Clerkenwell, London.{{Cite web |title=Ethel Kirkpatrick Biography |url=https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/1247/Kirkpatrick/Ethel |access-date=2025-04-09 |website=Annex Galleries Fine Prints}} Her older sister was Ida Marion Kirkpatrick (1866– 1950), who introduced her to art.
Their father was a professional soldier from a landed family at Coolmine, Dublin, Ireland. After leaving a position in the Indian Army, he worked in the British prison service, later as governor of Exeter, Newgate and then Wormwood Scrubs prisons.
Kirkpatrick studied at the Royal Academy School{{Cite book |last=Art |first=Chazen Museum of |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VspK0zqFs5gC&dq=Ethel+Kirkpatrick&pg=PA37 |title=Color Woodcut International: Japan, Britain, and America in the Early Twentieth Century |date=2006 |publisher=Chazen Museum of Art |isbn=978-0-932900-64-7 |pages=37 |language=en}} and at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, where she learned enamelling and woodcutting techniques.{{Cite book |last=Harvey-Lee (Firm) |first=Elizabeth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uIpIAQAAIAAJ&q=Ethel+Kirkpatrick+painter |title=Mistresses of the Graphic Arts: Famous & Forgotten Women Printmakers C.1550-c.1950 : a New Stock Catalogue, Autumn 1995 |date=1995 |publisher=Elizabeth Harvey-Lee |isbn=978-0-9525544-1-7 |pages=88 |language=en}} She continued studying at the Académie Julien in Paris.
Working life
Both Ethel and her older sister Ida travelled to artist’s colonies in St Ives, Cornwall and Walberswick, Suffolk. They both appear in biographical lists of Suffolk artists and Cornwall artists.{{Cite web |title=KIRKPATRICK, Ethel Alice |url=https://suffolkartists.co.uk/index.cgi?choice=painter&pid=3012 |access-date=2022-12-21 |website=Suffolk Artists}}{{Cite web |title=Ethel KIRKPATRICK |url=https://cornwallartists.org/cornwall-artists/ethel-kirkpatrick |access-date=2022-12-21 |website=Cornwall Artists Index |language=en}} After their father died in 1895 or 1896,{{Cite web |title=Rooks Nesting by Ethel Kirkpatrick |url=https://www.campbell-fine-art.com/items.php?id=1739 |access-date=2025-04-09 |website=Campbell Fine Art}} a large art studio was built for the sisters behind their family house at Grove Hill, Harrow-on-the Hill, London, which they named "The Gables."{{Cite web |title=The Harbour Print circa 1917 (made) |url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O738573/the-harbour-print-ethel-kirkpatrick/ |website=Victoria and Albert Museum|date=1917 }}
Kirkpatrick produced paintings and woodcut work in colour. She was a member of the Society of Graver Painters and of the Colour Woodcut Society. Colour woodcuts by her are in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada{{Cite web |title=Ethel Kirkpatrick |url=https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/ethel-kirkpatrick |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180116042627/https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/ethel-kirkpatrick |archive-date=2018-01-16 |access-date=2019-05-19 |website=National Gallery of Canada}} and the Victoria and Albert Museum.{{Cite web | url=http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1033911/print-kirkpatrick-ethel/ |title = Print | Kirkpatrick, Ethel | V&A Search the Collections|date = 2019-05-19}} Both the Hunterian Museum and the British Museum also hold examples of Kirkpatrick's prints in their collections.
Kirkpatrick was considered influential by many of the British colour woodcut artists working after her in the 1910s and 1920s.
Exhibitions
From 1891, Kirkpatrick began exhibiting at several London galleries, such as the Alpine Club Gallery. She showed at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibitions twelve times between 1895-1941 and exhibited with the Royal Society of British Artists. In 1901, she also exhibited at the Third Exhibition of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers in London.
Examples of her and her sister Ida's work were included in ‘Print and Prejudice: Women Printmakers, 1700-1930’, an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, 2022-23.[https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/print-and-prejudice-women-printmakers-1700-1930]
Selected works
- A Summer Haze{{Cite book |last1=Wood |first1=Christopher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5spLAQAAIAAJ&q=Ethel+Kirkpatrick+painter |title=Victorian Painters: The text |last2=Newall |first2=Christopher |last3=Richardson |first3=Margaret |date=1995 |publisher=Antique Collectors' Club |isbn=978-1-85149-171-1 |pages=296 |language=en}}
- Becalmed
- Day Dreams
- Moonrise
- Rooks Nesting
- Phyllis
Death
Kirkpatrick died on 28 December 1966 in Middlesex, England. Her sister Ida had died sixteen years previously.
References
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Category:People from Clerkenwell
Category:English people of Irish descent
Category:19th-century British women artists
Category:20th-century British women artists
Category:Alumni of the Central School of Art and Design