Rose A. Walker

{{Short description|Australian painter}}

{{Hatnote|For the American poet and education with a similar name, see Rhoza A. Walker.}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}

{{Use Australian English|date=June 2020}}

{{Infobox artist

| name = Rose A. Walker

| image =

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| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date text|1879}}

| birth_place = Walhalla, Victoria, Australia

| death_date = {{Death year and age|1942|1879}}

| death_place =

| nationality = Australian

| education = Bendigo School of Mines

| field = Painting

| training =

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| spouse = George Hartrick

| partner =

}}

File:Rose A. Walker (1900) News from the Front.jpg

File:Rose A. Walker - Yachts on bay.jpg]]

Rose A. Walker (1879–1942), was an Australian painter and miniaturist. She was a founding member of the Twenty Melbourne Painters Society.{{cite web|title=Members|url=http://twentymelbournepainterssociety.com.au/home/members/|website=Twenty Melbourne Painters Society Inc|date=24 July 2017|accessdate=8 April 2018}}

Biography

Walker was born in Walhalla in 1879.{{cite web|title=Walker, Rose A. (1879-1942)|url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/people/1483903?c=people|website=Trove|publisher=National Library of Australia|accessdate=9 April 2018}} She attended the Bendigo School of Mines where she studied under Arthur T. Woodward. She then moved to Melbourne where she studied with Max Meldrum.{{cite web|title=Rose A. Walker b. 1879|url=https://www.daao.org.au/bio/rose-a-walker/biography/|website=Design & Art Australia Online (DAAO).|accessdate=9 April 2018}}

Bendigo Art Gallery displayed her narrative painting, a watercolour, News from the Front, in its Victorian Gold Jubilee exhibition of 1901-1902, and its subsequent purchase from admission fees and art union was debated in a drawn-out selection process of elimination over April–June 1902,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article88561192 |title=The Bendigo Advertiser |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=L |issue=14,580 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=22 April 1902 |accessdate=14 January 2025 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}} in which it remained the only work by a woman and in competition against eight notables including Gustave Doré, Rupert Bunney, Julian Ashton and J. Ford Patterson.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article88565500 |title=Bendigo Art Gallery. |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=L |issue=14,622 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=10 June 1902 |accessdate=14 January 2025 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}} Ultimately the Gallery purchased the large Doré Joseph's Flight Into Egypt.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9076589 |title=Bendigo. |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=17,594 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=2 December 1902 |accessdate=14 January 2025 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}{{Cite web |last=Gustave |first=Doré |date=1875 |title=Joseph's Flight into Egypt |url=https://collection.bendigoartgallery.com.au/objects/148 |access-date=14 January 2025 |website=Bendigo Art Gallery Collection}} News from the Front was shown as a non-competitive entry in the Australian Exhibition of Women's Work and gifted by the artist to Castlemaine Art Museum in 1940.{{Cite web |last=Walker |first=Rose A. |date=1900 |title=News from the Front |url=https://collection.castlemaineartmuseum.org.au/objects/216/news-from-the-front |access-date=14 January 2025 |website=Castlemaine Art Museum Online Collection}}

Walker exhibited her work around Melbourne at the Victorian Artists Society, and the Athenaeum Gallery. She showed her work under the name "Mrs George Hartrick" after she wed.

She was a member of the Victorian Artists Society, the Twenty Melbourne Painters Society and the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors.

She died in 1942.

In 2013 Walker was included in the exhibition Towards Perth: Western Australian Women Artists Before 1950 at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery in Crawley, Australia.{{cite web|title=Towards Perth: Western Australian Women Artists Before 1950|url=http://www.lwgallery.uwa.edu.au/exhibitions/past/2013/towardsperth|website=Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery|publisher=The University of Western Australia|accessdate=9 April 2018}}

References