B. 1884 – 1961 

An Australian artist, Hilda Rix Nicholas achieved remarkable acclaim in France. Born to a teacher and artist, she began her artistic career exhibiting illustrations at the Victorian Artists Society and The Austral Salon, a prominent women’s society. 

In 1907 Nicholas departed Australia for Europe, enrolling in several ateliers. From 1910, she spent three summers in the artists’ colony of Étaples, going on to exhibit twice in the ‘New’ Salon in Paris; in 1912, alongside American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner, Nicolas travelled to Spain and Morocco. This immersion in Europe and North Africa infuses her Post-Impressionist style and subject matters, which included French landscapes and portraits of Arabic subjects. 

When Nicholas returned to Australia at the outbreak of World War One, she made an immediate impact. Grace Cossington Smith was taken by her work, but conservative critics were dismayed by her modern and ‘masculine’ style – a criticism that would resurface across her career. In the 1920s she travelled the country, painting heroic images of the Australian landscape, women doing rural work and soldiers, describing herself as “the man for the job”. 

During her lifetime, two of Nicholas’s works were collected by the French government for the Musee du Luxembourg and she was made an associate of the Societe Nationale de Beaux Arts. Her distinct and far-reaching contributions to Australian art have now been recognised nationally with representation across public collections and renewed scholarly interest. 

 
To read a more in-depth biography of the artist, click here.