Vale, May (1862 - 1945)

Summary

May Vale was an artist who lived in the United Kingdom with her family for five years from 1873. She then travel widely, and trained at a number of national and international art schools (Royal Art School, Linton School, and Chelsea Polytechnic, London; National Gallery School of Painting, Melbourne; Julian Académie, Paris). She exhibited in Melbourne and London. In 1885, Vale was commissioned by the Industrial and Technological Museum of Melbourne to paint (under the direction of Baron Ferdinand von Mueller) the flowers and fruits of 220 trees on panels made of their timbers. The panels were exhibited in the Indian and Colonial Exhibition in England in 1886, and are now held by Museum Victoria. She opened her first art school in Collins St, Melbourne in 1893. Organisations of which she was a member included the Victorian Artists' Society, the Victorian Women's Suffrage Society, the Princess Ida Club, and the Melbourne Lyceum Club.

Details

Chronology

1874 - 1878

Life event - Resident in the United Kingdom

1886

Career event - Exhibit of panels of Victorian native timbers with paintings of their flowers and fruits by May Vale, Indian and Colonial Exhibition, London

1893

Career event - Established an art school in Collins St, Melbourne

May 1894

Career event - Appointed instructress of the art class for women at the Working Men's College, Melbourne

August 1907

Career event - Exhibited as part of the first exhibition of Australasian women artists in London, Rumplemeyer's rooms, St James' St, London

Related entries

Published resources

Newspaper Articles

• Anon, 'Women artists of Victoria: Miss May Vale', Australasian (Melbourne) (1895), 23. Details
• Anon, 'Miss Vale's exhibition of pictures', Weekly times (Melbourne) (1903), 13. Details
• Colquhoun, A., 'Nature depicted by artist: flowers and landscapes painted by Miss M. Vale', Herald (Melbourne) (1917), 3. Details