Jane Sutherland

Who was Jane Sutherland?

Jane Sutherland was an Australian landscape painter pioneer of the plein-air movement in Australia, she was also notable for her advocacy to advance the professional standing of women artists.

Sutherland was born in New York to Scottish parents; the family migrated to Sydney in 1864 and moved to Melbourne in 1870. Her father George taught drawing for the Department of Education and exhibited his own work through the Victorian Academy of Arts. Unlike her brothers Alexander, George, and William, Jane went on to pursue an artistic career.

Jane studied at the National Gallery School of Design, where she was taught to paint by notable Australian artists Frederick McCubbin, Eugene von Guerard and George Folingsby. From 1878 she exhibited at the Victorian Academy of Arts, then with the Australian Artists' Association, and with the Victorian Artists' Society until 1911. From 1888 she shared a studio with Clara Southern and Jane Price. In 1884 she became one of the first women members of the Buonarotti Society, and in 1900 she and May Vale were the first women elected as Councillors of the Victorian Artists' Society.