painter, was born in Adelaide on 22 May 1879, daughter of David and Ellen Davidson, née Johnson. She was educated in Adelaide and first studied art there in 1899 under Rose McPherson ( Margaret Preston ). After exhibiting with the SA Society of Arts in 1901-03 in both the annual and federal exhibitions, she left Adelaide for Europe on 2 July 1904 with Margaret Preston, travelling first to Munich where she enrolled briefly at the Künstlerinner Verein. She left Munich in November 1904, travelling to Paris with Preston.

In Paris Davidson attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumiére, studying under René Prinet, and became influenced by his classical style. She was also taught by other French painters, Raphael Collin and Gustave Courtois, and by the American Richard Miller. Miller’s paintings of light-filled domestic scenes particularly appear to have influenced her work of the 1910s and early 1920s. She became close friends with the Australian artist Rupert Bunny , with whom she is also said to have studied, exhibited at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and became a founding member of, and exhibited with, the Salon des Tuileries (Independents).

In December 1906 Davidson returned to Adelaide and leased a studio with Preston, with whom she held a joint exhibition in March 1907. During this time she exhibited regularly at the Society of Arts, her work including still-lifes, portraits and landscapes. In 1908 the Art Gallery of South Australia purchased her portrait of fellow artist Gladys Reynell , titled Portrait of Miss G.R. It is typical of her early formal, tonal works.

Davidson returned to Paris in 1910. Before the outbreak of World War I she travelled as widely as possible in Europe, including a visit to Russia. In 1914 she returned to Adelaide to see her family. During this brief visit she completed her delightful, light-filled domestic scene, Mother and Child . At the outbreak of World War I she returned immediately to Paris, joined the Red Cross and worked throughout the war as a nurse, eventually running a hospital for cholera patients.

From 1918 Davidson exhibited frequently in Paris (and possibly also regularly in London). In 1922 she was the first Australian woman to be elected an Associate, then Member of the New Salon. In the same year she became secretary of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and in 1930 was elected Vice-President of La Société Nationale de Femmes Artistes Modernes; she was also a founding member of the Société Nationale des Indépendants. In 1931 Davidson was appointed Chevalier de la L é gion d’Honneur for Art and Humanity by the French government. She contributed work to L’Exposition du Groupe Feminin at the Petit Palais in 1938. Later she participated in the Exhibition of French Art shown in Pittsburg, St Louis, New York and Edinburgh, and exhibited with the International Society in London and Venice.

During World War II Davidson lived first in Normandy and then in Grenoble in the French Alps, where she continued to paint daily. In 1945, at the cessation of the war, she returned to her Montparnasse studio in Paris, where she continued to live and paint for the rest of her life. She travelled regularly throughout France and stayed frequently at Buchy, near Rouen; she also painted at Guéthary, a small French coastal town near the border of Spain, and at Villeneuve. She visited relatives in Scotland regularly, but made only one more trip back to her home in Adelaide, in the 1950s.

Bessie Davidson died at the age of 85, on 22 February 1965. She was buried at Saint-Saens, Seine-Maritime, near Rouen, Normandy.

Writers:

Hylton, Jane

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

2011