painter, pastellist, lithographer, sculptor and china painter, was born at Battery Point, Hobart, on 13 September 1880, eldest child of Edward Lovett, a railway clerk, and Alice Edith, née Gibson. Her first recorded job was as a photographic retoucher in Richard McGuffie’s studio, but in October 1896 she began art classes at the Hobart Technical School where she was taught by J.R. Trantham-Fryer and/or Ethel Nichols. By 1902 she was sufficiently confident of her painting to be taking commissions.

In 1903 Lovett moved to Sydney in order to attend Julian Ashton 's Sydney Art School, but by the next year she had returned to Hobart where she taught modelling and then drawing at the Technical School. By 1908 she had added china painting to the subjects taught. In 1909 she went to Sydney and exhibited in that year’s Society of Artists’ exhibition, including a china painting on a vase based on Sydney Long’s missing painting Pastorale (AGNSW). A reviewer stated that Miss Lovett painted vases 'most charmingly, and is a skilful miniaturist; and the clay sketch she exhibits of Mr. Sid Long shows that she possesses the first essential of the sculptor’s art, a knowledge of character, and the significance of the “masses”’ ('The Art of the Year’, Lone Hand 1 April 1910, p.665 [by the magazine’s 'art correspondents’]). Sid Long 's Pastoral and Lovett’s vase 'designed by Sid Long’ (AGNSW) were illustrated in the same article (pp.666 & 669). The Art Gallery of NSW also has her terracotta bust of Long donated by Julian Ashton in 1920.

When Long left for Europe in 1910, Lovett succeeded him as Ashton’s assistant teacher. An influential teacher, her students included Grace Crowley , Jean Bellette and Amie Kingston . She left Ashton’s after marrying Stanley Livingstone Paterson in 1913 but continued to work as an artist. By 1914 the couple were living in Brisbane, where Mildred became friendly with Vida Lahey . In 1916 they returned to Sydney where Mildred exhibited with the Society of Artists. In 1919 she and her husband travelled to Europe, where she took some classes at the Westminster School in London and with André Lhôte in Paris. The following year she returned to Hobart, resumed teaching at the Hobart Technical School for the next decade and became active in the Art Society of Tasmania. This was her most productive time as a teacher and she influenced many younger Tasmanian artists. One of her subjects during this period was baby Tim Bowden, later the ABC journalist. In 1940 Lovett moved back to Sydney and remained there until her husband’s death in 1952. Later she returned to Hobart, where she continued giving private lessons and painting, until her death on 23 March 1955.

Writers:

Mendelssohn, Joanna

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

2011