Janet Cumbrae Stewart

Bio

Janet Agnes Cumbrae Stewart (1883-1960) was a successful Australian painter born in Brighton, Victoria. Most well-known for her female nudes, she was considered one of the leading pastel artists of her generation. Originally trained at the Melbourne National Gallery School under the tutelage of Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, Stewart participated in the First Exhibition of Women's Work in Melbourne in 1907. She left Australia for London in 1922, holding her first solo exhibition at Walkers Gallery in London in 1924, where her work A Young Woman Seated on the Bed was acquired for the Royal Collection, possibly at the request of Queen Mary.

In the 1920s and 30s she travelled extensively, exhibiting in France, Britain and Italy while continuing to present solo shows in Melbourne, Brisbane, South Australia and Sydney. She returned to Australia with her "companion" Miss Argemore Farrington Bellairs ("Billy") on board the Dutch ship Meliskerk from Antwerp in 1937. According to Peter Di Sciasco, Billy was a "distinctive and enterprising woman of independent means who dressed in masculine attire". The pair lived together in South Yarra and at a property in Hurstbridge until Cumbrae Stewart's death in 1960. Her work is held in numerous collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia, the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Bendigo Regional Gallery, the Royal Collection London and the Museo del Novocento in Milan. Despite her achievements during her lifetime, her work has been sparsely exhibited in Australia.