A Woman Painter of Tottenham Beatrice was born at Peak Hill Villa in Sydenham in 1864, the seventh of ten children of George and Emma Offor. We do not know where Beatrice was educated in her early years, but the Slade School of Art accepted her in 1882 at the age of 18. The Slade had opened its doors to women eleven years earlier, under its Principal, the respected painter Edward Poynter, who believed in the slightly more liberal theory of art education as practised on the continent. There it was slightly easier for women to gain some reasonable art education. Indeed, many women made their way to France and Italy to train as painters and sculptors. Beatrice left the Slade in 1885 with a 3rd class degree, graduating in Fine Art Anatomy: Painting from the Antique and Composition. From 1890 to 1894 she exhibited four paintings at the Royal Academy, one each year.
Beatrice still exhibited at the Royal Academy - in 1911 showing “Circe” (which is in the Bruce Castle Museum Collection. She next exhibited at the Royal Academy with “Dear Old Nurse”. The whereabouts of this painting are unknown. The next (and last) time she is recorded as having exhibited at the Royal Academy is in 1917 with “A Tangle in my Garden”. This is the last of the three paintings at Bruce Castle Museum that can be given precise dates of execution. Beatrice suffered a nervous breakdown in 1919 - it is said this was following the death of two of her children in a road accident. But this aspect of her tragic story can not be verified and remains Sadly Beatrice did not recover her previous state of mind and on Friday 6th August 1920 she threw herself from her bedroom window. She died in the Prince of Wales Hospital, Tottenham, on 7th August 1920 and was buried in Lewisham. Extracts taken from Tottenham Weekly Herald, 1920. Visit Bruce Castel in north London to find out all about one of its most famous women painters, Beatrice Offor (21st March 1864 – 7th August 1920) |
© 2008 Women (Inernational Women's Month)|
