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Ada Shrimpton

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Ada depicted in a print made by her husband, William Giles, to commemorate their wedding

Ada Matilda Shrimpton (married name Giles, 1856 – 1925) was an English watercolour painter and printmaker.

Early life[edit]

She was born at Old Alresford in 1856, daughter of George Shrimpton and Elizabeth Blake, and educated at Queen’s College, London. For a time she worked as a governess.[1]

Art and printmaking[edit]

In 1883, she moved to stay with a cousin in Reading, where she studied at the Reading School of Art and gave lectures on artistic anatomy in 1885.[1] She later gained a scholarship to the National Art Training School in South Kensington and studied oil painting under Jean-Paul Laurens and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant in Paris. From 1889 she exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Institute of Water-Colours, the Society of Women Artists, the Paris Salon, and provincial galleries in England and Australia, showing flower paintings, genre scenes, and portraits.[1][2][3][4]

'Almond Blossom in the Apennines' by Ada Shrimpton (1911)

In 1907 she married printmaker William Giles, whom she had met at the Reading School of Art.[1] Both keen travellers, they married in Venice, and he announced their wedding by producing a print of the couple standing on the seashore.[5][6] She and her husband experimented with applying Japanese woodcut techniques to metal relief printing, a technique seen in Ada’s 1911 print 'Almond Blossoms in the Apennines'.[7][6] She exhibited with the Society of Graver Printers, where she was a member of the council, from 1913 until the year of her death. Her help and financial backing led to the founding of The Original Colour Print Magazine in 1924.[8][6]

Death and legacy[edit]

Ada died in 1925. In her will she set up the 'A.M. Shrimpton and William Giles Bequest' to promote the art of colour printmaking.[6] The British Museum used this fund to purchase pieces until 2005, when it was taken over by the Victoria and Albert Museum.[9][10]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Dearing, John (2013-10-01). The Reading Book of Days. The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7509-5173-9.
  2. ^ Desmond, Ray (1994-02-25). Dictionary Of British And Irish Botanists And Horticulturists Including plant collectors, flower painters and garden designers. CRC Press. p. 625. ISBN 978-0-85066-843-8.
  3. ^ Waters, Clara Erskine Clement (1904). Women in the Fine Arts. p. 316.
  4. ^ Bury, Stephen (2012-06-21). Benezit Dictionary of British Graphic Artists and Illustrators. OUP USA. p. 453. ISBN 978-0-19-992305-2.
  5. ^ Salaman, Malcolm C. (1928). Masters of the Colour Print: W. Giles. Studio. p. 10.
  6. ^ a b c d "Ada Shrimpton Giles Biography | Annex Galleries Fine Prints". www.annexgalleries.com. Retrieved 2024-07-10.
  7. ^ Harvey-Lee (Firm), Elizabeth (1995). Mistresses of the Graphic Arts: Famous & Forgotten Women Printmakers C.1550-c.1950 : a New Stock Catalogue, Autumn 1995. Elizabeth Harvey-Lee. ISBN 978-0-9525544-1-7.
  8. ^ Print Quarterly. Print Quarterly Limited. 2003. p. 153.
  9. ^ Art, Chazen Museum of (2006). Color Woodcut International: Japan, Britain, and America in the Early Twentieth Century. Chazen Museum of Art. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-932900-64-7.
  10. ^ "Shrimpton & Giles Fund | British Museum". www.britishmuseum.org. Retrieved 2024-07-10.
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