May Vale

Vale was born in Ballarat on 18 November 1862.[2] Her family moved to Melbourne 1872. Her family then moved to London, England in 1874.[3]

Vale attended the Royal College of Art in London, Then in 1879, after returning to Melbourne she attended the National Gallery Art Schools,[3] studying under Oswald Rose Campbell,[1] George Folingsby and Frederick McCubbin.[3][4] Her colleagues at the school included Jane Sutherland and Clara Southern.[1]

In 1893 she also opened a studio at 119 Swanston Street where she gave art lessons and worked as a commissioned portrait painter.[3][1] In 1895 she set up an art school at Flinders Buildings, where she taught plein air painting. One of her students was Alice Marian Ellen Bale.[1]

She was said to be the first woman to join the Buonarotti Society,[1] but there are other claimants including Alice Cherry (née Brotherton) in 1883.[5]

In 1906 Vale returned to London where she studied enamelling at the Chelsea Polytechnic Institute.[3]

Vale exhibited her painting and her enamels throughout her life at venues including the Victorian Artists Society, the Women's Art Club, and the Athenaeum.[3]

She had a one-woman show in 1927 at Queens Hall.[1]

She was a member of the Buonarotti Club, the Victorian Artists Society, and the Yarra Sculptors' Society.[1]

Vale died on 6 August 1945 in Melbourne.[3]

Vale's works are in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of New South Wales.[3]

• 
  Faith learning her lesson, 1898
• 
  David Syme
• 
  The Orchard (Spring at Mayfield), c. 1904
• 
  Girl Reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to May Vale.

• images of May Vale's paintings on Australian Art Auction Records
• Women of the Heidelberg School, by Andrew MacKenzie, sponsored by the Victorian Government