TEAGUE, Violet Helen Evangeline
Portrait of Colonel Robert Rede
l.l. corner, in white, [Violet Teague]; to the right of this, in black, [Violet Teague 1898]
Presented by Mrs Lionel Teague (sister-in-law of the artist and daughter of the sitter), 1955
City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection
Portraits, Colonel Robert Rede, VAS Exhibition, 1900
Summary
Colonel Robert Rede was the Goldfields Commissioner in Ballarat at the time of the Eureka Stockade. By enforcing licence hunts he initiated the confrontation between miners and government representatives that resulted in the storming of the stockade in December 1854. Rede was removed from Ballarat when the government’s victory became a moral defeat and his safety was threatened by angry miners. He became Sheriff of Melbourne in 1877 and was later promoted to second-in-command of the Colony of Victoria.
Violet Teague (1872-1951) was born in Melbourne and travelled to Europe to study portraiture and printmaking, where she was awarded medals at the Panama Exhibition and the Paris Salon and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. She produced the first Japanese style wood block prints in Australia, pioneered children’s book illustrations, and painted a number of religious altarpieces including Anzac Christmas in St Paul’s Cathedral. She is best known for her sophisticated, full-length portraits of friends and family. Colonel Robert Rede was a friend of her father.
This portrait was included in a major retrospective of her work, The Art of Violet Teague, which toured Victoria and NSW in 2000. It was originally shown at the Victorian Artists Society exhibition in 1900.
