Ivy Shore, 1961

Ivy Shore (1915–1999), artist, was born in Brunswick, Victoria, the daughter of a Polish-born suffragette. At age four, following her father’s death, her mother took her family to Adelaide, where Ivy later trained as a seamstress. She then moved to Sydney, marrying financier Ray Shore in 1938. In the late 1950s, she enrolled in painting classes with Graeme Inson, a disciple of Max Meldrum’s, and on separating from her husband in 1960 brought her own house in Woollahra. In 1962, soon after she was widowed, Inson moved in. Through the 1960s, Shore developed her own style as a portrait painter, but, not wanting to compete with Inson, eschewed entering the Archibald Prize. Instead, she focused her efforts on the Portia Geach Memorial Award for women artists, entering it for the first time in 1976 and winning in 1979 with a portrait of trade unionist Della Elliott. Shore used her prize-money to have a studio built above the garage of her house, so that she could paint away from Inson and his disapproval of her ‘non-Meldrumite’ style. Shore continued to exhibit in the Portia Geach Award until 1992 and died in Sydney in 1999.

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Harvey and Russell Shore 2014