Art UK
Constance Helen Bradshaw (1872–1961)[a]Some sources claim that Catherine was born in 1873, but her baptism record, held at St James, Rusholme show that she was baptised on 30 October 1872.[1] was primarily an English landscape painter. She was born in Manchester, but was raised in Brighton and at Bickley in Kent, and studied at the Spenlove School of Art in London.[2]
After leaving art school Constance returned to Bickley, where she spent most of the rest of her life, although she did travel extensively in Europe and Canada. As well as landscapes, she painted flowers in watercolours and oils, and created hand-painted prints.[3]
Between 1924 and 1945 Constance was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy in London, with the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts and with the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. She also took part in exhibitions of the New English Art Club and at the Paris Salon, in Stockholm and also in New Zealand and Canada.[3] Throughout her career, from 1899 to 1962, she was active in the Society of Women Artists both as an exhibitor, showing a total of 170 works, and serving as the society’s Acting President alongside Laura Knight, from 1937 to 1939.[2][3]
Critical reception
A critic in The Times newspaper, in his review of the paintings exhibited at the 74th exhibition of Women Artists in 1929, commented that several of those exhibiting, including Constance, were “excellent painters in the sense of handling pigment fluently”, but that essentially their paintings lacked “bones”.[4]
