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Eleanor Allen Robertson (26 July 1885 – 17 September 1955), née Moore, was a painter born in Glenwhirry, Country Antrim, Ireland, the eldest of a family of six. The family moved to Scotland in 1888, where she attended Kilmarnock Academy before going on to study at the Glasgow School of Art in 1902.[1]
Eleanor first exhibited at the Glasgow Institute in 1909, but the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 allowed little opportunity for painting, and she became a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse at Craigleith Hospital near Edinburgh.[1] She married Dr Robert Cecil Robertson in 1922, and on his appointment to the Shanghai Municipal Council as a public health official, the couple moved to China in 1925.[2][3]
During her stay in China, Eleanor painted portraits of locals and the British community.[3] Following the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, British women and children were evacuated from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and Eleanor and her daughter returned to Scotland shortly afterwards. Her husband remained behind, and died in Hong Kong in 1942.[1]
Eleanor painted very little after her return to Scotland.[2]
