Object Description
AVERIL BURLEIGH, ARWS
(1883-1949)
Cleopatra
Signed l.l.: AVERIL BURLEIGH
Watercolour and pen and ink
Framed in original painted frame
25.5 by 17 cm., 10 by 6 ¾ in.
(frame size 28 by 19.5 cm., 11 by 7 ¾ in.)
Averil Burleigh (nee Dell) studied at Brighton School of Art and much of her life and career was based in the area of Brighton, Hove, Sussex with a time in Wales during the war years. She married the artist Charles H Burleigh, also a student at Brighton School of Art, and their daughter was the artist Veronica Burleigh.
Averil painted in watercolour and tempera, with a strong sense of design, her subjects were often highly decorative dance, theatrical of renaissance subjects with a touch of early 20th Century modernity. She exhibited extensively, including at the Royal Academy, Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Glasgow Institute, Royal Hibernian Academy, and the Society of Women Artists. She contributed to the 1913 Arts and Crafts Society exhibition held at the Grosvenor Galleries. In 1939 she was elected as one of just two women associate members of the Royal Water Colour Society. She was also a founder of the Sussex Women’s Art Club. Works by her are in the collection of Brighton and Hove Art Gallery, Ulster Museum and in other public and private collections.