Jessie Ogston Douglas (1856 - ?) a British water colour
artist, educator, and former vice-president of the Belfast Art Society
where she was also elected an honorary member. Douglas also exhibited
work at the Paris Salon.
Douglas was born in Belfast, one of two
daughters of Jessie and Alexander Douglas. Little is known of Douglas's
family or early life. It is known that she attended the Belfast
Government School of Art between 1872 and 1882, where she was a
contemporary of Albert Morrow. In a review of the annual Ladies
Sketching Club exhibition of 1882 the writer in the Belfast Newsletter
comments:
"Miss Jessie Douglas whose works occupy the greater
part of an entire desk, is one of the most talented and painstaking of
all the pupils. Her progress has not been over-rapid but we certainly
think that some of her sketches on view are a distinct improvement upon
any that she has previously shown. The flower and foliage studies are
absolutely faultless in technique. The colouring is rich and the
grouping natural. The treatment of the bramble by the same young lady
shows much refinement and delicacy. The landscapes are also clever and
the figure study capital. Miss Douglas's works are not only a credit to
herself but also the school."
Douglas then spent some time
studying at the Parisian ateliers of Tony Robert-Fleury, Jules Joseph
Lefebvre, Gustave Courtois, Joseph Blanc and Charles Lasar amongst
others. She showed at the Parisian Black and White Show, and in 1888 she
displayed one work, Brutalité, at the Paris Salon. The names of
exhibited works reveal her extensive travels across Europe, to Venice,
Brittany, Flanders and Zeeland.
Upon her return to Belfast in
1890 Douglas showed two works with the Water Colour Society of Ireland
alongside Sarah Purser, and fellow debutante George Trobridge, Head of
the Belfast School of Art. Douglas would exhibit regularly with the
Society for the next thirty years, in which time she displayed more than
seventy works. By 1891 Douglas had established a studio at 6 Chichester
Street, Belfast where she offered tuition with a Miss L Dickson. In the
same year Douglas's work was shown at the fifteenth annual exhibition at
Rodman & Company, on Royal Avenue, Belfast. In September 1894 Douglas
relocated her studio to 1 Donegall Square West. Two years thereafter, in
September 1896, Douglas had moved her business once again, to a studio
at 24 Garfield Chambers, Royal Avenue where she was to work for more
than thirty years. Here she was to offer private tuition for students
who included Kathleen Isabella Mackie and Jane Service Workman.
She had been exhibiting with the Belfast Art Society for several years
when in 1896 she was elected one of four vice-presidents of the Society.
Douglas was re-elected as vice-president at the Society's annual meeting
in 1901. Douglas displayed five figurative works with the Irish
Decorative Art Association at Portrush in the summer of 1902. She was to
show with the Association for several years.
Douglas showed a
watercolour at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1903, where she
was to return just once more, with a second watercolour in 1908. She was
one of six Irish artists that included Joseph W Carey and Percy French,
who were represented at the Modern Gallery on Bond Street, London in
1904. Douglas displayed five works alongside Paul Henry, Vanessa and
Clive Bell at the inaugural exhibition of the Allied Artists'
Association at the Royal Albert Hall in 1908. She showed thrice more
with the group from 1909 until her final presentation of three water
colours in 1911.
Her Mother died in January 1914, and her sister Mary in
August 1925 at the age of 77.
Douglas showed regularly at other
group shows including the Royal Scottish Academy, the Society of Women
Artists, the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colour, and at the
Walker Art Gallery and on three occasions at Connell & Sons Gallery. She
also presented eight works at the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1906-20.
Douglas and Rosamond Praeger were both elected as honorary members of
the Belfast Art Society in 1918, where the former was to show her last
picture in 1920. After 1928 her name no longer appears in their records,
although her studio was still registered at Garfield Chambers in the
1932 Belfast Street Directory. Douglas was unmarried and remained in the
family home at 1 Windsor Park Terrace for the majority of her life.
It
is not known when she died.
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