CREETH, Margaret Helena

1859 - 1941  (81 years)

• Name	CREETH, Margaret Helena
  Born	1 Feb 1859
  Gender	Female
  Died	1941
  Person ID	I18938	My Genealogy
  Last Modified	16 Sep 2023

  
  

  Father	CREETH, William James,   b. 18 Apr 1823,   d. 7 Oct 1902, Australia  (Age 79 years)
  Relationship	natural
  Mother	BEALE, Margaret Grubb,   b. 8 Aug 1838,   d. 14 Sep 1909, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia  (Age 71 years)
  Relationship	natural
  Married	14 Apr 1858	Australia
  Family ID	F119	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  CREETH, Helena (Margaret Helena 1859–1941) Painter, china painter, woodcarver, marquetry, leatherworker and teacher was the daughter of the Quakers Margaret Grubb Beale from Mountmellick in County Laois, Ireland and her husband William James Creeth. Margaret and William emigrated to Victoria in 1853 joining her Quaker parents the Beales who had arrived in 1852. James and his brother Richard who married Margaret’s sister Sarah in a joint ceremony in 1858 became importers, merchants and mining entrepreneurs. Margaret was apparently skilled in china painting. Helena was born in Melbourne and named Margaret Helena but was known as Helen. She had a sister May (Mary Elizabeth) and brothers William C. and Francis Beale who died in 1945. She trained at the Sandhurst School of Design in Bendigo graduating in 1884 with mention of her ability in oil painting and watercolour and the prize for terracotta (china) painting and commenced teaching. She and her sister travelled regularly between Sydney and Melbourne. By 1893 she is recorded as teaching in Sydney but also appears to have had an art school in Bendigo as well and held classes in Castlemaine until 1902 when she finished teaching and her students presented her with a gold watch. She spent 1903 and part of 1904 in Europe, possibly studying as well as travelling arriving in Perth in June 1904 for a visit. In 1906 a fire gutted her studio in Forest Street, Bendigo and she decided to settle in Perth. Helen’s studio in 1914 was in 104 St Georges Terrace. The sisters appear to have had independent means and after the death of their parents built a house and studio in Wilson Street (now Parliament Place) West Perth. The house was described in 1918 as “They have built a beautiful home of their own, and their studio is great. The light is just perfect.” At a later stage they moved to 27 Outram Street where they lived and worked. In 1915 it was reported that “The Misses Creeth are to the fore in every philantropic movement there is in this part of the world. Sec of the Distressed Farmers Clothing Fund in 1916, Edith Cowan was president. Helen was a woodcarver, exhibiting carved chairs in the 1929 exhibition of Women’s Handicraft held at High School (Hale) She was President of the National Council of Women speaking on Prohibition in USA in 1921. In 1929 they made a series of centenary souvenirs. A beautiful vase by Helen Creeth is in the collection of the Art Gallery of WA. This has delicate purple Native Wisteria – Hardenbergia comptonia trailing over a creamy bulbous base in striking contrast to the gold and black-rimmed neck. Wildflowers, of which there are over 14,000 endemic to Western Australia, have always been identified as a particularly Western Australian subject. A long tradition of painting them has endured. This is not merely a legacy of the nineteenth century interest in botany but an assertion of local identity. Helen died April 8 1941. Her death certificate recorded siblings, Mary, William and Francis. Her sister-in-law was Lucy Catherine Creeth, who was a committee member of the Ministering Children’s League, left £40,000 of her estate and her home in Avonmore Terrace, Cottesloe as a home for Crippled Children’s Society . Exhibitions: Sandhurst School of Design exhibition, School of Mines, 1884. NA Association Show 1892 Bendigo Australian Native’s Association Hall Misses Creeth’s Annual Exhibition of students work 1895. Bendigo Masonic Hall – Misses Creeth’s students 1893, 1894, 1896, 1897. Bendigo Masonic Hall – Miss Creeth’s students 1899. Silver Chain Fete and Exhibition 1913 Studio exhibition Wilson Street, West Perth, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1923, 1928, 1931. St George’s Hall Exhibition of the Misses Creeth and students 1919. Anderson’s Stationery Depot Hay Street. 1924. Centenary Exhibition of Women’s Handcraft, 1929. Collections: AGWA, WAM, NGA, References: Erickson, Dorothy “Enterprising Women: Studio Artists: The Misses Creeth.” Australiana vol 32 no 4 (2010), pp. 14–21. Bendigo Advertiser Dec. 17 1884, p. 3. Bendigonian Nov. 25 1915 p. 25, 1918. MAY CREETH born 1854 Victoria died 1947 Perth, Western Australia May Creeth was one of a significant group of independent women artists practising in Western Australia in the first few decades of the twentieth century. She often worked with her sister Helen, and together they were highly-regarded for their china painting which, in keeping with contemporary fashion, mostly featured Australian wildflower designs. Plate with Leschenaultia decoration is from a group of six plates by May and Helen Creeth recently bought for the Collection. It features a central decorative motif of Australian native flowers, hand-painted on a commercially-produced china blank. Although Australian-born, the Creeths had trained at the South Kensington Art Schools in London and brought back to Australia first-hand knowledge of the English Arts and Crafts Movement. As a result, their hand-painted china is a synthesis of design philosophies associated with the Arts and Crafts and the emergent nationalism of Australian Federation. The informally-painted sprays of flowers demonstrate the Arts and Crafts movement’s commitment to reinvigorating ‘domestic art’ through a return to hand-craftsmanship and the application of simple decoration derived from nature and historical examples. However the choice of native Australian flowers – such as the popular Western Australian wildflower Leschenaultia biloba painted on this example – link to the privileging of local flora that was key to the aesthetic debates surrounding Federation. This work therefore reflects a debt to English traditions whilst also being part of Australia’s effort to cultivate political and cultural autonomy from England that saw designers using motifs solely drawn from their locale to produce a design language clearly independent from that of Europe.