Eleanor Constance 'Nornie' Gude (1915–2002) was born in Ballarat and was fifteen when she was accepted to study painting at the Ballarat Technical Art School. She trained there from 1932 to 1936, winning the £100 per annum MacRobertson Scholarship in 1934, and continued her studies at the National Gallery of Victoria School from 1937. She distinguished herself there with her work in watercolour, although she also won student awards for her oil paintings. In 1941, in something of a pyrrhic victory, she became the first woman awarded the NGV School's coveted Travelling Scholarship. 'Miss Nornie Gude is a promising student and should be able to make good use of the scholarship when travelling is again possible', stated the Age of her win. In 1943 she married artist and fellow student of the NGV School Laurence Scott Pendlebury (1914–1986). The pair exhibited jointly on a number of occasions during the 1940s.
From the late 1930s onwards Gude exhibited with the Victorian Artists' Society and in other group exhibitions, and was often singled out for her watercolours. 'Though inclining herself, one fancies, towards figure work, it impresses this observer that it may be her landscapes that best show her talents', wrote one reviewer in 1944. 'These scenes have a delicacy of tone and handling and colour that is not by any means general. Still, she can be forthright, as she shows in her portrait Laurie and in Self-portrait, good characterisation.' By 1951, Gude was mother to two children. Throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies she continued to exhibit with the VAS and was a regular contributor to fundraising exhibitions and to art competitions including the Perth Prize (which she won in 1953), the Australian Women's Weekly Portrait Prize, the Moran Portrait Prize and the Wynne Prize.
