Self portrait

Ada May Plante (1875–1950) studied at the National Gallery School between 1894 and 1899, where Hugh Ramsay, Margaret Preston and Max Meldrum were among her fellow students. Nicknamed 'Venus' for her magnificent red hair, she won three annual prizes for drawing and one for still-life painting. In 1901 she travelled to Europe with another of her cohorts, Christina Asquith Baker; the pair allegedly living off biscuits while studying at the Académie Julien in Paris. On returning to Melbourne, Plante exhibited with the Victorian Artists' Society; in 1907 she was awarded prizes for portrait and figure painting at the Women's Work Exhibition. Having shifted to post-impressionism during the 1920s, she became associated with the Melbourne Contemporary Group and exhibited consistently with the Society of Women Painters and Sculptors. In the 1930s and 1940s, she lived with other artists such as Lina Bryans and Ian Fairweather at Darebin Bridge House, near Heidelberg. Plante held her only solo show at George's Gallery in 1945, from which the National Gallery of Victoria acquired a painting, Quinces, later judged among the best of the modern Australian works to feature in their 1949 rehang.

Captured quickly in pen, ink and pencil, Plante has drawn herself in profile, her hair drawn back and eyes downcast, perhaps a reference to her self-described shyness.

Gift of Dr Penny Olsen, Peter Woollard and Artemis Georgiades 2015