Florence Carlyle was born September 24, 1864 in Galt, Ontario, to parents Emily Youmans Carlyle and William Carlyle. The second eldest of seven children, Florence was known throughout her life as "Bird" by family and friends. In 1871 the Carlyle family moved to Woodstock, Ontario, where her father, William Carlyle, worked as the county inspector of schools for Oxford County. While living in Woodstock, Emily created an art studio for local children who were interested in developing their artistic skills under the guidance of hired artists. Sensing her daughter's artistic talent, Emily arranged for Florence to have private drawing and painting lessons with William Lees Judson. William's uncle was the Scottish historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle; and William was said by a contemporary writer to have inherited "much of the cleverness and the abstraction" of his celebrated forebear.
In 1883 Florence and her younger sister, Lilian, exhibited several of their works at the Ladies Department of the Toronto Industrial Exhibition. It was this exhibition that gave Florence widespread recognition as Princes Louise and her husband, the Marquis of Lorne purchased one of her paintings of white lilies on china. This event was heavily covered by The Globe,Daily Mail, and Woodstock's paper at the time.
Education while in Paris
After realizing that she needed to go abroad to further develop her artistic skill, 26 year old Carlyle moved to Paris, FranceNovember 3, 1890. Carlyle journeyed to Paris with her artistic mentor, Paul Peel, his sister Margaret Peel, and their father John PeelIn, however once in Paris she rented a flat on her own. Upon first arriving in Paris, Carlyle found it difficult to find an artistic academy that admitted women and furthermore, did not segregate men and women in classes. At first Carlyle attended Académie Julian, but after a disagreement with Adolphe-William Bouguereau she switched to the less prestigious Académie Delécluse. By 1892 Carlyle would return to Académie Julian to finish her studies. In 1893 she exhibited her painting Une Dame Hollandaise at the Salon of the Société des Artistes Français, where it "received favourable attention." Carlyle returned to Woodstock, where her family still resided in 1896.
Later Years
She had studios in London and Woodstock, and in 1897 became the first woman to be elected an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy. In 1899, she established a studio in New York City. The last twenty years of her life were spent in Crowborough, Sussex, England where she and a friend, Julie Hastings, bought an English cottage they called "Sweet Haws". Florence Carlyle died at Crowborough in the spring of 1923. Most of her work is in the collection of the Woodstock Art Gallery in Woodstock, Ontario.
