Henrietta Maria Gulliver


Henrietta Maria Gulliver was an Australian painter who specialized in landscapes and floral still-lifes.

Biography

Gulliver was born Henrietta Maria Shanklin in 1866. In 1884, she moved to Melbourne, where she worked in a florist's shop and met Tom Roberts, who encouraged her interest in painting. She also met the landscape painter, Arthur Streeton, who influenced her style and remained a lifelong friend.
From 1906 through 1911 Gulliver studied at the National Gallery School. She and her husband George Ekins Gulliver were farmers, growing and distilling lavender on their farm at Cheltenham, Victoria. They also grew flowers at a site near Sassafras, Victoria, in the Dandenong Ranges. In 1922, they retired and sold their farmland to the Methodist Homes for Children. Artists who visited the farm included Clara Southern, Hilda Rix Nicholas, Elsie Barlow and Alice Marian Ellen Bale.
Gulliver was a founding member of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors and the Twenty Melbourne Painters Society.
She was also active in the Victorian Artists Society.