Louie Burrell


Louise H. "Louie" Burrell was an English-born artist who also lived in Canada and the United States.

Biography

The daughter of William and Ada Luker, both artists, Burrell was born in London and studied at the South Kensington Art School. Her parents put her to work as an art teacher before she had completed her training there. She earned a scholarship to the Bushey School of Art, where she studied with Hubert von Herkomer. Some of her miniatures were accepted for display at the Royal Academy of Arts. She left England for Cape Town where she married Philip Burrell. Burell returned to England for the birth of her daughter; unfortunately, her husband suffered a heart attack while boarding a ship to rejoin them.
In 1912, Burrell became a member of the Royal Miniature Society. She returned to Ottawa in 1912, where she painted members of Ottawa society. Unable to return to England due to World War I, she moved to Victoria where she operated a boarding house for a time. From 1916 to 1919, she lived in Hollywood, where she painted portraits of film stars. She returned to England, but unable to support herself, moved to India in 1929 and painted members of the royalty there. In 1931, she returned to London with a six-month stopover in Cairo. Burrell was awarded a grant by the artists' general benevolent fund for her support in 1952.
Burrell married John Moore in 1924; the second marriage lasted six months.
She died in London in 1971. Her daughter, Philippa Burrell, wrote an autobiography, The Golden Thread, which contains an accounting of her experiences with her mother.
Her work is included in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Bushey Museum, the University of Hull Art Collection, the Djanogly Art Gallery at the University of Nottingham, the Ashmolean Museum, the Herkomer Museum, Landsberg am Lech in Bavaria and the National Gallery of Canada. In 1979, the National Book League in London exhibited her work.