(State Library of South Australia)

1860 - 1940

Clara Southern was born in Kyneton, Victoria on the 3rd October, 1860, the eldest of six children. She studied at the National Gallery School, Melbourne and took lessons from Walter Withers. From 1888 to 1898 she shared a studio with Jane Sutherland and Tom Roberts.

In 1905 Southern married at the age of 44 to John Flinn, a local miner, and moved to Warrandyte. Most of her work depicts the landscape, farm buildings and cottages of this area, but she also captured the rural women going about their daily chores. Southern's presence in Warrandyte prompted other artists to follow and an artistic community formed in the area known as 'The Hill' on the Northern side of the Yarra. She continued to live and paint in Warrandyte until her death in 1940.

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