Ida Darling a brief early shining star of Adelaide female artists during 1860s/70s, in footsteps of Ann-Marie Benham
Magpies (left) oil on canvas by Ann-Marie Benham, possibly mid 1850s, and Ida's Darling's The Athenian (1869).
Ida Darling became a brief shining star of Adelaide women artists in the 19th Century’s second half. Darling gained more prominence than others such as “Misses Addison, Hunt, Stonehouse” in the South Australian Society of Arts reports.
Ann-Marie Benham had also attracted notice. She taught Rosa Fiveash and featured in the society’s exhibitions, including submitting her design in 1863 for the society’s medal, competing against Charles Hill, R.E. Minchin, Alexander Schramm and Max Weidenbach. Minchin’s design won.
Charles Hill, who ran the South Australian School of Design, sponsored by the society, used Ida Darling as a prime example of the school’s achievements. Hill was responding to criticism by John Hood, who became a teacher at the school, at what Hood saw as the poor quality of its students.
In replay, Hill cited school of design student Ida Darling among “many scintillations of rising genius in our colonial youth”. Hill listed the many society exhibition prizes won by Darling, “the beauty of whose works was never disputed”.
Darling, a sketcher, watercolourist and chalk colourist, was the second of eight children of Henry Smith Darling— an Adelaide tailor, gold prospector and later property owner — and his wife Rosina. Born in Westminster, Middlesex, Darling emigrated as an infant with her family on the Sibella, arriving in Port Adelaide in 1848.
The family was one of the earliest to settle in the Adelaide inner north suburb of Medindie, living in a cottage in the Main North Road that contained a gallery of Darling’s artwork. In 1868, the Adelaide Observer cited her work, particularly her coloured sketch Children with Flowers, as proof of the worth of the school of design’s instruction. She also exhibited outside the “student” class as a “lady amateur”.
Darling’s prize-winning pictures included: Jessie (1867), Grace (1867), Mercy (1867), The Athenian (1869), Messiah (1871), Purity (1871), and Forgiveness (1871). The Athenian was a departure from the biblical or moral subjects of the other works, and might be a portrait.
Darling died at the family cottage in 1875 at the age of 28.
