Mort, Eirene (1879 – 1977)

Born on 17 November 1879 at Woollahra, Sydney; she died at Bowral on 1 December 1977. 

She was the third child of Canon Henry Wallace Mort, Queensland-born Anglican clergyman, and his wife Kate Macintosh. She attended St Catherine's Clergy Daughters' School, Waverley, and studied painting with Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo and A. H. Fullwood. 

In 1897 she travelled alone to London where she completed courses at the Grosvenor Life School, the Royal School of Art Needlework and the Royal College of Art, South Kensington, gaining its art-teacher's certificate.

Returning to Sydney in 1906 she set up a studio with her lifelong friend Nora Kate Weston.  That year she was a founder of the Society of Arts and Crafts of New South Wales and was a vice-president until 1935. 

Visiting England again in 1909, she studied mediaeval art, illustration and illumination, and etching with Luke Taylor. On her return she illustrated Florence Sulman's A Popular Guide to the Wild Flowers of New South Wales (1913, 1914). The well-designed drawings were later used by A. B. Blombery in A Guide to Native Australian Plants (1967, revised 1977). In 1927 exhibited a series of etchings of the Canberra district.

She was a founder in 1921 and council-member of the Australian Painter-Etchers' Society, honorary treasurer of the Australian Ex Libris Society and a member of the Australian Bookplate Club. A respected teacher of art, she served as principal of the Women Painters' Art School and taught at such schools as Abbotsleigh, Kambala, and Sydney Church of England Girls' Grammar School, Darlinghurst, and later at Frensham, Mittagong. She also wrote and illustrated several books about Australian fauna and flora for children. 

She lived at Greenhayes, Mittagong, from 1937 and continued to teach until she moved to Bowral in 1960. She remained unmarried throughout her life.