Flora Mitchell facts for kids

Flora Mitchell (1890 – 1973) was an artist from Ireland, born in America. She is best known for her paintings from the mid-1900s. These paintings show old buildings in Dublin that have since been torn down.

Early Life and Family

Flora Mitchell was born Florina Hippisley Mitchell on December 23, 1890. Her birthplace was Omaha, Nebraska in the United States. She was the oldest child of Margaret and Arthur J. C. Mitchell.

Her father managed a cattle company in Omaha. Around the early 1900s, after some local unrest, her family moved to Ireland. There, her father began working for the Jameson whiskey company in Smithfield.

Flora first lived with relatives in Drogheda. Later, she moved to Dublin. She went to Princess Helena College in Ealing, London, from 1906 to 1908. She won several art prizes there.

Between 1905 and 1911, Flora studied art at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art (DMSA). During World War I, she volunteered to help. Her family supported the British Army during the 1916 Easter Rising.

In 1930, she married William George Jameson. He was born in 1851 and was a great-grandson of John Jameson, who started the whiskey company. They lived in St Marnock's, County Dublin. William was a sailor and loved yachts. He passed away in 1939.

A few years later, Flora moved to Killiney. She lived and worked there at her home, Alloa, for the rest of her life. She died at her home on April 13, 1973.

Artistic Career

While studying at the DMSA, Flora Mitchell became very interested in drawing. She liked to draw buildings and city scenes using pencil and ink. From 1912 to 1914, she showed her drawings at the Dublin Sketching Club. These included famous Dublin places like the O'Connell Monument.

In 1919, Flora moved to Canada to work as a private teacher. However, she returned to Dublin by the late 1920s. She contributed drawings to two books: the Dublin Civic Week Handbook in 1927 and A book of Dublin in 1929.

Flora had her own art show in 1955 at the Dublin Painters' Gallery. This gallery was located in St Stephen's Green. She had another solo exhibition in London in 1969.

She also showed her art at the Royal Hibernian Academy every year from 1957 to 1970. She continued to exhibit at the Dublin Sketching Club in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Later in her life, Flora drew hundreds of sketches of Dublin's streets and buildings. Many of these drawings are now kept at the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI).

Fifty of her finished ink and watercolor drawings were used in her book, Vanishing Dublin (1966). These pictures show a Dublin that no longer exists. Many of the buildings she drew have since been torn down. This was her main reason for drawing them: to record them before they were gone.

Her book is now a special collector's item. This is because the original printing plates were destroyed after the book was made. Flora's work is seen as part of a tradition of artists who recorded Dublin's street scenes. Her art has been compared to that of her fellow artist, Harry Kernoff.

In 1999, the NGI held an exhibition of her work. It was called "Flora Mitchell, views of Dublin."

See also

• List of Irish artists