Sydney Strickland Tully

Her major works include The Twilight of Life (1894), an oil painting in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario.

• Name — Sydney Strickland Tully • Born — 10 March 1860 • Birthplace — Toronto, Canada West • Died — 18 July 1911 • Place of death — Toronto, Ontario, Canada • Field — painter • Education — Académie Colarossi, Académie Julian, Slade School of Fine Art, Ontario School of Art • Works — The Twilight of Life (1894) • Elected — Ontario Society of Artists, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts

Sydney Strickland Tully was born and raised in Toronto, the child of Maria Strickland and Kivas Tully. Maria Strickland was a niece of Susanna Moodie and Kivas Tully was a prominent architect. Tully's sister, Louise Beresford Tully, was also a Toronto-based artist who operated a Yonge Street Arcade-based teaching studio. Tully's early studies took place at the Central Ontario School of Art (later OCAD University), Toronto, with Charlotte Schreiber and William Cruikshank (amongst others). In 1884, she went to London to continue her education at the Slade School of Art, where she studied with Alphonse Legros. Further studies took place in Paris at the Académie Julian (with Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Tony Robert-Fleury) and the Académie Colarossi (with Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois). Later studies took place at the Long Island Art School with William Merritt Chase. Sydney Strickland Tully died on July 18, 1911, in Toronto, of pernicious anemia.

Tully began her career colouring photographs and designing Christmas cards, and she worked with a variety of mediums including oil and pastel. She later became well known for her landscapes, genre-scenes and portraits. Tully kept a studio in Toronto (from 1888 to 1890), where she taught regular classes, and participated steadily in the artistic life of the city. She also travelled internationally to paint and to participate in exhibitions, including sojourns in London (1895), the Netherlands (1906–1908) and the Jersey Channel Islands (1906–1908). Tully wrote articles for The Globe (now known as The Globe and Mail) on European affairs, and she illustrated a children's book which was published after her death in 1911.

• The Twilight of Life, 1894 • Flower Market, Paris, 1907 • Knalhaven, Dordrecht, 1907 • Washing Day, c.1910

Tully exhibited regularly with the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. She participated in numerous other exhibitions, including the Art Association of Montreal (precursor to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), 1892–1909; the Toronto Industrial Exhibition (precursor to the Canadian National Exhibition, 1890–1910; the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago; the Salon (Paris), 1888; and the Royal Academy of Arts, 1896–1897. A Memorial Exhibition of Tully's Paintings and Drawings was held in the Art Metropole Galleries in Toronto in 1911.