Elma Roach

Elma M.V. Roach
Elma Roach in 1936
Born	(1897-03-30)March 30, 1897 Shepparton, Victoria, Australia
Died	Warrandyte, Victoria
Resting place	Kew, Victoria
Education	National Gallery of Victoria Art School
Known for	painting, woodwork
Partner	Madge Freeman
Parents	Charles Robert Roach (father) Cora Valentine Liardet (mother)
Relatives	Wilbraham Liardet

Elma May Victoria Roach, (30 March 1897, Shepparton – 24 June 1942, Warrandyte) was an Australian painter and woodworker.

Early life and training

Elma Roach, known as 'Dinah' to her friends, was the daughter of Cora Valentine (née Liardet), daughter of Wilbraham Liardet, a colonial watercolour artist, and Charles Robert Roach. She was the sixth of seven siblings; Cora Harriet, Irene Selby, Hilda Elsie, Charles Edmund, Harold Edgar, and Richard Harbison.

Roach was living with her family at 'Sayes', Gordon Street Toorak when she studied at the Drawing School of the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1913 to 1916 under the guidance of Frederick McCubbin and William Beckwith McInnes. Later, she joined its School of Painting from the second term in 1916 to 1921, studying under head of the Painting School, Lindsay Bernard Hall, and where she was first noted in a December 1917 review as a still life painter in an exhibition works of students

It was during this time that she became close to fellow student Madge Freeman. In addition, she received private lessons in watercolour painting from M. J. MacNally. In 1918, she was photographed for Punch at the Students' Fancy Dress Bal Masque dressed as a 'gypsy.'

England and Europe

In May 1923, Roach and Freeman organised their first joint exhibition of watercolours at the Fine Art Society’s Galleries in Melbourne. In January 1924, they ventured to England, settling in Chelsea. There, they briefly attended the Slade School under the tutelage of Henry Tonks. The two friends shared flats in London and Paris and embarked on painting journeys across France, Italy, Spain, and North Africa. In St Ives, Cornwall, they shared a studio with Gwen Horne.

Influences

During their time in Paris, Roach and Freeman came into contact with Adolphe Milich (1884 - 1964), a French painter and teacher originally from Poland. Milich was associated with the School of Paris and specialised in oil and watercolour paintings, focusing on landscapes, still life, figure compositions, and portraits. His artistic approach, heavily influenced by Paul Cézanne, had a profound impact on Roach during the years she studied under him.

Australian exhibitions

While in Europe, Roach would send her artwork back to Australia for exhibition with the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, The Independent Group, and various Melbourne commercial galleries.

Elma Roach, aged 30, pictured in The Bulletin, February 1927

Profiled in a magazine article in February 1927 after her return from overseas only weeks before, she is described as:

a Melbourne girl who has made herself a place in the artistic world with her craftsmanship in stained wood. Her ware is known by its beautiful glaze. Candlesticks, boxes and the like decorated with floral designs and shining like glass are among her fancies. Just a month or two ago she returned from a three years tour, chiefly on the Continent, and she has added to her repertoire designs in bas-relief and a fine French enamel finish. Though now known chiefly for her stained wood bric-a-brac, of which she is the originator here, she is also painter, and her watercolor sketches of scenes in Italy were hung at the last art show of the year at the Athenæum Gallery. While in France Elma had lessons at a famous arts and crafts school in Paris. She intends to hold an exhibition soon.

In a new venture the Cheyne run by Rene Monteath Roach showed enamelled wood alongside etchings by John Shirlow, paintings by Dora Wilson, and pottery of Merric Boyd. Also in 1927 she exhibited at the Lyceum Club with Clara Southern, Jessie Traill, Dora Wilson and Elsie Barlow, and in December attended the opening of John Farmer's exhibition at the Athenaeum, then leading up to Christmas that year, with her sister Winifred she exhibited what a Bulletin reporter considered 'exquisite' woodwork at the Arts and Crafts gallery. The same magazine also noted in September "fine examples of the inlaid woodwork of Elma Roach" in Margaret MacLean's studio and art salon, but in July that year had dismissed her painting as:

little above the standard of the good amateur. The lady's drawing is inclined to be woolly, and she employs the same texture for the surface of an alabaster pillar as for a fisherman's pants. Some of her efforts look as if they had been hastily blotted before they were quite dry; still, her sense of design is breezy, and her color frequently harmonious, and when she tightens up her draughtsmanship matters should improve.

Roach announced in April 1928 that she was planning another trip to Europe in April, and held a farwell opening of a show of water-color sketches and decorated woodware including panels for overmantels at Cheyne Gallery, 175 Collins Street, during the week alongside her sister's work. By September, it was reported that she and Lillian White were painting in a fishing village in Brittany. They made rendezvous with Australian artist colleagues Norah Gurdon, Dora Wilson and Pegg Clarke, and later Madge Freeman and Margaret MacLean, in London where Roach was undertaking further study, and where her work had been accepted into the British Academy and the Women’s International Art Club. She sent work to Australia for showing in May 1930 in the Victorian Artists Society, where her watercolour, Fading Light was judged as "freshly and cleanly painted" by Melvyn Skipper of The Bulletin. She had other work exhibited at the Paris Salon, and at a reception of the National Council of Women attended by 2,500, a watercolour by Roach was presented.

Roach returned to Melbourne in January 1936 on the Moldavia, and with Freeman exhibited their dress clips, brooches and other ornaments first at Roach’s studio, 117 Collins-street, then at Freeman’s “converted stable” at 144 Gipps Street, East Melbourne.  In 1938 she was represent in the first exhibition of the Australian Academy of Art in 1938 with her oil painting, priced at 10 guineas, Street, East Melbourne depicting Freeman's aforementioned studio. Both were featured in Art in Australia, with mention in an accompanying statement; "Then there are painters like Madge Freeman and Elma Roach, who have brought back with them from Paris  still another aspect of contemporary European painting unfamiliar to Australian eyes." Another, a stilll life in a Cézannesque manner, had earlier appeared in the May edition of Art in Australia with work by other Australian Academy of Art artists.

Not long before she died, Roach was included in group exhibitions in 1941 and 1942 at The Macquarie Galleries in Sydney.

Legacy

Elma Roach died in Warrandyte on 24 June 1942 at the age of 45, due to cancer. She was buried at Kew cemetery. A memorial exhibition featuring 49 of her works took place at the Athenaeum Gallery in Melbourne in March 1943. During the exhibition, three of her pieces, including two oil paintings and one watercolour, were acquired by the Castlemaine Art Museum and her works are also in public collections at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery, and Broken Hill Art Gallery.