Elsie Armitage

Date of birth
1894
Date of death
1965
Nationality
Australia
Biography
Elsie Armitage (1894-1965) was born in Sri Lanka and moved with her family to Launceston, Tasmania, in the early twentieth century; to Burnie, Tasmania, in 1910 and to Adelaide, South Australia in 1916. She worked in Adelaide at the Commonwealth bank. In the 1920s she visited the United States, returning to Adelaide in 1928, where she took up weaving. Primarily a self-taught artist working in woven textiles, she received some training in painting from educator and artist James Ashton (1959-1935).

In the 1930s she set-up a studio at her home on Swaine Avenue, Rose Park, where she produced hand-loomed textiles and garments in silk and wool. These works were exhibited in many Adelaide exhibitions and sold locally and interstate including the department store George's, Melbourne. She was involved in the Adelaide branch of the Red Cross and contributed through her craft to the World War Two war effort on the home front. Miss Armitage advocated for hand loom weaving as a wonderful creative output for women in the domestic space - no doubt inspired by the influence of the teachings of the British and local arts and crafts movements prominent at the turn of the twentieth century.

Rebecca Evans, Curator of Decorative Arts & Design

REF: Art Gallery of South Australia, Acquisition file, board papers AC2/1229