Maude Edith Gum Australia, 1885-1973

Maude Edith Gum was born on 1 June 1885 at Amyton, near Melrose in the Southern Flinders Ranges in South Australia. She was the fifth of eight surviving children of Joseph Gum (1848-1907) and Elizabeth Ann (née King) (1852-1943). Maude was educated at the Amyton Public School and after leaving school joined a painting class conducted by Miss Von der Bosch. In 1916, aged about 30 years, she moved to Evandale in Adelaide and then she lived at North Norwood in the 1920s. In the early 1920s she studied under James Ashton at his Academy of Art in Adelaide. She won the British Gold Star at the Royal Drawing Society’s exhibition in London in 1923. She briefly attended the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts and in 1925 accompanied by her friend Miss Leila McNamara, who was then on the staff of James Ashton’s Academy of Art, on a six month sketching tour of Sydney and the Blue Mountains. She remained in Sydney and studied for eight months at Will Ashton’s studio. Maude was an oil and watercolour painter and china painter mostly of landscapes, seascapes and still life. She exhibited at the South Australian Society of Arts (later RSASA) exhibitions in 1923, 1925, 1931 and 1934, when one of her works was purchased by the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery. She also had “one-person” solo exhibitions at the SASA Gallery in 1926, 1931 1934 and 1938. She became a fellow in 1926, served on the RSASA council for twelve years and was made an honorary Life member in 1967. She exhibited paintings on china at her SASA Gallery show in 1931 and in 1934 at the South Australian Federal Exhibition in Adelaide. In the 1920s and 1930s her works mostly sold for between two and ten guineas. Her artworks are held by the Wilderness School, in the Art Gallery of South Australia and by private collectors. Maude Gum never married and she was the Art teacher at “Wilderness” private school in Walkerville for 25 years from 1931 to 1955 when she retired, aged 70 years. During her career she acted as the relieving art teacher for twelve months each at Methodist Ladies College and Walford House in the 1930s. For many years from the 1930s, and continuing after her retirement, she taught private classes in oils, water colours and china painting in her studio at 13 Wellington Road, Trinity Gardens. A retrospective exhibition of her oil paintings was held at the Malvern Fine Art Gallery in Melbourne in 1969 and a work was purchased by the Academy of Art in Canberra. Maud Gum died, aged 88 years, at Adelaide on 19 Aug 1973 and she is buried in Payneham Cemetery. Biography courtesy of Mark Staniforth

The total number of works by Maude Gum offered for sale by auction since 1976 is 67, of which 47 (70%) were sold. The highest price recorded for the artist is $2,128 for King William Street sold by Elder Fine Art in May 2011. No works have been offered for sale this year, and the last sale we have recorded for the artist was in 2023.