Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Bullen, Rose
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Other form(s) of name
- Annie Amelia Bushby Bullen
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Description area
Dates of existence
1863-1956
History
Annie Amelia Bushby, known from childhood as Rose, was born on July 19, 1863. Her mother was Agnes Douglas Bushby, daughter of Sir James Douglas, first Governor of British Columbia. Her father was Arthur T. Bushby, at various times assistant to Judge Matthew Begbie, Registrar General of the Supreme Court of BC, a County Court judge and stipendiary magistrate. Rose was part of Victoria’s pioneer family elite. Upon her marriage to William Fitzherbert Bullen, founder of BC Marine Railway Company, she moved to “Oakdene,” an impressive home in Esquimalt, where she lived for the rest of her life. The couple had two children. Rose undertook lifelong philanthropic work for groups like the IODE, Children’s Aid Society, BC Historical Society and the Red Cross.
Like many privileged women of her time, she had studied art in her youth and painted for pleasure, in watercolours and oils. Her travels around BC and internationally provided the subjects for her landscapes, painted in the Romantic English style. Between 1917 and 1936, mostly after she was widowed in 1921, her work was included in the Island Arts and Crafts Society annual exhibitions. She also occasionally exhibited at social gatherings. On one occasion in 1932, in conjunction with a meeting spearheaded by Emily Carr, Ina Uhthoff, and others about the creation of a People’s Art Gallery, works of Carr, Bullen, Robin Watt and Lee Nam were on display. Her name is included in a number of studies of BC’s early artists.
Feted by the newspapers on her 90th birthday as a “magnificent old lady,” Bullen died in 1956, bequeathing over seventy of her paintings to the BC government. They were then installed along the corridors of the Douglas Building on Government Street and, in a ceremony on May 1, 1957, Attorney-General Bonner formally accepted them.
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- IYOUNG 2024-03-13
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Source: Recollecting Women Artists