Prunus

Ivy Fife

1938 - 1976

Ivy Fife was born Ivy Hofmeister, in Christchurch in 1905. In 1915 her German father changed the family surname to Fife.  In 1920 Fife enrolled at Canterbury College Art School  where her contemporary students included Olivia Spencer Bower, Russell Clark  and W.A Sutton. Their teachers included Cecil Kelly, Archibald Nicholl, F. A. Shurrock and Leonard Booth. For the following thirty-nine years she was connected to the Art School as student, then teacher, until her retirement in 1959.

In 1958 Fife was part of the acclaimed exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery ‘Eight New Zealand Paintings’ which also included work from her friends W.A Sutton and Olivia Spenser Bower.

For Fife painting immersed life. Her clarity of vision, good draughtsmanship, and refined and harmonious sense of colour, defined her works. As a member and Council Member of the Canterbury Society of Arts from 1949 to 1966, and a member of the Advisory Committee of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, she played her own, quiet, yet significant role in the development of the arts in Christchurch and Canterbury.

Work Dimensions: 495mm W x 625mm H

Framing: Framed 

Framed Dimensions: 550mm W x 680mm H