Marie Tuck

Marie Annelate Tuck (5 September 1866 – 3 September 1947), also known as Marie Anne Tuck, was an artist and art educator in South Australia.

History

Marie Tuck was born at Mount Torrens, South Australia, one of seven children of Edward Starkey Tuck ( – c. 9 August 1898) and his wife Amy Harriet Tuck, née Tayler (c. 1827 – 13 January 1901),^[1] on 5 September 1866, though she later claimed 1872 as her birth year.^[2] Her father was a schoolteacher at Mount Torrens and a noted tennis official^[3]

From 1886 she received arts training at night classes with James Ashton at his Norwood studio, then in the late 1880s at his Adelaide Academy of Arts, working at a Payneham plant nursery and assisting Ashton as a way of paying for her tuition while saving for her big ambition - to study in Paris. She was an early member of the Adelaide Easel Club,^[4] In 1896 she moved to Perth, Western Australia, where she gave private tuition and worked at a photographer's studio,^[2] perhaps as a photo colorist.

It took ten years, but in 1906 she made it to Paris, and there studied under expatriate Australian Rupert Bunny, developing a great love of French people and culture. She exhibited at the "Old Salon" (salon of the Société des Artistes Français), receiving an honorable mention for her painting Toilette for the Bride. Forced to leave France by the outbreak of The Great War, in August 1914, she arrived back in Adelaide and started teaching at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts.^[5]

She held many exhibitions of her own work in Adelaide; impressionistic landscapes, figures and portraits in oils.

Her many students included Ivor Hele, Dora Cecil Chapman and Noel Wood.

She never married; her last address was Jane Street, Frewville

Ruth Tuck (1914–2008), water colorist and art teacher who married fellow-painter Mervyn Ashmore Smith OAM (1904–1994), and who founded her own art school in Burnside in 1955, was a distant niece.

Some works

• Breton woman is held by the Art Gallery of S.A
• Onkaparinga Woollen Mill is held by the Art Gallery of S.A
• La Poissonnerie (The Fish Market), a huge canvas, was acquired by the Art Gallery in 1908.^[6]

Family

Henry Tuck (1781–1861) was married to Jane Tuck, née Starkey, (1783–1854), lived in Chelsea, London. Children who emigrated to Australia included:

• Rev. Henry Lewer Tuck (11 September 1820 – 26 August 1880) married Harriet Caroline Hodson ( – ) on 3 October 1850, lived at Stockport, South Australia was first president of the Baptist Union of South Australia.

• eldest son Arthur Edward Tuck (1855 – 8 April 1925), married Minnie Wallis on 7 March 1911, lived at Cowell, South Australia

• Ruth Edith Tuck (22 July 1914 – 10 October 2008), married Mervyn Ashmore Smith OAM (11 December 1904 – 18 March 1994) on 15 October 1943;^[7] both were modernist watercolorists. They had a son Mark and twin daughters Michele and Angelina.

• sixth daughter Bertha Starkey Tuck (1868–1933) was for 40 years a Baptist missionary in India

• Elizabeth Tuck ( – 13 October 1883)

• Harriet Tuck (c. 1819 – 26 June 1887)

• Sophia Tuck (c. 1823 – 30 November 1906) of Kenton Valley, South Australia

• Edward Starkey Tuck (13 March 1827 – 9 August 1898) married Amy Harriet (c. 1827 – 13 January 1901)

• eldest son, Edward John Hayler Tuck (1853 – 10 June 1926) married to Annie ( – 11 August 1926) was a minister of religion in Broken Hill.^[8]
• second son Bernard Henry Tuck ( – ) married Emma Jane Masters on 28 September 1882, lived Forestville, South Australia
• third son Alfred Robert Tuck ( – ) married Ekizabeth Roach on 6 September 1888
• youngest son Henry Joseph "Harry" Tuck (15 May 1863 – 15 August 1946) married Eliza Playford (9 February 1866 – ) on 1 January 1889. Eliza was the second daughter of Hon. Thomas Playford
• Amy Jane Tayler Tuck (December 1849 – 4 October 1933) married George Edward Masters
• Marie Annelate Tuck (5 September 1866 – 3 September 1947)
• younger sister Elizabeth Frances Starkey Tuck (c. 1867 – 1 September 1946)

References

1. Ruth Tuck, Tuck, Marie Anne (1866–1947), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/tuck-marie-anne-8866/text15567, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed online 5 December 2015.
2. Snowden, Betty. "Marie Tuck". Design and Art Online. Retrieved 5 December 2015.
3. "The Man with the Megaphone". Saturday Journal (Adelaide, SA : 1923 - 1929) (Adelaide, SA: National Library of Australia). 4 April 1925. p. 3. Retrieved 5 December 2015.
4. "The Adelaide Easel Club". Evening Journal (Adelaide, SA : 1869 - 1912) (Adelaide, SA: National Library of Australia). 13 October 1896. p. 3 Edition: One o'clock. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
5. "Death Of Well-Known Adelaide Artist.". The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954) (Adelaide, SA: National Library of Australia). 10 September 1947. p. 14. Retrieved 5 December 2015.
6. "Federal Art Exhibition". The Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929) (Adelaide, SA: National Library of Australia). 12 November 1908. p. 6. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
7. Smith, Mervyn; Tuck, Ruth, 1914-2008; Brown, Ron (1980), Interview with Mervyn Ashmore Smith, retrieved 10 December 2015
8. "Miss Marie Tuck". Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW : 1888 - 1954) (Broken Hill, NSW: National Library of Australia). 14 August 1909. p. 4. Retrieved 5 December 2015.