Quick Facts
ScorpioBiography
Alice Marion Ellen Bale , or A.M.E. Bale, (11 November 1875 – 14 February 1955) was an Australian artist.
Bale was born in Richmond, Victoria, the daughter of naturalist William Mountier Bale. She studied art under Frederick McCubbin and Lindsay Bernard Hall at the National Gallery School 1895–1904.She came to prominence as an artist in Melbourne in the 1920s and 1930s, developing a reputation as one of Australia's pre-eminent flower and still life painters.
She was the founding secretary of the Twenty Melbourne Painters Society, a position that she held until her death.
She exhibited with the Melbourne Society of Women Painters 1917–1955.
AME Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize
Bale established the biennial A.M.E. Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize through her will to support Australian artists in perpetuity. The prize "is intended to encourage, support and advance classical training of emerging artists (in their early to mid-career) at any stage of life, who are pursuing the study and practice of traditional art and who desire to study the works of old masters".
Three prizes are awarded:
- Major Award for a Travelling Scholarship (AU$50,000) since 2011
- A.M.E. Bale Art Prize in the medium of oil and/or acrylic (AU$5,000)
- A.M.E. Bale Art Prize for Works on Paper (AU$5,000)
In collections
She has work in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the National Gallery of Victoria.
Awards
She was a finalist in the Archibald Prize in 1922, and 1924, while 1932 Ernest Buckmaster's portrait of her was a finalist in the Archibald.
