Edith Hipkins
Edith Hipkins was a British portrait painter who exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy between 1883 and 1911.Life
Hipkins was the daughter of Jane Souter and the musicologist Alfred James Hipkins. In the 1890s she painted two paintings that are now in national collections. One is in the collection of the Royal Academy of Music and a portrait of her father is in the National Portrait Gallery in London. She exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1883, 1884, 1897 and 1898.
The Hipkins family lived in West London and were part of a social set that included painters, writers and musicians. The artist Laurence Alma-Tadema and his family were particularly close to Edith and her father, and the two families spent much time together. Others in the circle included Edward Burne-Jones, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and George Frederic Watts. The Hipkins family also corresponded extensively with many of the great artists of the day, both within and beyond their circle. Many praised Edith’s artistic skill – Burne-Jones even offered to mentor her.
In 1937 she published a book entitled How Chopin Played... based on the notebooks of her late father.
