Bess Norriss Biography

Bess Norriss Tait (1879-1939) was born in Melbourne and studied under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall at the National Gallery School between 1897 and 1901.

As a student, she sent examples of her miniatures to London and, as a consequence, she was encouraged to go there to work. She left Melbourne in 1905 and in London, quickly attracted a fashionable clientele for her original style, one that broke with what she called the 'superficial, pretty, chocolate-box' method of miniature painting.

She became a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters in 1907 and the following year exhibited work at the Royal Academy and the New Salon, Paris. She married Australian theatre entrepreneur James Nevin Tait (1876-1961) in London in 1908 and returned with him to Australia two years later. She completed a number of portrait commissions there and held exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne from which works were acquired by the National Galleries of Victoria and NSW.

She returned to London in 1911 and settled in Chelsea. Bess Norriss Tait's many patrons included artists and musicians as well as figures such as J. Pierpont Morgan and Queen Alexandra. Her work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of NSW, NPG London and the Royal Collection.